Vero stay may end March 17

According to the tentative spring training schedule that the Dodgers released Monday, their last-ever home game at Vero Beach could be a split-squad contest against the Houston Astros on March 17 and their final Grapefruit League game against the Florida Marlins a day later in Jupiter, Fla.

The Dodgers intend to move their spring-training base to Arizona in 2009, and what could be their final camp in Dodgertown will probably be cut short by their plan to play a two-game exhibition series against the San Diego Padres in Beijing on March 15-16. The series is pending approval by the Chinese government.

The plan calls for the Dodgers to play 10 home games at Vero Beach, the minimum allowed under their contract with Indian River County. Of the 10 games, four will be split-squad games, as part of the team will depart for China after its March 11 home game against the Marlins. The Dodgers had 17 scheduled home games in Vero Beach last spring.

“There will be regular starters staying in Vero Beach,” Dodgers spokesperson Camille Johnston said.

But the players left behind will also leave early, as they are scheduled to join those who went to China for a game on March 20 against the Chicago White Sox in Phoenix. Because the players’ union didn’t want players to travel from Vero Beach to China and back to Vero Beach, Johnston said, the Dodgers will finish spring training in the Phoenix home vacated by the Oakland Athletics, who are playing a season-opening series against the Boston Red Sox in Tokyo.

Grapefruit League games will be played until the end of the March, but keeping half of the team in Florida for the remainder of the spring wouldn’t make sense from a baseball standpoint, Johnston said.

The Dodgers will play six games in Arizona, including three in Phoenix. They will face the Angels in Anaheim on March 27 and play host to the Red Sox in a three-game series March 28-30. The middle game against the Red Sox will be played at the Coliseum.

The Dodgers will start reporting to Vero Beach on Feb. 14 and their first game will be at Vero against the Atlanta Braves on Feb. 28.

The Dodgers had planned to visit Taiwan for a game or two on their way back from China, but that is unlikely to happen, spokesperson Josh Rawitch said.

The Dodgers had told Indian River County that it would know by Monday if the team could move out of Vero Beach at the end of this spring and into its new facility in Glendale, Ariz., in 2009. But Monday passed without any definitive word from construction firm M.A. Mortenson.

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dylan.hernandez@latimes.com