After all the talk about baseball’s Mitchell report, it’s time for Mitchell to report.
Mitch Talbot is all set to get in his car this week and make the 36-hour drive from Cedar City, Utah, to St. Petersburg, Fla., for spring training with the Tampa Bay Rays.
Just like everyone else, the 24-year-old pitching prospect followed all the steroid news during the offseason. But starting Wednesday, when camps begin to open in Florida and Arizona, attention will turn back to the field following months of sour headlines.
“I don’t think it’s going to hurt. I think they’re still excited for baseball,” said Talbot, who started last season with six no-hit innings for Triple-A Durham.
Johan Santana, Dontrelle Willis, Dan Haren and Erik Bedard will be with new teams following big trades. When position players show up, Miguel Cabrera, Miguel Tejada, Torii Hunter and Andruw Jones will put on different uniforms.
All those fans in cold-weather cities await those magical words, “pitchers and catchers,” and the sounds of fastballs popping into mitts and balls cracking off bats.
New York Mets manager Willie Randolph, still smarting from September’s epic collapse, gushed when he thought about Santana, who will brighten a camp in Port St. Lucie, Fla.
“When they announced that we got him, everybody kind of congratulated me like I just had a baby or something,” Randolph said.
Acquired by Detroit at the winter meetings along with Cabrera, the excitable Willis beamed when the Tigers gave him a $29 million, three-year contract.
“I’m so amped up about being here and knowing I’m going to stay here,” he said. “It’s mind-blowing to know I’m going to play for years to come for a team that had guys like Ty Cobb and Al Kaline.”
Hunter will be with the Los Angeles Angels after agreeing to a $90 million, five-year contract, and Jones will be with the Los Angeles Dodgers, starting their final spring training at Vero Beach, Fla., where they’ve trained since 1948.
More on Clemens case.
A lawyer for Roger Clemens said Saturday the pitcher can prove he didn’t attend a June 1998 party at Jose Canseco’s home described by Brian McNamee in the Mitchell report.
According to McNamee, Clemens first raised the subject of steroids not long after McNamee saw Canseco and Clemens meeting during the party.
Clemens’ side has turned over evidence to congressional investigators, including an affidavit from Canseco, to support that the pitcher wasn’t present at Canseco’s home that day, the attorney, Rusty Hardin, told The Associated Press.
