KPCC “Morning Edition” Host Steve Julian and I had a terrific time in Arizona late last week watching the Angels and Dodgers play spring training games.  As I wrote in my last posting, the Cactus League fans are particularly knowledgeable about the game and truly dedicated to their teams.  It makes for some fun conversations.

Saturday afternoon, Steve and I were at Camelback Ranch in Glendale, Arizona to see the Dodgers play Cleveland.  After taking our seats a few rows behind the Indians’ dugout, the fan in front of us turned around and asked “are you Larry Mantle?  I was wondering if I’d meet you here.”

The fan was a Los Angeles resident, also named Larry, who heard me mention our annual trips on air.  It turns out that Larry comes every year and brings one of his grandsons to the games.  Joining him this time was grandson Adam of Calabasas.

I always enjoy meeting listeners around Southern California, but it’s particularly fun to meet someone 370 miles away with whom you share a mutual interest like baseball.

Tuesday we kickoff a short member drive aimed at raising what we do in a typical ten-day Spring drive in half the time.  Please contribute just as soon as you can.  If this model works, we’ll look at shorter drives that make all of our listening experiences better.  Thanks for your support!

“Morning Edition” host Steve Julian and I are off to Arizona for our annual trip to indulge in spring training baseball.  Every March for more than a decade, we’ve taken a few days to watch the Dodgers and Angels field combinations of established major leaguers who’re getting into shape, and promising minor leaguers trying to make an impression.

Spring training is particularly fun for baseball fans because of the comparative intimacy of the games.  Instead of 50,000 seat stadiums, the games are played in front of crowds of just a few thousand.  The sounds from the field are more immediate and encompassing than at Dodger or Angel Stadium.  The fans are also more into the games and less into the ancillary entertainment than you’ll see during the regular season.

It’s a fun mix of vacationing families, retirees, local businesspeople stealing away for a couple of hours, and baseball-loving friends like Steve and me.  For me, it’s about as relaxed as I’m able to get. I tune out much (though not all) of the news and focus on unwinding in the sun. 

One concession I make is checking my work email a couple of times a day. If I didn’t, I’d come back to more than a thousand messages.  It would take me a couple of days to catch up.  Additionally, I need to connect with our “AirTalk” producers over what our segments will be for the day I return to the air (Monday, March 26th).

I’m particularly looking forward to Monday’s Supreme Court oral arguments on the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate to buy health insurance.  It should be fascinating to hear the arguments unfold.

That’s one of the questions we asked listeners this morning about aging drivers.  We had a terrific range of comments, including older listeners who described how they’ve adapted their driving habits to deal with the realities of diminished reflexes and vision.

Most of our callers spoke of how they dealt with their parents on this issue.  Several said that their parents were able to make the adjustment to not driving, but we had one particularly poignant call.  It came from a listener who described his mother having to give up driving in her 90s, only to afterward lose her will to live.  This exemplifies how much more driving means than simply providing transportation.  It’s both a practical and symbolic marker of independence.

If you haven’t heard the segment, I encourage you to listen to the podcast.  I really appreciated our listener’s comments.

Two members of the commission, Councilman Bernard Parks and Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, got into a heated argument on this morning’s program.  There were several points of disagreement, including whether Parks owes the commission $40,000 for a Coliseum fireworks show.  However, the biggest dispute was over whether the public has been sufficiently involved in the decision to give USC managerial control over the stadium.

The Councilman claimed that there should have been public hearings before serious negotiations began with USC.  The Supervisor argued that there were public meetings prior to the decision and that turning management over to USC would enable the school to make necessary Coliseum improvements that the commission couldn’t afford.

As you might have heard, a few top Coliseum managers were alleged to have engaged in business practices that enriched themselves personally, at the expense of the public. Also, the commission hasn’t been able to make stadium improvement that USC had been promised, as part of the university’s lease with the commission.

Councilman Parks’ criticism of the process, and of making a managerial deal with USC, will likely continue.  What’s uncertain is whether other critics of the Coliseum/USC managerial deal will try to stop it in court.

I got the first word of a problem from “AirTalk” senior producer Linda Othenin-Girard shortly after 7 this morning.  Her text message alerted me to the likelihood that we wouldn’t be able to do a live show today.

Like every other weekday, I was geared up and excited to talk about our segments for the morning.  Our centerpiece was President Obama’s meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister, and what it means for ongoing debate about Iran’s nuclear program.

However, that would have to wait.  Our first priority was to come up with previously aired hours that we could rebroadcast this morning, given our technical inability to do a live show.

As best I understand it, our digital audio system completely crashed around 5 this morning.  We had no ability to pull audio from our storage system, severely limiting Steve Julian’s ability to gather local news stories for “Morning Edition.”  However, given Steve’s, and his producer’s, resourcefulness, they were able to transfer a limited number of stories to a portable hard drive from which they could be aired.

For “Madeleine Brand” and “AirTalk,” there was simply no way to do a live show.  We were without a functional phone system, and had only one working studio in the entire Mohn Broadcast Center. 

However, we’re now back and running full speed.  Our engineers, who’ve been working since early this morning, are still trouble-shooting to fully understand what caused the crash.  Thanks for your patience and understanding.

I’ll be off tomorrow morning to prepare for a special “AirTalk” Super Tuesday election wrap-up tomorrow night.  I’ll be on with a terrific lineup of guests immediately following NPR’s Super Tuesday coverage, at approximately 7 p.m.  David Lazarus will fill in for me tomorrow morning.