It seemed like a good idea, at the time. That is, more than two weeks ago. Dodgers vs. White Sox, “right next door” in Glendale, Ariz.

Road trip!

Here was the plan: Zoom over to the Dodgers’ new spring-training site in Arizona, see a game, zip right home. Over and back,  same day. Talk about stupid guy stuff going and coming, see how fast we could blow over the I-10 (which is one of the Great American Power Drives from,  say, Chiriaco Summit to the outskirts of Phoenix). In and out. See some ball,  maybe sit in the sun, do the spring training thing I’ve always heard so much about.

Well, it didn’t quite work out that way. We ended up mixing more than a little work with pleasure, which is what often happens when you have unemployed sports writers carrying credentials in a ballpark.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw the L.A. Times’ special section on the Dodgers’ new camp,  Camelback Mountain, in Arizona. It included a schedule. I looked at it. “Dodgers vs. White Sox” on March 5. Game at 1 p.m. Arizona time. Looked promising. It would be fun. Just sit in the stands. Invite a couple of guys to go with me.

Then I began losing sight of the original “fun” idea.

I convinced a former colleague, Doug Padilla, to come with me. Doug covered the Chicago White Sox for four seasons, home and road, for the Chicago Sun-Times, and I figured he would like to see White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen and the other White Sox people … and I’d go look at the Dodgers and scope out the park.

Then the Dodgers signed Manny Ramirez, and decided to do a press conference with him at their spring headquarters the very day we were going to be there … and I decided I ought to go and perhaps write about it. And so did Doug.

Thing was, the Manny press conference was at 10:30 a.m. — Mountain time. Which is 9:30 a.m. Pacific, which is the time zone where we began the day. So, figuring Glendale to be 300 miles from the Inland Empire (I was in Highland) that meant a 5:30 (!) a.m. departure and a 5 a.m. (!!)  out-the-front-door start. Which is awfully early to be having fun that doesn’t involve a fishing boat or a bachelor’s party.

So, anyway, somehow we got started, only about 15 minutes late, but that put us potentially late for the Manny press conference.  So we were booking. In a rental car, of course. You wouldn’t abuse your own car like that unless you owned a Corvette or something and were keen to get a speeding ticket.

Instead, I flogged the rental Ford Focus east on the 10. Into the rising sun over the San Bernardino Mountains, up out of the Low Desert, over Chiriaco Summit, down to the Colorado River, to a pit stop at Quartzsite and then the serious Kick Out the Jambs run to Glendale.  I won’t say who was driving, but we were averaging 90 mph, touching 100 for minutes at a time, and passing semi-trailers like they were crawling in reverse. And this was in a Ford Focus. Imagine if it had been a real car.

OK, the Manny press conference. We got there just as it was beginning. The Dodgers staged it on the balcony of their shiny new offices at the spring training site. Frank McCourt was behind a podium in front of a crowd of 50-60 people that even included a few journalists (print and electronic), and arrayed in chairs next to his were Ned Colletti, Joe Torre, Manny Ramirez and Scott Boras.

They all talked at some length. Manny went up and said, “I’m ba-ack!” And elicited more than a few laughs for lines that really weren’t that funny. It was one of those weird dynamics where people laugh too hard and too long at something not really all that clever …  as if out of nervousness, maybe?

Manny bagged on the Red Sox a little, explained how it was that he was happy with the contract he and Boras peremptorily rejected back in November (two seasons, $45 million) and talked about how he would begin getting ready for the season by taking some BP, shagging some fly balls to warm up his “Gold Glove” … but confessing that he would “save my cannon” (arm) for “the regular season.”

Uproarious laughter. Because Manny with the leather is a comedy routine, see?

McCourt and Colletti now love Manny and even his agent. Lots of respect going both ways. Sure.

At least McCourt recognizes that Dodgers fans seem to love Manny, and was smart enough to sign him.

“He’s a phenomena,” McCourt told me. “Manny is a very, very unique person who I’ve gotten to know a lot better over the last 48 hours.” That would include the period when Manny and Boras showed up at one of McCourt’s homes in Malibu and caved into the Dodgers’ offer of two years and $45 (with three years of deferred money),  which was about two years and $55 million short of what he wanted, back in November …

McCourt wasn’t done. “He’s a very sophisticated guy,” he said of Manny, now that he’s tied up for all of one year. “He’s a very bright man, but he has a lot of boy in him. He understand that, at the end of the day, this is a game.”

(I can almost hear the Red Sox fans guffawing.)

McCourt said he and Jamie (that would be his wife/boss) decided that the Gift of Manny was the least they could do for the fans of Los Angeles. “We think he helps the team win but we also think it’s the most important thing in the short term for the Dodgers to add some joy and some fun to the community.” He said Manny “has that unique ability. He’s a big personality.”

Boras was even more effusive. Asked about Manny’s apparently popularity in Chavez Ravine, he said it started with Ramirez’s “superstar” status. “The performance is the battery for the flashlight.  After that, he’s a bilingual player. He’s gregarious.  He’s comedic. He’s witty. He really is for Los Angeles … we have a standup left fielder.”

Oh, ha-ha-ha. We get it. A standup left fielder. Like a standup comedian. Stop you’re killing me.

My absolute favorite Boras  moment, however, came when he was asked if a ballplayer getting a $45 million contract in hard times was … oh, morally defensible.

Short version? Manny will be good for the L.A. economy because he will drive interest in the club.

But this is Scott Boras, so the only version is the long, rambling, only vaguely coherent one.

“As a stimulus package for Los Angeles, I view it as saying Manny, much like the White House, that he’s (the) Los Angeles Dodgers’ stimulus package and I think he’s going to create a micro-economy that’s going to be very successful for the Dodgers and better for Los Angeles and it will be a good business decision for the community and for those poeple who are gonna benefit from Manny’s contribution to the community, the fields, and then many other people who are gonna benefit from the fact that they’re gonna have a resource, something on a Saturday or Sunday to go out and look at with their families where they’re gonna take that lessened entertainment dollar and go out and enjoy it at a higher level.”

Follow that? What is the over-under for the use of the word “and” in any Boras sentence? About 10? Zzzzz …

Anyway, Manny seemed happy to be hooked up with L.A. “Sometimes it’s better to have a two year deal in a place you know you’re happy instead of an eight-year deal in a place where you know you’ll suffer,” he said. That second place would be Boston, where fans were not amused by Manny inventing injuries and jogging to first base during those final few days there last summer.

But enough about journalism. Some weirdnesses at the facility.

Two famous Steves were hanging around. Steve Garvey, the Dodgers’ first baseman from the 1970s “Big Blue Wrecking Crew” … crew. And Steve Perry, former lead singer of the band “Journey” who is a dedicated White Sox fan but couldn’t avoid the crowd surrounding Manny apparently.  And did I mention Perry is 60 years old and looks it? Still, I almost approached him to tell him my nominee for “best pop-rock song in the history of the world” is his own band’s “Don’t Stop Believin’ ” — which was the White Sox’s theme song in 2005, when they won the World Series.

OK, the yard. The Dodgers and White Sox share the main park. They each have their own offices, and their own practice fields. Fans can get up close,  comparitively, while players hit, and that’s where Manny Ramirez went after the press conference.

The stadium itself is a sort of glorified Cal League setup.  Nothing special.  It looks “deserty” — browns and dark oranges … lots of rocks, not much grass. Ho-hum.

And it had thousands of empty seats. The Dodgers announced 5,500-plus, and all that proved is that the club lies about spring attendance as readily as it does regular-season attendance.

I tried to do some blogging, etc., but the communications system in the press box is a mess. You can’t log onto the wireless if you have Windows, and I do, so I was dead.

Doug, however, a Mac guy, was up and running, and he not only sold a Manny story to the Boston Herald, he ran down and interviewed Hiroki Kuroda, the Dodgers pitcher, for a Japanese newspaper.

The Dodgers rallied to win the game, 5-4,  which meant nothing, of course, because most of the White Sox regulars were in Las Vegas in the other half of a split-squad game. And because it’s March 5.

We headed out,  seeing Dodgers fans buying Manny jerseys in the team store. It was 3:30.  We struggled with some of Phoenix’s steadily increasing traffic before breaking loose west of Buckeye, and then it was off to the races.

It might have been more fun if we hadn’t made a point of going to a press conference that began 2.5 hours before the game.  That turned it into a trip of about 14 hours, more than half of it on the highway.

I would recommend leaving later,  staying a bit later,  and maybe sharing the driving responsibilities.

Tickets are not a problem. The stadium had scads of open seats. So just show up, pay the $5 to park the $10 or so to get in and the $4 for peanuts, etc., and don’t rush back. Maybe even have dinner, if you can afford it. Then drive back, although it will be dark, and the drive is a little dicier, especially if you’re rushing.

I may do it again. But it’s no big whoop. Unless proximity to players (and yes, I know that might be a bigger deal to people who never have covered a game as a journalist) is important. Watching them hit, in Glendale, is like being on the field at Dodger Stadium. Fans are about 30 feet from the players. But it’s still far, far easier to drive up to Dodger Stadium and see a real game in a slicker environment.

And going from Long Beach to Chavez Ravine won’t leave you thrashed,  like I am right now. A long, long day to see future Double-A players and a few big-leaguers play in a game that meant nothing.

Sure,  I had the great fun of being there for the Manny press conference, but we can’t count on that again … until maybe next year.