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It’s Veterans day

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Times Staff Writer

VERO BEACH, Fla. -- The man behind the image started to reveal himself Wednesday, sharing with his team his experiences and expectations, his methods reflected in a baserunning tutorial from Larry Bowa and the first haircut in six months for Joe Beimel.

By the end of the Dodgers’ first full-squad workout under Joe Torre, first baseman James Loney was saying of the new manager, “I think I got a good feel for him.”

That was Torre’s intention, much the way it was Jeff Kent’s intention not to reveal whether this season, his 17th in the majors and fourth with the Dodgers, would be his last.

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“That’ll come at another time and another place,” said Kent, who turns 40 next month. “Is that rehearsed enough?”

Addressing a crowd of reporters in front of his corner locker on his first day in the clubhouse this spring, Kent said, “I just left my family that I’ve been with for four months and I probably won’t see them for three weeks, so today’s not such a great day.”

But the second baseman said that buttoning up his uniform, rolling up his socks and giving blood for his physical put him back in what he called “a professional mode.”

“No doubt when I get out there and start running around the bases, that excitement will come back,” Kent said. “There’s a passion to play this game. I love to play this game. And I play it with passion. I don’t make excuses. I’ll be happy to be here, absolutely.”

Kent said that his decision to play out the final season of his contract with the Dodgers -- a decision that will earn him $9 million -- was based in part on the moves the club made in the off-season, among them the hiring of Torre and the signings of center fielder Andruw Jones and pitcher Hiroki Kuroda.

Kent said he understood owner Frank McCourt’s reluctance to part with the club’s promising young players “because he has a long-term investment in this organization.”

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The generation of the future clashed with the generation of the past last season and Kent found himself in the middle of the rift when he criticized the club’s up-and-comers as the team plunged out of contention. Kent denied that there was any patching up to do.

“My frustrations don’t lie with anybody,” Kent said. “They lie with wins and losses. You don’t win, if anybody’s not frustrated, they shouldn’t be playing this game. There’s no frustrations with players, there’s no frustrations with management. Anybody who sits back and is complacent, it is not worth being a professional athlete. I think the McCourts and [General Manager Ned Colletti] have realized that, and obviously have made progress in not being complacent.”

Colletti was the first to address the team in the club’s closed-door meeting.

Torre spoke later, his stated goal being to “let them know a little about me,” which included his days as a player and manager elsewhere. But he also told them that he wanted to know about them and their concerns, something he demonstrated a day earlier when approaching Beimel about cutting his shoulder-length hair.

“He wanted to make sure it wasn’t going to screw me up,” said Beimel, who last had short hair in 2004, a season in which he was cut by the Pittsburgh Pirates in spring training and spent most of the year with the Minnesota Twins’ triple-A affiliate in Rochester, N.Y.

Then, as Torre previously said he would, he turned the team over to his coaches. When the meeting adjourned, Bowa, the third base coach, lectured the position players about baserunning on one of the practice fields.

“It’s got to be as much a priority as fielding a ground ball,” Bowa said.

While that was happening, pitching coach Rick Honeycutt led a 30-minute pitchers-only meeting in the clubhouse. Brad Penny and Derek Lowe spoke about the pitching staffs on their World Series-winning teams with the Florida Marlins and Boston Red Sox, respectively.

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“These guys want to get back there,” Honeycutt said.

Third base coach Mariano Duncan and bullpen coach Ken Howell will accompany Torre and the split squad that will play exhibitions against the San Diego Padres in Beijing on March 14 and 15. Bench coach Bob Schaefer, Bowa and Honeycutt will remain with the part of the team that will stay in Florida. That split squad will be managed by former manager Tom Lasorda. . . . Outfielder Jason Repko left camp to be with his wife in their home state of Washington for the impending birth of their first child. . . . George Lombard, a non-roster outfielder, became the first player to be hurt this spring, straining his left calf in conditioning drills. . . . Top left-handed pitching prospect Clayton Kershaw was part of a group that reported for early minor league camp. . . . Ellen Harrigan was promoted to director of baseball administration. Harrigan, who is entering her ninth year with the Dodgers, was previously the assistant director of administration, where her duties included negotiating player contracts, contract maintenance, waivers and rule interpretation, and coordinating special projects for the baseball operations and scouting departments.

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dylan.hernandez@latimes.com

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