Smokey: Why you not goin' to work?
Craig: I got fired yesterday.
Smokey: No s---? I thought you had the day off yesterday.
Craig: I did. I went in to pick up my check...came home...my supervisor called me about four o'clock, told me he got me on tape stealing boxes.
Smokey: What the f--- you stealing boxes for? What you trying to build, a clubhouse?

--- Friday

With Reyes and Matsui, there is no way I would make that deal if I were New York. As an outfielder, Soriano is suddenly barely above league-average and soon to be making $10 mill a year.

I think you're getting seriously hyperbolic on this one. Sure he's more valuable as a second baseman, but Soriano had 20.71 hitting Win Shares last year, which would have ranked him 12th in MLB had he been an outfielder (4 AL and 7 NL outfielders had more than Soriano). Incidentally, he's hit 35+ homers each of the past two seasons.

Ballou: Are you telling us, in your opinion, that it looks like Barry Bonds has taken steroids?

Van Slyke: Unequivocally he's taken them, without equivocation he's taken them. I can say that with utmost certainty.

Now, I never saw him put it into his body...

Believe it or not, the day has come. It is time for Major League Baseball.

RF   Roger Cedeno

2B   Jose Reyes

LF   Cliff Floyd

1B   Jason Phillips

CF   Mike Cameron

3B   Ty Wigginton

 C   Vance Wilson

SS   Joe McEwing

SP   Aaron Heilman

CF   Dave Roberts

SS   Cesar Izturis

3B   Adrian Beltre

1B   Shawn Green

 C   Paul Lo Duca

RF   Juan Encarnacion

LF   Bubba Trammell

2B   Jolbert Cabrera

SP   Hideo Nomo

Andruw Jones already is the greatest center fielder of all-time, and I don't give a Willie Mays what anybody else thinks.

Terence Moore may be right, maybe Andruw Jones is the greatest center fielder of all-time. I personally don't think so, but he is an excellent center fielder and the idea is certainly within the realm of possibility. If he is the greatest center fielder of all-time however, it certainly isn't going to be because he made 400 putouts in a season. And it definitely isn't going to be because some "journalist" in Atlanta who butchers the use of statistics while intentionally misleading his audience says so.

The Braves are better than you think, but they aren't special. That's the problem. Still, if they follow my humble advice, they'll rise to a higher level of competitiveness and attractiveness by the end of spring training.

All they need is for their Designated Geniuses to get a little George Steinbrenner in their bellies, and they can do so with a few enlightened moves.

Consider this: They should switch Chipper Jones from left field back to third base, where he wasn't bad. In fact, he was good at that position, give or take a botched grounder or three. They should put newcomer J.D. Drew in left, and they should move the wonderful glove, arm and instincts of Andruw Jones from center to right.

And in center?

Ken Griffey Jr.

Steinbrenner knows that Griffey's injury situation is a fluke.

Beneath a tough exterior, Marge Schott had a heart of gold. Mind you, I wouldn't want to get on her bad side, but if she loved and cared about you, she did so for life.

She will be remembered for her love of baseball and for her passion for the Cincinnati Reds.

A woman who loved Cincinnati, children and animals and as a devoted baseball fan who would do whatever she could to help her beloved Reds.

I think people are remembered for the good things they do when they're gone. Now that she's gone they will remember the parties she had to raise money for kids, her involvement with the zoo, her giving to minority programs. She gave to minority programs before her racist comments came out.

Gentlemen, we can rebuild him.
We have the technology.

We can make him better than he was before.
Better. Stronger. Faster.

--- The Six Million Dollar Man

Johan Santana held his hands out, palms down. He rotated his right wrist 180 degrees, until his palm faced up. He rotated his left wrist 70 degrees, then stopped.

"This," he said, "is how far I could turn my hand last year."

Then he turned his left hand palm up. "This," Santana said, "is how far I can turn it now."

"There was a bone chip in my elbow," Santana said. "It started bothering me about July. I decided to keep pitching with it.

"It really didn't affect me. When it did bother me, I just thought, 'I'll just do the best I can.' It's amazing that one little chip kept me from even being able to rotate my hand."

 G     GS       IP      ERA     W     L      SO     BB

18     15     98.2     3.46     8     2     101     25

Santana joined the Twins' rotation July 11. He went 0-2 with two no-decisions in his first four starts.

Then he became as much a reason for the Twins' stunning surge to the division title as outfielder Shannon Stewart.

"He's got a chance to be very special," pitching coach Rick Anderson said. "Last year, he conditioned himself to be a one-inning guy. That caught up to him in late September and October.

"His best starts were in August. Then you could tell his legs began to tire. He has every opportunity to be ready this year."

"I've seen improvement already, just throwing in the bullpen," Anderson said. "Extension is a big part of pitching -- finishing pitches out in front of the body, with the arm fully extended. He couldn't do that last year.

"Now, when he throws a changeup, it's right there. Last year, he got people to miss because of his arm action and the change of speeds, but he also threw some halfway up the backstop.

"That's extension. He couldn't finish his pitches. Now he can."

The Twins hope this season will be the culmination in a long journey for Santana, from unknown Venezuelan prospect to Astros' signee to Twins' Rule V draftee to reliever to starter to . . . staff ace?

"Unless I can talk him into being a closer," manager Ron Gardenhire joked. "The proper answer is, yes, I am really looking forward to him being in the rotation all year. If he stays healthy, he'll be pretty damn good."

MESA, Ariz. -- Cubs pitcher Mark Prior will miss five-to-10 days of spring training because of an inflamed right Achilles' tendon.

GS       IP      ERA      W     L     SO     BB     HR

11     82.2     1.52     10     1     95     16      4

There is an enormous amount of untapped knowledge here. There are 70 million fans at MLB parks every year, and a whole lot more watching the games on television.

[...]

What I would like to do now is tap that pool of talent. I want you to tell me what your eyes see. I want you to tell me how good or bad a fielder is. Go down, and start selecting the team(s) that you watch all the time. For any player that you've seen play in at least 20 games over the last 2 years,

I want you to judge his performance in 7 specific fielding categories. Try to judge "average" not as an average player at that position, but an average player at any position. If you think that Hubie Brooks has an average arm, then mark him as average, regardless if you've seen him play RF, SS, or 1B.

We took that left fielder, moved him to center field, and we think we had a real firm upgrade offensively in center. We think people will be real surprised when they see Randy play center field every day. It was the same kind of thing with Darin Erstad in Anaheim. Sometimes you don't really a player's true ability when he's just filling in at a position defensively here and there, the way Darin was doing in the beginning, spelling Jim Edmonds.

But often when you give a player like that a chance to prove himself every day, he will look really good. If he swings through a lot less pitches than Mike, the way we expect, you like that too.

Belth and many other bloggers were first inspired by Aaron Gleeman, Jay Jaffe and David Pinto, the Willie, Mickey and the Duke of this fledgling genre. They were among the first and are now three of the best-read bloggers.

If Stephen Keane goes a few days without adding to his Mets blog, "The Eddie Kranepool Society," he gets e-mails asking if he feels well.

"That's the greatest feeling in the world," the Staten Island resident said.