It's snowing in Boston. I say this with a wry smile--surely this is some kind of karmic payback for the unbelievably beautiful time I have just spent in Florida, weeks on end of sun and baseball. Well, actually, as we drove to the airport on Monday evening, the rains came down, and I hear that the next day's games were mostly rained out as well. Does it soften the blow that here I am in the frozen north? Not at all. But I have quite a store of memories to sustain me from the spring.

For those of you new to my adventures, here's the quick recap. I began writing professionally when I was still in high school; now I'm in my thirties and make my living from freelance writing. A few years ago I started writing about one of my main passions in life, baseball, and have since written for Yankees Magazine, the Yankees' old web site, and various other places. More recently I signed a contract with John Wiley & Sons to write a book about the "Fifty Greatest Yankee Games" of all time, and I have spent the winter researching, reading microfilm, and tracking down former players.

But when it comes to the Yankees, the best time and place to catch up with the old-timers is spring training. So after spending part of February driving around Florida and catching up with the likes of Elliott Maddox, Bert Campaneris, and Jim Kaat, I eventually settled at Legends Field, an appropriate name for a place where the likes of Yogi Berra, Ron Guidry, and Reggie Jackson return like swallows to Capistrano every spring. There I joined the herd of writers following the Yankees. Unlike most of them, whose primary concern was the day to day news of the team, my main goal was to talk to coaches and former Yankees about the great games of the past. But I couldn't help but get swept up in the excitement about A-rod, the fun of the clubhouse.

There was so much that I saw, experienced, and heard which will never be a part of the book, but which I know fans would enjoy hearing about. What fan wouldn't want to be a fly on the wall of the Yankees clubhouse, where Mickey Rivers pranks the players (and writers) daily (calling their names from around corners or behind people), or the batting cages while Don Mattingly deconstructs Tony Clark's swing and Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter talk trash about each other's college basketball picks while they wait to hit?

So here are some of the recollections I have of my time in Yankees camp. Transcripts of many of the interviews I did are readable online at the "Fifty Greatest" forum but here are the tidbits and tales that I amused my parents with every night when I came home from camp.

A-ROD WATCH

What seems like a million years ago, the Mets were worried that A-rod would have made them a "24+1" team, one star with 24 supporting cast members. Who knows? On the Mets that may have been true. Not so with the Yankees. The "best player in the game" knows he doesn't yet hold a candle to Yogi Berra and Reggie Jackson, and he has in some ways acted like a rookie all over again. Thomas Boswell, the famed baseball writer for the Washington Post, asked him, if spring training is usually like college, is this more like graduate school? A-rod just laughed.

The team is treating him like a rookie, too, complete with pranks and hazing. Each day, the workout schedule is posted in the clubhouse, stating which groups are to hit, field, and throw, when and where. On the first day of full squad workouts, the final exercise was "position players run the bases." The drill seems pointless--more or less just a quick jog around the basepaths--almost more ceremonial than calisthenic, as Torre said a few words of encouragement to the group as a whole and then let them run. On the second day, the exercise was to repeat. So as the writers gathered in the dugout, waiting for Torre's daily report, and the photographers began packing up their stuff for the day, Torre assembled the players at home plate for the drill. "Shortstops first," he said, forgetting for the moment about the position change, "A-rod, you get us going." Alex stepped to the front of the line and took off for first at a sprint. The rest of the team, Torre included, walked directly to the dugout, chuckling to themselves. A-rod got about fifteen yards before realizing something was amiss, looking behind him, and breaking out laughing.

A few weeks later, and he seems by all accounts to be fitting in comfortably with his new team. The "will Jeter and A-rod get along?" soap opera speculations have died down for exactly one reason--they seem to genuinely be getting along, perhaps even downright liking each other's company. Not only that, but Jeter's dad is friendly with A-rod's surrogate father (his biological father walked out on the family when Alex was a child). They sat together chatting in the stands during workouts one day when both were visiting.

Reggie Jackson has been paying particular attention to A-rod this spring. One morning I had the pleasure of listening to Mr. October analyze and break down A-rod's swing versus Jeter's swing in the batting cage. This is one thing that Jeter and Rodriguez have in common--the burning desire to constantly improve. Reggie also had some batting cage philosophy for them. "Don't worry about hitting the ball in here. The pitch is always going to be in the same place. The ball will take care of itself so take your mind off of it. Put you mind in your hands, or put your mind in your shoulder, wherever you're trying to work. You will still hit the ball, it'll take care of itself." Zen and the art of baseball. Later, Reggie approached Alex in the clubhouse as he spoke to reporters. A-rod was wearing an orange shirt and blue warmup pants with a thin orange piping on the seam. "What is this, orange?" Reggie said, plucking at the shirt. "Are you rooting for Syracuse or something? This is the Yankees, man." Then pointing to his own shirt. "Yankees: blue. Yankees: gray." (Later, of course, Reggie changed into a yellow polo shirt and khaki pants.)

Reggie had some choice words for Derek Jeter that day as well. "What happened to you last night?" Apparently, Reggie had called wanting to know if Jeter had plans for dinner. "Are you kidding?" Jeter replied. "You didn't even call until 7:30 at night. I'm in bed by like nine. I didn't even make it through American Idol." That schedule will change once night games come into play, but in the early spring, Jeter is one of the first ones there every morning, taking extra BP in the cage.

DONNIE BASEBALL

The hardest working man in the Yankees' camp is without doubt Don Mattingly. Most mornings he can be found in the batting cage as early as 7:45 am. One morning I arrived so early the press box was not even open yet, so I went down to the cage to watch Mattingly break down Tony Clark's swing.

Clark, as the tallest position player in the major leagues (6'7"), has such long arms that when he swings the bat, he hits the netting above him in the batting cage. A few days earlier he had even whacked the top of the field cage they use for live BP. All the guys around the cage were joking about it, and pretending to try to drag the whole cage over a few feet to give him more clearance. Torre even got down off the Torre Tower as part of the joke. But Tony is quite serious in the cage this morning. He has not only a long swing, it is a complicated one, and being a switch-hitter, he has to work on both sides. As the pitch comes in, Tony's front foot steps back, he rocks onto it and then onto his back foot again, and then steps forward again. In essence, he does a little cha-cha in the batter's box on every pitch. "The last step's the softest, the last step's the softest" intones Mattingly as he soft-tossed underhand from behind the protective screen. "Hit it right back at me, right back at my face." When he sees something he likes, he says "Good." When he sees something he really likes, he says "Attababy." Eventually Clark gets mostly "attababy"s out of him, after Don switches to "the last step's the slowest," demonstrating by imitating Tony's cha-cha, two quick steps and then a soft, slow stride forward. Two days later Clark hit two home runs in an exhibition game against Boston.

Tony also had two hits in a game against the Braves in Orlando, then struck out in his third at bat. But I was there watching them work in the cage the next day and it was Mattingly's opinion that the third at bat was the best. "You did everything you wanted to do. You stayed back, you met the ball in the right place." It was a ten pitch at bat, Tony had worked the count full, but eventually lost the battle. His chances to make the club are not super, with Travis Lee in camp and Giambi's knee healed, but no matter what happens, he will probably leave Tampa a better hitter than when he arrived.

Mattingly's typical day includes early work in the cage, then regular team fielding drills and outdoor BP, then sometimes more work in the cage with rehab projects like Bernie Williams (who had his appendix removed at the end of February) before the game. And then in the game, watching every at bat so he can advise the guys on it later. This made him the most difficult guy to interview in the entire camp because he never had more than five minutes at a time free--when I finally did talk to him it was while he snarfed down a sandwich quickly prior to the first game at Legends Field. Anyone who knew what his work ethic was like as a player won't be surprised by this, I suppose.

CAMEO APPEARANCES

Call me a big geek if you want, but some of the people I've been most privileged to meet in the Yankees clubhouse haven't been players. The other night Marvin Hamlisch was there, shaking hands with the players and hobnobbing with Joe Torre. (FYI, for those of you reading this who only know sports: Hamlisch is the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer of A Chorus Line, and has won Oscars, Emmys, Grammys, and more for his work on Broadway musicals and film scores...)

And of course there have been visits by most of the baseball writers I admire, including Thomas Boswell (Why Time Begins On Opening Day, How Life Imitates the World Series, etc...), and Roger Angell (A Pitcher's Story, A Summer Game, etc...). I had a nice chat with Angell in which he said he hadn't been sure if he would make it to spring training this year or not. "I've been 'day to day' now for ten years," he said.

One thing that is certain in the life of a media person covering baseball--there is plenty of time to chat. There is an incredible amount of standing around waiting. Waiting for batting practice to end, for a player to come out of the shower, for Joe to give his daily report, for the clubhouse to open. In February when most of the writers had only been there a day or two, and a pack of about fifteen of us were standing around outside the clubhouse hoping to catch Steinbrenner on his way by, one of the young guys complained that his feet hurt. The AP photographer next to him, who was wearing Birkenstocks (and carrying 20 pounds of equipment) echoed the sentiment, saying that she wasn't in shape for the season yet. "Oh, so you get used to all this standing around?" he asked, brightening. "Oh yeah," she told him, and several other writers agreed. "Your feet and legs will adjust."

Standing around with us that day was Peter Gammons from ESPN. Later in the month I met Harold Reynolds and Tim Kurkjian as well--such nice guys, friendly, outgoing, and very easy to talk to. In some ways everyone associated with baseball is easy to talk to because there is always a limitless common subject matter to discuss. And with the amount of time to kill on the average spring training day, plenty of time to discuss it. Anything that didn't get covered while staking out the clubhouse or leaning on the dugout rail during BP can always be brought up during lunch or dinner in the cafeteria.

The dining room at Legends Field is not very large--seats about 35-40 people. It's a cafeteria-style place they call Max's Cafe, after the fellow who takes your five bucks at the door and monitors the sign-in sheet. You grab a tray, plasticware and dishes, and have your choice of a salad bar, soup, two hot entrees and two side dishes every day, as well as made-to-order sandwiches, burgers, and the like. The sign on the door posts which hours the media are to eat and when Yankees employees, but I often saw Brian Cashman, Jean Afterman, Stick Michael, and other Yankees personnel sharing tables with writers and media folks.

There's always that moment when you come out of line with your tray of food and look over the available seats at the tables which inevitably reminds me of junior high school. Who can I sit with? Who should I sit with? One day the only open seat was next to Buck Martinez, former manager of the Toronto Blue Jays and more recently a broadcaster for the Baltimore Orioles. We talked about the AL East and then about vacation spots in the Florida Keys. (You didn't think baseball was the ONLY topic of conversation, did you?)

SIGHTS UNSEEN

Cameras are not allowed into the clubhouse, for obvious reasons of privacy and propriety (it would only be a matter of time before "player-ass.com" came along), but I got to see some things I had only ever read about in the past. For example I had read that Derek Jeter has two lockers, one for his usual stuff and one for his fan mail, but to see the one stall piled high with Fedex envelopes and boxes and letters was pretty impressive.

I had also heard about Mike Mussina's crossword puzzle habit, but it was still neat to see Moose sitting by his corner locker, his back to the wall and his feet on a chair, with the daily paper folded on his knee. You know that look of intense concentration he gets on the mound? He doesn't get it when puzzling. He looks relaxed and happy.

One of his starts this spring was on a Sunday, and I saw him working on that day's puzzle, an extra large one. In pen. I first saw him working on it around 10:30 in the morning. Somewhat later (after drills, BP, etc...), around 12:15, he still hadn't finished it. By then Charlie Wonsowicz (a batting practice pitcher whose locker is very near Moose's) was the one filling in the blanks (saving Moose's arm for the game?) while they both pored over the clues. Joe Girardi came up behind the two of them, slapped Mussina on the shoulder and said "Hey nerd, how you doin'?" I didn't hear Moose's reply, but the next thing that happened was Joe hunkered down behind them and started looking at the clues, also. Girardi has an engineering degree from Northwestern (Mussina: economics Stanford). It didn't appear that they were going to finish before game-time, though, even with all three of them working on it. (Moose ended up walking the first batter he faced, then retired 12 in a row without giving up any hits. He was so efficient with his pitches that after he came out he remarked that it was "almost not enough work." He looks in midseason form on the mound, if not for puzzles.)

For those of you who have never taken a stadium tour or seen what the lockers look like, let me describe them to you. The old metal door high-school-hallway lockers are long gone. Each player has an open stall which is more like a small closet than a "locker." At the bottom is a small cabinet with a sliding door, above that the large cavity crossed by a hanger bar, topped by a cubby and the one part that actually locks, a small compartment with a latching door. Catchers have wider lockers than the other players because they have the most equipment. Hanging up in each player's locker is an assortment of uniform pieces, including multiple pairs of pants, some pinstripes, some gray, and jerseys, including home whites, blue BP, and so on, as well as an array of undershirts, each marked with a Sharpie with the player's number. In front of each locker stall is a chair.

In the morning, when the clubhouse opens, the clubhouse boys have prepared everything so that every player's hat and uniform top are hanging on a hook on the righthand side of each locker, NY facing out, all the chairs arranged at the same angle, suitable for a military inspection.

Unlike some clubhouses I've been in, the Yankees clubhouse at Legends Field does not smell like liniment. It smells like laundry detergent. Throughout the day, the players toss their sweaty, dirty, and grass-stained stuff into laundry bins, and the clubhouse boys cycle it through industrial size washing machines. I noticed one of the boys as he sorted through a bin pre-treating the pants with dirt stains and grass marks with something blue that looked like Windex. I never did get to ask him if it actually was Windex, or a specific stain remover.

You also see the guys wear a lot of stuff around the clubhouse that they only wear in there and the weight room, not in public. Enrique Wilson's favorite shirt is a "Dragonball Z" shirt with the sleeves cut off. I saw him wearing it pretty much every time I saw him. Then again, he hit safely in every game he played this spring, so maybe he's superstitious about it.

Jason Giambi has the niftiest skivvies of anyone. I would have hesitated to mention this because, after all, how can any self-respecting female writer reveal that she notices men's underwear in the clubhouse? Two reasons. One, Giambi is hard to miss. Most of the guys are wearing what look like team-issued stuff. Under a baseball uniform you can't wear any old jockey shorts or you will end up with them bunched up in your ass every time you slide, so they have various other styles of undergarments, including sliding pants (padded), and sanitaries (kind of like long johns). White, gray, navy blue--chaste and boring. Giambi, on the other hand, wears Toolshed brand sport undergarments like the ones worn by motocross racers under their crash suits. Among the things that makes the Toolshed stuff stand out is the incredibly bright-colored waistbands in Oriental patterns. And the fact that Jason often wanders around the clubhouse with the waistband showing. The other reason I think it's okay to reveal what Giambi wears--here's a photo of him from the Toolshed website wearing the digs.

In fact, here's a sample of the waistband patterns that caught my eye: http://www.toolshed-usa.com/images/products/bands.gif

Giambi is just one of the athletes listed on the site as a Toolshed user (Mariano Rivera and Roger Clemens are also listed!) but he is one of the few with a profile and photo gallery on the site. Hmm, these may be some of the best images I've seen of G's tattoos, which are pretty much completely hidden by his regular baseball uniform. Check it out at http://www.toolshed-usa.com/users/athletes/profiles/jason_giambi.html

To quote from the Toolshed USA site: "Using the latest in Alpha-X fabric technology, TOOLshed Undergarb is engineered to meet the highest demands of professional athletes and active consumers, regardless of their sport. We have designed this system for comfort, support, and supreme moisture management." To me "Supreme Moisture Management" sounds like either a euphemism or a good name for a band... but I have to say I prefer this endorsement to Giambi's painfully corny (and perhaps now ironic) underarm deodorant tv commercials where he says he uses Arm & Hammer's UltraMax for "a little extra muscle."

Actually a quick look at the website shows a more recent version of the commercial, where the tagline is now "Its all the muscle a man needs." (See it at http://www.ahultramax.com/offers/tv.asp) Given the way Giambi's name has been, unfairly or not, linked to the looming BALCO performance-enhancing drugs scandal, this is... interesting. And even without the perhaps unintended underlying message, the commercial is still cornier than Iowa.

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

Every day the coaching staff posts a schedule of what workouts will take place when, who hits in which group, when to stretch, field, and throw. They also post if there is a traveling squad for the following day by putting up a roster list and circling the names of the players who are supposed to go on the trip. A classic clubhouse prank is to circle the names of players who are not slated to go, so when Mariano Rivera, who almost never goes on the road in the spring, saw his name circled to make the trip to Boston, he wondered about it. But Mel Stottlemyre, knowing the circle might be questioned, also initialed it "MS." Mariano joked about it, telling reporters who asked if he even had road gray pants that he did but that after the game he was going to burn them.

Another pitcher who got a shock was Steve Karsay, who saw his name circled for a trip to Dunedin. He did a double take and blanched a bit. "What's that all about?" he asked one of the writers standing there. "I don't know," the writer said, "shouldn't we be asking you that?" Karsay is still in rehab and is on the 60 day D.L. Turns out Mel wanted to be able to watch Karsay throw on the side, but with a split squad that day, half the team to Dunedin to face the Blue Jays, and half to Fort Myers to play the Twins, they'd have to do it in Dunedin.

A few days later Torre stopped Karsay in the hall on his way from the trainer's room. "How do you feel?"

"Great, I feel really good," Karsay replied.

"Well, you look terrible." Joe broke into a grin and Karsay realized he was having his leg pulled.

FLY COACH

The coaches have their own locker room and it is pretty well-populated. This year Torre's entire staff consists of former Yankees: Mel Stottlemyre of course, Rich Monteleone in the bullpen, Mattingly for hitting, Roy White at first, Luis Sojo at third, and Willie Randolph on the bench. Several of the minor league managers are there as well, Bucky Dent (Columbus), Stump Merrill (Trenton), Tommy John (Staten Island), plus you have the guys who are just there for the spring or parts thereof, Yogi Berra, Ron Guidry, Doc Gooden, Mickey Rivers, Graig Nettles, Reggie Jackson, Paul O'Neill... the list goes on.

A lot of the staff and coaches stay at a nearby hotel and carpool together. One afternoon I was waiting around for an interview and Ron Guidry was loitering around in the hallway as well. "So, why are you hanging around?" I asked, since he was obviously dressed to go, in a nice Hawaiian shirt and dress shoes. "Oh I'm 'Driving Miss Yogi,'" he replied. "I'm going to get myself a little visor and some white gloves..."

WAIT 'TIL NEXT YEAR?

After so many weeks, the players and staff eventually get used to seeing your face, and its a friendly atmosphere to begin with. People, even players, say hello to you--hey, how's it going today--sometimes you chat a little. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't kind of neat to have Reggie Jackson ask me how I was every day. When it came to current players, I mostly didn't approach them since I didn't have a professional reason to--the book is mostly historical--but sometimes they would talk to me. I talked about Miracle (the 1980 Olympic hockey movie) with Moose, the Miami Hurricanes (University of Miami) with Alex Rodriguez, general nonsense with Bernie Williams.

One guy who said hello every single day was Mickey Rivers. Now, Mickey has always had a reputation as being as difficult to follow verbally as Casey Stengel. He reverses in the middle of sentences, mixes up words, and generally has his own way of expressing things. (It took me forever to transcribe his interview.) But when he said goodbye, after I told him I had to go back north and get some work done, he was very easy to understand. "See now when you come back next year, you won't be a rookie anymore. You'll come back a veteran and you'll know everybody."

I don't know if I will be back next year--since next spring's project will be Fifty Greatest Red Sox Games. I suppose at the least, I'll try to make it there for a few days--there are always some guys who have played for both clubs around... until then, it's time to close the scrapbook on Yankees spring training memories for another year.