1. One change the Yankees made this offseason was in a title and it was a wise change. Last year, GM Brian Cashman hired a fellow named Marty Miller with a limited baseball background to run the strength and conditioning for the big-league team. Cashman bestowed the unfortunate title on Miller of Director of Performance Enhancement. In this era, you don’t exactly want to tie the term performance enhancement to your organization.
Miller’s reign was short and dreadful. Yankee players did not particularly like him or his training methods, and the roster was swept by an epidemic of hamstring injuries. Miller was fired on May 2. He was replaced by his assistant Dana Cavalea. All indications are that the players, in general, like Cavalea more, and Alex Rodriguez, in particular, was very positive about Cavalea.
This season Cavalea is back in charge and the Yanks have made his title strength and conditioning coordinator.
2. There were two advanced words about LaTroy Hawkins: He is a terrific teammate and is always in great shape. And so far, the advanced word is accurate. He has mixed easily into a new clubhouse with an ever-present smile. And under an intense sun around noon yesterday, Yankee pitchers ran from pole to pole on a back field 10 times. The distance is about 200 yards. And though he is 35, Hawkins looked better in this conditioning drill than just about anybody else.
3. More than anything, this time of year is about hope. Players are, generally, in a good state of body and mind. It is easy to see the rosiest projections for everyone and ignore your memory bank that a lot is going to go wrong between now and even just Opening Day. I noticed, for example, that Astros manager Cecil Cooper was praising his “pitching depth.” He doesn’t have pitching depth. He has Roy Oswalt and enough garbage to stock a landfill. But forgive poor Cecil. If you are not going to be enthusiastic at this time of year, well, you just are never going to be enthusiastic.