Scott Miller

FORT MYERS, FLA. -- So I'm cruising across Metro Parkway toward the Red Sox camp in Fort Myers about 8 a.m. Thursday, still working on waking up, when I pass Danley St. and it starts again.

Within a split-second, I think of Kerwin Danley, the major-league umpire.

Twisted, I know. Whacked, I admit.

But I'm guessing I'm not alone here.

Anybody else out there have an issue with automatically associating street names with players?

Long ago, I'd be driving on I-5 in Southern California, my stomach would start growling and I'd know exactly where to exit for the In-N-Out burger: Steve Avery Parkway.

OK, truth be told, it probably isn't named for the old Atlanta left-hander. Especially because it's actual name is Avery Parkway.

A few springs ago I got turned around heading to dinner at Le Tub, a marvelous old gas station-turned-into-a-grill on Florida's intracoastal waterway.

Now I know exactly where to exit I-95. Sheridan St. How could I forget Pat Sheridan, who played outfield in the 1980s for Kansas City and Detroit?

On and on it goes. The exit leading off of I-75 in Florida that takes me to Minnesota's camp isn't Daniels Parkway, it's Kal Daniels Parkway. A tip of the cap to the Cincinnati outfielder who led the National League in on-base percentage in 1988.

The exit off of I-10 in Arizona that takes me to Peoria Stadium (home of the Mariners and Padres) is Bell Rd. -- which never fails to remind of wacky outfielder Derek Bell. He played with a number of teams, but I'll always fondly recall the time he took his uniform pants back to the Blue Jays equipment manager and asked for a longer pair.

"How long?" the equipment guy asked.

"For the whole season," Bell replied.

I could go on, but it's late afternoon and I'd sure like to get a run in before dinner and a night of prepping for tomorrow's stop, Twins camp.

Of course, when I drive back to the hotel from Boston's complex here, the route will take me on Fowler St., during which I'll no doubt think of Billy Martin's old pitching coach, Art Fowler. ...

Likes: Manny being Manny. ... Full squad workouts starting. ... Exceptional tribute to the late Bob Howsam, the highly respected former Reds executive who passed away a few days ago, from Sparky Anderson in this piece. ... Nino's Pizza and Italian Ristaurante at Daniels Crossing. Had an outstanding pizza -- New York thin crust -- from there last night, and meals there remain one of the highlights of the Florida tour. Graziano and his staff serve terrific meals with impressively fresh ingredients.

Dislikes: Fort Myers traffic has grown exponentially since I first started coming down here in 1994. It's the old joke -- Daniels Parkway, one of the main thoroughfares, is called a Parkway because you spent a whole lot of time parked on the asphalt. ... Physical exams. Everybody goes through them, of course -- such as Boston on Thursday -- but they really throw the day's schedule off.

Sunblock day? Little rain in the morning but the sun came out shortly after 9 a.m.

Rock-n-Roll lyric of the day:

"In the garbage disposal of you dreams I've been ground up, dear
"On the river of your plans I'm up the creek
"Up the elevator of your future I've been shafted
"On the calendar of your events I'm last week"

-- Johnny Cash, Flushed From the Bathroom of Your Heart

JUPITER, Fla. -- Give St. Louis slugger Albert Pujols points for honesty.

Was he concerned that manager Tony La Russa might not return for 2008 last October?

"I was worried about my injury," Pujols told me Wednesday morning. "I wasn't worried about him coming back."

That doesn't mean Pujols didn't want La Russa back.

"When we re-signed him, I was really excited for him because of our relationship and what kind of manager he is," Pujols said.

As for the injury Pujols was concerned with, it's a chronically strained ligament in his right elbow. It hurt most of last season, and though offseason surgery was an option, he chose to go the rehabilitation route this winter than to go under the knife.

The elbow caused a stir when he first reported earlier this week, especially when La Russa said the Cardinals will have to monitor it and when Pujols said "If it blows out, it's going to blow out. You can't control that."

But during our conversation Wednesday, he said: "I think people made my elbow worse than it really is. I just laugh. They think they know. They don't know. Only I know."

La Russa reiterated on Wednesday that the Cardinals will watch him closely and noted that throwing isn't the only issue for Pujols.

"You can tweak it from swinging, which is what happened last year," La Russa said. "He's got an issue there."

An issue the Cardinals don't need to blow up on them.

Likes: Minnesota manager Ron Gardenhire lowering the boom and telling veteran pitcher Livan Hernandez that those big diamond earrings don't fly with the Twins. Not while a guy is on the field, they don't. ... Let's see how Fidel Castro stepping down in Cuba affects the majors. You can bet they're watching closely in New York -- as are several individual clubs -- because a thaw in the Cold War almost certainly means more Cuban players in the majors (without having to defect!) and possibly major-league games in Cuba. How about the Dodgers' spring training camp in 1947, Jackie Robinson's rookie year? They held it in Havana, Cuba. Then they moved to Dodgertown in Vero Beach, Fla., the next season. ... Driving across the state on Route 80 and passing, in Clewiston, the Git-N-Split (fast food drive-thru joint) and the Git-N-Go (convenience store). Glad I didn't pass an outhouse with the "Git" theme to it. ... I'm telling you, sitting in a driftwood booth mere steps from the intracoastal waterway at Le Tub in Hollywood, Fla., the other night, munching on a cheeseburger (rated best burgers in the country a couple of years ago by GQ magazine), watching the boats go by and the sun setting, I was seconds from calling both my editor and my wife and telling them I was never to return. Then I woke up.

Dislikes: Rain in the forecast in the Fort Myers area the next couple of days.

Sunblock day? Sneaky sun today. Cloudy for much of the morning over in Jupiter, but the sun was out enough to warrant some sort of protection. We're cooking along in the upper-70s these days at most of the camps I've been to.

Rock-n-Roll lyric of the day:

"Can't find a damn thing in this place
"Nothing's where I left it before
"Set of keys and a dusty suitcase
"Car wheels on a gravel road

-- Lucinda Williams, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Don't believe it? At our current pace, by the end of the spring, one guy from each of baseball's 30 clubs will be on record as guaranteeing a World Series victory in 2008.

The always-fun Kevin Millar was the latest to join the growing parade of big leaguers chirping "We're the team to beat!" on

Tuesday as the Orioles held their first full-squad workout.

Millar joined the Chicago Cubs' Ryan Dempster, Boston's Jonathan Papelbon and the New York Mets' Carlos Beltran as proclaiming

their clubs the team to beat in '08.

Of course, it's like the old Sesame Street bit "One of these things doesn't belong with the others."

The Red Sox, Mets and, yep, even the Cubs have a reasonable chance of winning this year.

The O's? Uh, no.

That didn't stop the Millar Stand-Up act Tuesday morning though as he worked overtime at deflecting the steroids questions

being fired at Jay Gibbons (15 day suspension for human growth hormone use) and Brian Roberts (named in the Mitchell Report).

"I'm guaranteeing a 2008 World Series," Millar crowed, grin plastered firmly in place. "Everybody else is.

"I'm going on the record right now. We're going to shock the world."

Then he took off after Dempster,

"I don't know who Dempster is in Chicago, but if he thinks he's going to win the World Series, he has to come through us

first," Millar continued. "I'm going deep off Ryan Dempster."

Actually, Millar does know who this Dempster cat is. The two were teammates with the Marlins in Florida several years ago.

Ah, details. They only get in the way, right?

Yep, Millar was revved up good. Lockering close to Brian Roberts, he provided the background noise as Roberts was being quizzed

by reporters about the possibility of being traded to the Chicago Cubs.

"Guaranteed World Series," Millar said of Roberts. "Cubs or Orioles, either way."

Likes: Kevin Millar's best days may be behind him, but he's one of those guys who add character to baseball. Football is simply too serious to mine for humor -- at least, that's the way most football coaches and players seem to see it. ... Orioles right-hander Jeremy Guthrie telling me, regarding his outstanding rookie season last year (7-5, 3.70 ERA in 32 appearances, 26 starts), "I was pleasantly surprised, for sure." Honest to a fault. "I came into the rotation doing what I did, competing against the best hitters in the world in the best division in baseball, I was really pleasantly surprised. Now I have to build off of it because one year is only one year." ... Netflix. ... The Rock Me Gently Jeep commercial featuring the old Andy Kim hit. What an acting job by the animals -- or the computerized animals. ... Morning coffee strong enough you can chew -- especially when you're in the car and off to the next camp at 6:30, 7 in the morning.

Dislikes: Subway commercials congratulating Jared for keeping all those pounds off for 10 years. With whatever money they're paying him, he should keep himself from blimping out again. Wait, could that be the start of a Blimpie campaign?

Sunblock day? Cloudy, cool and sometimes rainy today in Fort Lauderdale. Why, I probably should have even worn long pants to camp today. Horrors. ...

Rock-n-Roll lyric of the day:

"Pale invaders and tan crusaders
"Are worshipping the sun
"On the corner of walk and don't walk
"Somewhere on U.S. 1"

-- Jimmy Buffett, Floridays

VERO BEACH, Fla. -- Reclusive Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax has an aura about him that I've seen from very few others. Muhammad Ali, certainly, when he made an appearance at the Los Angeles Angels' camp last spring in Tempe, Ariz. Other than that, I'd have to think a long time to come up with someone else.

What's interesting when Koufax appears at Dodgertown, as he usually does a few times each spring, is that the players react almost like fans themselves. And that's partly how it was Monday morning when Koufax showed up for a special tutoring session with a couple of Dodgers pitchers.

"I didn't know anything about this stuff until this morning," manager Joe Torre said. "It's a treat."

Koufax, tanned and trim in a lime green golf shirt and khaki shorts, spent 30 minutes or so working with reliever Scott Proctor and non-roster invitee Chan Ho Park on some back mounds just off the Dodgers clubhouse and administrative buildings.

"Park and Proctor both asked about it when they saw him here," Torre said. "He's aggreable to helping out when he can, but he's got a schedule."

Koufax has a good relationship with Dodgers pitching coach Rick Honeycutt and appears to have a comfort factor with Torre. The two have known each other since the 1960s, when Koufax was at the top of his game and Torre was breaking into the majors. Both men are from Brooklyn, which gave them something in common, and each played in the National League, which sometimes put them on the same turf.

"I remember a Saturday in Milwaukee when he was pitching against us," Torre said. "I was 20, 21, and went up to hit and he struck me out three times in a row.

"The fourth time I said, 'I'm not going to let him strike me out this time' and I popped up. All you wanted to do against him was not strike out. He put that in your head.

"That night, we happened to be in the same restaurant, and that was the first time we talked socially."

Koufax sent Torre a telegram when the manager won his first World Series with the Yankees in 1996, and when Torre was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1999, he said Koufax was one of the first people who called.

"He's been a very special friend," Torre said.

After that '96 World Series win, appearing in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade in New York, Torre remembered it was raining so hard that his leather jacket was ruined and he looked like "a drowned dog."

"I get home and the phone rings, and it's Sandy," Torre said. "He didn't even say hello. He just said, 'I bet you're glad you said yes to that, huh?'"

Torre said that he expects Koufax to drop by to visit, help coach or offer tips a handful of times this spring.

Likes: I like Andy Pettitte, I really do. But he needs some time to pass and he needs the season to start. That's going to do him a whole lot more good than Monday's press conference. ... Don Mattingly in Dodgers camp and, hopefully, for now, the troubles with his estranged wife in his rear-view mirror. Mattingly, thought to be Torre's eventual successor as DOdgers manager, will be a special assignments coach this year. He was going to be Dodgers hitting coach but personal issues -- which came to a head when Kim Mattingly was arrested for public intoxication and refusing to leave his property -- interrupted that. ... Tommy Lasorda back as Dodgers manager for a week in March when the other half of the club is playing exhibition games in China. ... Who knew there was a Burt Reynolds Museum in Jupiter?

Dislikes: Eric Gagne's tepid "apology" to his Mitchell Report appearance. ... Disappointed in Shelby Lynne's new disc Just a Little Lovin' covering some of the songs of the legendary Dusty Springfield. My first mistake probably was in not simply cutting to the chase and picking up a Springfield disc insteada. Lynne's effort is intentionally stripped down, but there's no grit. No soul. It's like the music of Dusty Springfield for Lovers of Elevator Music.

Sunblock day? Odd mix of morning rain and mugginess yielding to a hot Florida sun meant you'd better have the sunblock within reach. Zoomed up into the upper 80s today despite the stiff breeze.