Scott Miller

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.

Rock-n-Roll lyric of the day:

"There ought to be a law
"With no bail
"Smash a guitar
"And you go to jail
"With no chance
"For early parole
"You don't get out until you get some soul"

-- John Hiatt, Perfectly Good Guitar

JUPITER, Fla. -- As you know, I'm here to help. Which is why I spent time with Florida closer Kevin Gregg seeking information to help shield him from the IRS.

See, here in the land of minimum wage (first you must realize all of baseball is Fantasy Land, which is how the Marlins' $17 million player payroll for 2008 pretty much qualifies as minimum wage), Gregg is the highest-salaried Marlin this season. He's scheduled to earn $2.5 million.

But that doesn't qualify him for some special club in which the highest-paid players from each team gather to have peeled grapes served to them. He isn't hanging with Alex Rodriguez and Barry Zito over the winter.

In fact, while Pedro Martinez (who isn't even the highest-paid Met) is driving some cherry-red Cadillac SUV that looks custom-built, Gregg is still tooling around at home (Corvallis, Ore.) in a 2004 Dodge 1,500 Quad cab.

"Nothing special," he says.

Memo to the IRS: See, don't read "highest paid" next to Gregg's name and allow your ears to start ringing. Make sure you hear the complete phrase, "highest-paid Marlin." Which is like being seated at the kids' table at a 50th wedding anniversary.

What else does being the highest-paid Marlin get Gregg?

Not an Armani suit.

"No, no," he says. "My most expensive suit probably cost a couple hundred bucks. Got it at Portobello's (in New York). Went in there and bought four suits, six shirts, six ties, some socks ... I think all of that was right at $1,000.

"I don't live a lavish life."

Gregg's salary is a nice raise over the $575,000 he made last year, earned by his becoming the Marlins' closer in '07 and converting 32 of 36 save opportunities.

He'll celebrate his 10th anniversary this year with his wife, Nicole. They have two children, daughter Ryann (6) and son Max (3). The Greggs did take a nice vacation during the off-season, though it wasn't an around-the-world junket. They went to Hawaii.

"We've talked about it for years," Gregg says. "We've never been on a vacation."

Nope, the richest Marlin (by 2008 salary standards, anyway, does not live a lavish life.

A good life, yes. But it's not exactly surf-n-turf every night.

"Oh, no -- I still eat macaroni and cheese and peanut-butter-and-jelly with my kids," Gregg quips.

Likes: What a nice guy Kevin Gregg is. Say one thing for the Marlins: You get to meet a lot of new guys every spring. ... Marlins pitcher Scott Olson good-naturedly tweaking Dontrelle Willis in absentia, saying, "Obviously, the loudest one of everybody is gone from last year." ... Sunday afternoon on I-95. Traffic is about as light as you'll ever see it. ... A Saturday night working in the hotel room with a pizza for dinner, a cold Mountain Dew, and a good college basketball game on the tube. Well, that final part didn't work Saturday as Indiana clobbered Michigan State. ... Bruce Springsteen's Girls in Their Summer Clothes from the Magic album. What a great song. ...

Dislikes: OK, this is small and whiny, but now Subway is serving pizza. Which I put in the same category of their toasted sandwiches. They're both simply things that bog down the usually overworked people behind the counter and hold up the line.

Sunblock day? Mostly. Temperatures in the 80s, but there was a morning shower and it clouded up later in the day.

Rock-n-Roll lyric of the day:

"Well some say life
"Will beat you down
"Break your heart
"Steal your crown
"So I started out
"For God knows where
"But I guess I'll know
"When I get there"

-- Tom Petty, Learning to Fly

If healthy players are happy players, then Pedro Martinez apparently is feeling very good this spring. Had a fun exchange with him early Saturday morning in which we started talking about how long he's been playing, which led me to ask how long he wants to play.

"I'm 36. How many years after 36 did Roger (Clemens) play?" Pedro demanded.

Well, that's difficult to say, I told him, given how Clemens keeps un-retiring. But he played until he was 41 or 42 I told Martinez, momentarily blanking that he actually was 44 during his half-season with the Yankees last summer.

"Well then, when I'm 41, 42, we'll talk," Pedro shot back. "So far, let's not talk about that. I'm only 36. I'm still a young buck. Unless (baseball) says goodbye. Tom Glavine was 41 last year when he pitched here. Do I look that old?"

Absolutely not, I told Pedro. Besides, I teased him, looking for a rise, you're prettier.

"I'm not prettier!" Pedro shrieked. "I'm handsome. Pretty is my wife."

About that time, reliever Scott Schoeneweis, who had been listening from a couple of lockers down, chimed in.

"You're a snappy dresser, though," he kidded Pedro.

-- One other exchange worth passing along: Mike Pelfrey, the 6-7 right-hander, is dressing across from newcomer Johan Santana, which is interesting in that Santana could have been Pelfrey's ticket out of town. At various times this winter, Pelfrey's name popped up in proposed packages to Minnesota for Santana.

I asked Pelfrey whether it was a restless winter for him, and he gave me the cliche ballplayers' answer that you try not to pay attention to the rumors.

"You hear stuff from friends, and whatever happens, you've got to make the most of it," Pelfrey said.

The most interesting part of the discussion, and a glimpse into how excited the Mets are to have Santana, came when Pelfrey said this about the former AL Cy Young winner: "It was a huge pickup for this team. I would have given up the whole farm system for him."

Santana's a great pitcher and all, but if Pelfrey doesn't become a general manager when his playing days are finished, you'll know why.

Likes: The father and son (who was perhaps 10) playing catch in the parking lot at Tradition Field in Port St. Lucie when I pulled in early Saturday morning. ... Chien-Ming Wang losing his arbitration case the other day and being awarded a $4 million salary instead of his requested $4.6 million. Sorry, Mr. Wang, no malice, but $4 million is still a nice raise over the $489,500 you earned last year. ... This sign on the dugout fence of one of the Mets' practice fields: "No seeds, No tobacco, No gum." Gee, no wonder they couldn't hang on and win last year if that's how they prepare for the season. ... The New York Post's Mike Vaccarro, one of the good guys in the business, is working on a follow-up to his 2006 book Emperors and Idiots, about the history of the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry. His latest work is a book on the 1912 World Series between the Red Sox and the New York Giants. 1912, huh, I asked him. "My goal is to never write a book again where I have to talk to somebody," Vaccarro quipped. "You can't libel the dead."

Dislikes: The Mets' black warmup tops. Ugh. ...

Sunblock day? Most definitely. Hot sun, temperatures up to 82, 83 degrees Saturday on the eastern side of Florida. Outstanding.

Rock-n-Roll lyric of the day:

"I ain't got much sense

"But I still got my feet"

-- Bruce Springsteen, Girls in Their Summer Clothes