Miller: Clubhouse confidential (2024)

• You see the St. Patrick's Day green caps in Dodgertown and in Red Sox camp long before March 17th comes around. But if you think players are focusing on that, or on getting ready for their ever-nearing season opener, you're wrong. They're no different from most of you ... consumed with their brackets. So many baseball players have pools going on during the NCAA Tournament, they have a hard time remembering what teams they have.

Even though it turned out having Kansas or UConn or Syracuse was a bad thing, most of the guys who pulled a team out of a hat pool bemoaned a Delaware State or Bucknell draw. One of the more popular pools at big-league camps keeps things interesting no matter which team you draw. It's called the cover pool, and in this one, if a team you draw doesn't cover the point spread against a teammate's club that day, he gets your team and moves on.

Kirk Rueter has been running one of the myriad pools for the Giants over the last several years, which only raises suspicions in the clubhouse about his uncanny success rate. Rueter was the unwitting victim of a shaving cream pie from Jason Schmidt last week, a practice unheard of on a fellow veteran, but Schmidt has a shifty reputation to uphold.

Although Rueter takes it, and jokes about his nickname, "Woody," coming from a puppet in "Toy Story," good-naturedly, there's something coming into 2005 that he's angry and embarrassed about. Last season, Rueter suffered through his first losing campaign since being traded from Montreal in 1996, and it was only the second time that has ever happened in his professional career. The downstate Illinois native says that will drive him all the more this season. With how close the Giants came to making the playoffs last year, Rueter took his 9-12 record particularly hard, and felt some personal responsibility for his team's disappointing finish.

When Rueter starts, the Giants bullpen knows it might need to be ready to enter games early, but even in spring training, when manager Felipe Alou or pitching coach Dave Righetti will often say before a broadcast which pitchers will be used and in what order, the pitchers themselves claim not to have a clue. Standing in the outfield with Scott Eyre and Jason Christiansen before one game, they weren't sure when they'd throw or for how long, but they knew they'd be used or they wouldn't have had to make the trip from their home base in Scottsdale. Most of the conversation was about the nightmares of flying commercial (a rarity for major-leaguers), the joys of in-flight DirecTV on some of the discount airlines, and whether the cold relief and germ protection phenomenon while on an airplane actually works.

• One thing the players don't get to enjoy on these spring training road trips is the atmosphere at the park. The Mariners' facility in Peoria, Ariz., one they share with the Padres, has quickly become one of the best of all the camps, regularly drawing crowds of more than 10,000 when Seattle plays. There's an area that circles the entire outfield where fans can pull up a blanket, and just behind that are huge barbecue pits that churn out fresh double burgers, barbecued beef and foot-long hot dogs. Fried Twinkies and Oreos are a big part of the grandstands' allure, and add to the aroma and appeal of the Peoria Sports Complex.

Most of the talk in Mariners camp this spring has been about new manager Mike Hargrove and the signings of Adrian Beltre and Washington native Richie Sexson. Beltre has had a very productive spring, while Sexson struggled through an 0-for-17 start, but has steadily progressed since. New hitting coach Don Baylor says he hasn't seen any signs that Sexson is favoring his surgically repaired right shoulder or altering his swing in any way. But he acknowledges it has to be somewhat in the first baseman's head. When asked whether he bothered to talk with the two new sluggers about how tough it might be to put up big power numbers in Safeco Field, Baylor said, "They've got enough to think about down here; they can deal with that when they get there." A huge advantage he sees for both hitters is that much of their power is to the right-center power alley, the most generous alley at Safeco.

Of course, the camps were consumed with what would happen in front of Congress at the steroids hearings last Thursday. When asked whether he'd be concerned about anything the politicians might ask Jose Canseco, or whether his name might come up, Bret Boone said that he'd deal with it if it did but that he'd held his one, all-encompassing news conference on the subject when he got to camp and wasn't going to give it any more attention. Instead, he suffered the indignity of walking off the field with Sexson when they came out of the game in the seventh inning and having Rick Sutcliffe say on the broadcast, "It's really nice that the Mariners are having a father-son day here," noticing about a foot difference in their respective heights.

• Jeremy Giambi faced similar questioning when he finally found a job and reported to the White Sox minor league camp last week. After his steroids conversation with the Kansas City Star made national news, the younger Giambi brother went back to avoiding the topic. It was hard to find Giambi on the backfields at the White Sox camp in Tucson, where he still wasn't sure who his manager would be and was just grateful to have a professional uniform on again.

Giambi's agent, Arn Tellem, whose friendship with owner Jerry Reinsdorf helped him get another shot, thinks he's likely to start the season in Double-A if he hits well enough to warrant a job. If Giambi ever makes it up to the White Sox's Triple-A team in Charlotte, his hitting coach will be Manny Trillo, who still has jet-black hair and looks as though he could still pick it in his old Cubs or Phillies pinstripes.

• There aren't many jobs open in the White Sox camp, least of all in the rotation. In the wake of last year's disastrous 5-16 record, with a 9.66 ERA production from its fifth starters, Chicago signed Orlando Hernandez to go along with in-season acquisitions Jose Contreras and Freddy Garcia, sliding John Garland to the fifth spot in a rotation headed by Mark Buehrle.

Despite the phenomenon of 21-year-old polished and poised rookie Brandon McCarthy, White Sox general manager Kenny Williams saw no way for him to come north with the team, even after having four straight scoreless outings. Asked if there's any scenario under which McCarthy could make the Opening Day roster, Williams said, "Something very bad would have to happen," alluding to the contracts of his five veteran starters. Something kind of bad happened Sunday, when Buehrle injured his left foot while shagging balls in the outfield, but it was later learned that he will only miss one spring start.

While McCarthy has been forcing Williams to contemplate unexpected abundance problems, the first major cuts of camp started coming last week, and Williams joked, "Yesterday I was the most popular guy in camp, everyone's buddy. Today, they see me coming and run the other way or avoid eye contact."

• With Ozzie Guillen running the White Sox dugout, he wanted more players in his own image -- and wanted to have more ways to score without just relying on the long ball. And with the current club they have put together, the White Sox are placing tremendous pressure on Scott Podsednik, who had a low .313 on-base percentage last season while playing for the Brewers. But in 2003, Podsednik was nearly voted the NL's top rookie as he batted .314 with a .379 OBP.

The White Sox expect something in between those production levels from Podsednik, and in Williams' and Guillen's minds, even an on-base percentage in the low .300s for the now-left fielder, with his stolen-base ability, should mean far more RBI opportunities for the middle of the order. As Williams put it, Podsednik's job is to "annoy" the opposing pitcher.

Another key addition for the Sox is catcher A.J. Pierzynski. In the recent past, he seems to have annoyed more of his teammates and management than the opposition, but he's a productive left-handed offensive presence, and decent defensive catcher, who isn't afraid to be a clubhouse spokesman. He also adds another element of intrigue to the White Sox rivalry with his original team, the Twins. The increasingly bitter rivals will play during the opening weekend at the Metrodome. Pierzynski gives Chicago's South Siders arguably their best all-around catcher since Carlton Fisk.

• Freddy Garcia will get the start for the White Sox on Opening Day, and his performance this season, along with the addition of Pierzynski, will go a long way toward lessening the pain of watching the players Garcia was traded for produce in Seattle.

Miguel Oliva will help shore up a weak and aging catcher position for the Mariners. And center fielder Jeremy Reed has a chance to follow in new teammate Ichiro's cleats as a potential American League Rookie of the Year candidate. Reed has never hit below .300 at any level in the minor leagues, and in an 18-game call-up to Seattle last September, he nearly hit .400 (.397, to be exact). He's a product of the baseball factory at Long Beach State -- remarkably, the "Dirtbags" were the only Division I college to offer Reed a scholarship. He went on to room there with last year's rookie of the year, Bobby Crosby.

Asked why the man who has been assured of being Seattle's Opening Day center fielder would still be sporting No. 58 on his uniform this late in spring training, Reed said, "That's the one they gave me when I got here." He'd prefer to have No. 8, which he wore with the U.S. national team, but Oliva has that number. Reed is also fond of the No. 20 since he batted .400 wearing that number for the White Sox's Double-A team (Birmingham), but that number is also taken, by reliever J.J. Putz.

So, he'll probably start the season with No. 7, which he had in high school. That number has been a good luck charm for some American League center fielders in the past. Mickey Mantle didn't win the rookie of the year award, and actually got sent down his first season with the Yankees in 1951. But he came back that July, changed to No. 7, and batted .361 the rest of the year, on his way to winning a World Series as a teenager and having a Hall of Fame career.

Gary Miller is a reporter and play-by-play announcer for ESPN's major league baseball coverage.