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MESA http://www.redsoxproshops.com/authentic-dustin-pedroia-jersey , Ariz. (AP) — Corey Seager returned with a bang to the Los Angeles Dodgers lineup Wednesday night.The star shortstop, playing against major league competition for the first time in nearly a year, homered to center field in his second at-bat against Chicago Cubs left-hander Cole Hamels at Sloan Park.“It was just fun. The adrenaline, the excitement, it was really good,” Seager said after playing six innings in his Cactus League debut. “It’s been a really long time since I’ve been out there. That was the excitement part of it.”Seager added a sacrifice fly in the fifth.“I was happy for him. He looked really good in the batter’s box,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “A positive night.”A two-time All-Star and the 2016 NL Rookie of the Year, Seager played just 26 games a year ago before an elbow injury ended his season on April 29.He had Tommy John surgery in early May and arthroscopic surgery on his left hip in August. The Dodgers made their second straight trip to the World Series despite Seager’s absence after acquiring Manny Machado from Baltimore to fill in at shortstop.Machado is now gone after signing a $300 million contract as a free agent with San Diego.Seager was brought along slowly this spring, initially eased into game action against minor leaguers, but certainly looked ready Wednesday night.Batting third, he flied out to the warning track in left-center his first time up. He was the middle man on a double play in the bottom of the first.“That was one of those throws that would have really bothered me,” Seager said. “It was really nice to be able to make that play and not really worry about it.”He committed an error on Javier Baez’s grounder in the fourth.Roberts said Seager will play in a minor league game Thursday and return to Cactus League action Friday against Arizona at Camelback Ranch.In his rookie season, Seager hit .306 with 26 homers and finished third in NL MVP voting. In 2017, he hit 22 homers but began to experience a sore arm, causing him to miss the NL Championship Series against the Cubs. He returned for the World Series against Houston, playing in all seven games.However, he felt soreness in his elbow last spring and tried to play through it before having the operation.Seager, a first-round draft pick in 2012, came up to the majors late in 2015 and has a .302 career batting average with an .866 OPS in 355 games.NOTES: LHP Julio Urias pitched 2 2/3 innings out of the bullpen, allowing two earned runs — including Anthony Rizzo’s homer. Coming into the outing, Urias had given up only two hits and one run in nine innings this spring. Roberts said Urias, who started in his previous Cactus League appearances Tony Conigliaro Jersey , will begin the season as a long reliever. “We wanted to make sure Walker (Buehler) got through his start, which he did yesterday,” Roberts said. “And it makes the most sense for us to have Julio come out of the ‘pen in long relief. He’s going to be just fine.” Roberts said he didn’t think he would use Urias as a lefty specialist or one-inning guy. “As a reliever you’ve got to be ready every day. Right now I feel good and I’ll continue working,” Urias said through a translator. The 22-year-old missed most of last season after shoulder surgery in June 2017, but returned in time to pitch 6 1/3 innings of relief in the NLCS and World Series. Urias was 5-2 with a 3.35 ERA in 15 starts as a 19-year-old in 2016. Spring training opens in a few days.It won’t seem quite the same without T-bone.Tommy Giordano is dying.Yet, do not let your heart grow heavy.He’s going out like he lived for more than 93 years — surrounded by family and friends, accompanied by overwhelming love and stories that will endure long after he’s gone.“It’s like we’re doing the funeral, the celebration of his life, a little bit early,” said his daughter, Gail Przeclawski, when reached by phone Monday morning at the family home where Giordano was spending his final days, “and he got to enjoy every moment of it.”Giordano spent nearly all of his full life as a baseball man. He was a major league player (for 11 games with the late, great Philadelphia Athletics), a minor-league manager, a front-office executive. More than anything, he was a scout, one of those guys who combed the backwoods and backwaters searching for the game’s next big star.It was a job he loved, a job he was good at, a job he held with the Atlanta Braves right up until what would be the very last year of his life.“I’m going to do this until I die,” Giordano told me back in 2016, when I first met him at the Braves’ spring training complex http://www.redsoxproshops.com/authentic-dustin-pedroia-jersey , located within the confines of Disney World. “I can’t wait to get up in the morning and go to the ballpark.”T-bone (a nickname that goes back to his days growing up in New Jersey, when his father would always make him a steak as a pregame meal) had every intention of coming back for his 72nd season — staked out behind home plate, a stopwatch in one hand, a lineup card in his lap, the games unfolding before his eyes as he gleaned those tell-tale signs of a player’s strengths and weaknesses.Can’t hit a curve ball. Great speed from first to third. Gets a poor jump on the ball. Strong throwing arm. .Then, the blood infection struck out of nowhere.Not long after climbing three flights of stairs during a family vacation to the beach, Giordano started feeling poorly. He came down with a 102-degree fever. The doctors weren’t sure what caused the infection.Giordano spent nearly three weeks in the hospital. It looked as though he would survive.Unfortunately, the infection returned. The doctors knew he wasn’t nearly strong enough to ward it off like he did the first time. He might live a bit longer, but his quality of life would be greatly diminished. No one wanted that, so he was sent home to die.That’s where this sad story takes a beautiful turn.These last few days in Orlando have given so many people a chance to show how much Giordano was loved.Everyone from Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson to longtime baseball executive John Hart to an Uber driver who hauled T-bone around to the owner of a local Italian restaurant that Giordano frequented for a good bowl of pasta have called or stopped by to say farewell.They’ve been able to reminisce. They’ve been able to swap stories told a thousand times. They’ve laughed. They’ve cried. They’ve celebrated an amazing man.Przeclawski has watched it all with pride.“I’m still learning things about my dad that I never knew,” she told me in that phone call, her voice both sad and joyful.For the record, here’s a highlight reel, gleaned from my 2016 interview with T-Bone:— Growing up in Newark, New Jersey, he played on the high school team but fibbed to his parents about his reason for staying late after school. His father, who owned a grocery store, believed young Tommy should focus on his schoolwork and devote any free time to working at the family business. “I used to hide my spikes,” Giordano told me. “Well, my dad got hold of them and put them on the butcher block. He cut them up. He cut everything up. My bat, my glove, everything.”— Giordano was called up to the majors by the Athletics toward the end of the 1953 season Steve Pearce Jersey , giving him a chance to meet one of the game’s most towering figures, Connie Mack. In his very first game with Philadelphia, the slick-fielding shortstop homered off the facade of old Shibe Park, going deep against 20-game winner Virgil Trucks of the Chicago White Sox.— Also in 1953, while playing with Class A Savannah, Giordano took the infield alongside a 19-year-old second baseman on his way up, a guy named Henry Aaron. The future home run king led the league in virtually every offensive category except one. Aaron hit 22 homers — two less than Giordano.— After his playing days, Giordano was responsible for the Baltimore Orioles drafting Cal Ripken Jr. During a stint in Cleveland, T-bone signed off on the Indians picking Manny Ramirez. His scouting mantra was “get in the house,” which gave him a chance to check out a prospect’s family and any off-the-field red flags. “I love doing that kind of work,” he said.Now, everyone is getting a chance to return the love.His daughter set out a book for visitors to sign. As I was speaking to her, someone arrived at the door. She instructed them to turn to the fourth page of the book. The first three pages were already filled up.“He’s gotten to attend his own funeral service the last four days,” Przeclawski said. “He’s had a blast.”But the end is drawing near. T-bone lost the ability to speak and swallow Sunday night.Her voice choked with emotion, Przeclawski noted that Wednesday would’ve been her mother’s birthday. She died less than a year ago. She and T-bone were married for 70 years.“I think they’re going to be celebrating her birthday in heaven,” their daughter said.Giordano will be buried just outside the family home, with a view of a lake.His daughter issued an invitation to come by and visit the next time I’m in Orlando.“We’ll tell some great stories about my dad,” she said.I can’t wait.