Columnist Ron Kantowski: Is 51s their mascot or their age?

Friday, April 8, 2005 | 9:24 a.m.

Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4088.

Jerry Royster, the new/old manager of the Las Vegas Triple-A baseball club, was in the midst of answering a question about the abundance of old guys on this year's 51s opening-day roster when, as if on cue, Steve Garvey walked into the manager's office in the renovated home dressing room at Cashman Field.

If he wasn't with some guy in a suit who liked he was selling something, I thought Garvey might ask Royster for a uniform.

Although he looks great, like he could still take Lee Smith deep with a couple of guys on base if he needed to (we bitter Cub fans never forget), Garvey is 56 years old now. That makes him a little long in the tooth, even for this year's 51s.

"Raw Talent," proclaims the cover of this year's 51s media guide. "See them now before they go to The Show."

Ripe talent is more like it. See them now before they go to the retirement home.

When the 51s got on the airplane for Colorado Springs, where they opened the PCL season Thursday night with an 8-3 victory, more than half of them were allowed to preboard with the other senior citizens. Las Vegas has seven players who are 30 or will turn 30 before the end of this year and another six who are 28 or will turn 28 during 2005. That means more than half of the opening day roster -- 13 of 24 -- may be aware that Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings.

I was still under the impression that Triple-A was the best place to watch a young prospect develop, but Royster suggested I put away my Led Zeppelin records and face reality.

"That's just the way it is," he said in reference to 33-year-old pitcher Pat Mahomes and the 51s' other grizzled -- and grizzly -- veterans. "In baseball, we talk about age so much but it really doesn't play anymore. That used to be a factor. It's no longer a factor.

"If Pat Mahomes can get guys out, then he's going to pitch for the Dodgers. Same way with Venafro (Mike, a left-hander who will turn 32 in August). I don't think that's ever changed. It's always been like that somewhat."

Somewhat, yes. But a decade ago, minor league relief pitchers used to enter a game in a golf cart, not a wheelchair.

Longtime 51s president Don Logan said the whiskers on the goatees have turned gray thanks to college baseball, which during the past 10 years or so has taken the place of the lower minor leagues in developing talent.

"That's just what the prospect age is now," Logan said about the Las Vegas thirty-somethings.

"It's a little bit different with the Latin kids but the better American prospects are going to college. It's been an evolution. There are too many Chad Hermansen stories out there."

Hermansen was a hotshot prospect from Henderson who bypassed college to sign with the Pirates and never achieved the big league stardom that most had predicted.

As fate would have it, Hermansen's cup of coffee in Pittsburgh makes him a perfect candidate to linger at the Triple-A level for a long time. In 2003, he wound up flailing at curveballs right here with his hometown 51s.

In August 2003, during his final days as a legal Alien, Hermansen, then 25, groused that his youth actually was a liability.

"I have some friends who have been Dodger fans for a long time, " he said, "and their comments seem to always be instead of getting younger, and letting younger guys get a chance, they seem to just get older and they're not getting anywhere."

Of course, this was a few days after Hermansen had been sent back to Las Vegas after the Dodgers acquired 76-year-old third baseman Robin Ventura from the Yankees.

While there is bound to be a built-in bias for players who have proven they can compete at the big-league level, Royster said age really has nothing to do with it.

"You get guys that can be filtered into the major league team and in the end, that's what it's all about," he said. "That's just the way you set up the organization. You have to have enough guys who can step in if something goes wrong up there."

But as far as old guys and young guys and in-between guys, Royster said he stopped paying attention a long time ago.

"I never, never look at it that way," he said. "It's all about being a prospect. How old a player is is irrelevant to me."

Then I swear I heard him ask Steve Garvey if he brought along his first baseman's mitt.