Fredi Gonzalez the team manager of the Marlins announced recently that in the Florida line up, Hanley Ramirez is chosen to bat first, as he has shown his ability to handle his lead off spot position. Team manager feels that there is no need to drop Ramirez to the middle order of batting. Ramirez is one of the capable hitters in the team and has made a record score for Marlins by making 125 runs in the year 2007. Ramirez was given the No 3 position in batting for 39 matches last year but he made a very good hit of .297 including 6 homers.

Gonzalez is all prepared to give Hanley the leadoff position for this season and he added that he will think of changing Ramirez’s position if only they face some problem in their middle order batting. The Marlins played in the Grape Fruit League early this week without Ramirez. He is expected to reach Fort Lauderdale for the play against the Orioles. Hopefully, Ramirez, will leadoff the match against Mets at the Dolphin Stadium on March 31st. Most probably he will be the first batsman facing Johan Santana of New York Mets. If Cameron Maybin is given the first spot, then Ramirez will bat second or at the bottom order.

Pedro Martinez is pretty happy with the way the Mets have treated him and the 36 year old has been quoted saying that he intends to extend his contract with the Mets beyond the 2008 season, but will not take the lead for the same. He will be ready for the discussion only if the Mets think tank decides to dwell more into the topic. Martinez returned to the training on Tuesday after missing the Monday’s training session as he had to undergo a few medical tests in Miami. Martinez has said that he is ready for personal workout sessions and will be ready to play the exhibition match debut on March 6th. Martinez is fully aware that any discussions on extending the contract will take place only after he has proved his pitching prowess and is quite confident that his aging body will stand the test of time.

The Mets manager, Willlie Randolph, has said that the club expects Pedro Martinez to take regular turns once in five days and will be in total contrast to how he was used by them in the past two seasons. The Mets club has decided to play Martinez in games that are televised and the March 6th game, which he intends to play, will not be televised live.

When a coach was standing beside third base and got clocked in the head with a wayward ball, the baseball officials decided it was time to protect their players and coaches. The gentleman had a severe concussion and always wore full batting helmet everywhere after that incident. Mike Coolbaugh, a minor league coach was hit by a ball below his ear and fell over unconscious. He died a couple of hours later at the hospital.

Coaches have been told now that they are supposed to wear the full batting helmet used by the players at all times. Most already do have some form of protection they wear to stop these injuries from happening. There are plenty of safety issues and it just makes sense to wear a helmet most coaches agree. It is common sense to some, but others are not taking the new baseball rule to heart. They think it makes them look silly and cumbersome. Most, however, say it is a good rule and they will follow the rule. If it saves one person from being hurt, then it has done its job. Most take their lead after Coolbaugh was killed. Batted balls can sometimes go stray and at least with protective head gear, the coaches and players will be ready.

Coco Crisp the Centerfield of the Red Sox is unhappy over the positioning of Jacoby Ellsbury as the Starting center fielder in the post season. Crisp feel that, he won’t get back his position as the center field and will have to talk with Boston Red Sox about his trading. Crisp announced that he is not willing to sit at the bench because he wants to play. Crisp, who is 28 years of age, started 145 games and played well as a defender last year. But during his second season with Red Sox he batted .268 only.

Ellisbury has done well with his entry in to Red Sox in September last year; he has played 26 games with an average of .353 at the end of the season. And he is only of 24 years of age. He became the starter of Red Sox in the 6th game of AL champion ship series and was able to make average .375 with the remaining six matches. He was a part of the winning team of the World Series against Colorado and had won two matches against Cleveland. As both these players are very good, Red Sox may want them together in their team so that they can have outstanding defensive replacement at any point of the match.

Andy Pettitte the pitcher of the New York Yankees made an apology on 18th February to the team mates and to his fans for causing embarrassment to them. However he denied that he is a cheater and said that he took the HGH as part of the treatment of his sore elbow. Yankees has signed him for a $16million contract and after his controversy gave permission to appear late for the spring training. Though Andy has considered not playing this year the team coach, players and management wants him to put the spikes and gloves on .Posada is of opinion that getting back to the game will only do Pettitte good and all the team members are going to support him.

Joe Giardi, the manager of the Yankees said that the team members has attended the news conference of Pettitte own their own interest and they wanted to show that all the Yankees are together like a family. Brian Cashman the general manager appreciated Andy for admitting his mistake. Pettite in his news conference made clear that he has never used human growth hormone to improve his play but was desperate to recover from the injuries and acted stupidly without knowing the consequences.

Yankees started the spring work out under the supervision of the new manager Joe-Giardi. He watched how his pitchers are performing in the bullpen and saw some of the hitters of the team doing the batting practice. A satisfied Giardi later said that the team was everything that he thought it would be and the players were great during the workout. Prior to the workout Giardi had a meeting with his staff and players for one hour and Giardi wanted the team members to stay fit and healthy if they wanted to be a part of the successful team. He asked the young players to slowly increase the arm strength so that they can impress people.

Jorge Posada one of the Yankee’s famous players who started his Career under the watchful eyes of Giardi is of opinion that he is very able and can surely energize the team. Posada added that the team will find it difficult as they are not familiar with the critical attitude of Giardi. Giardi is planning to have a batting practice session before the regular season as the team has not done it for several past years. Players believe that with the strong decisions and perfect strategies Giardi will make the team excel in their coming season.

The New York Yankees start the spring training with something new — a new manager.  Hank Steinbrenner takes on the management role that their father had left.  The last time the team won the World Series was in 2000, so this season they are filled with the drive to snatch the championship from the Red Sox.

From being the Yankees’ senior vice president, Hank Steinbrenner has risen to become baseball operations overseer while his father stepped down to the role of consigliere.  Steinbrenner approved Brian Cashman’s choice of having Girardi over Don Mattingly in exchange for Torre.  He also took back Alex Rodriguez even though Rodriguez had decided to get out of his contract.  Steinbrenner also kept from trading top talent for Johan Santana, as advised by Cashman.  Now the Yankees fans are yet to see whether Steinbrenner will become a visible figure like his father or he will enjoy a more silent role.

Yankees fans are also setting their eyes on Girardi and watching to see if he will take a different direction than Torre, who served as a father figure to many of his players.  Cashman admits he has a difficult time predicting what it would be like to have Girardi against Torre.  Girardi is making is opening address on Wednesday.  The pitchers and catchers will report the next day and workouts will begin on Friday.  Next week, the position players will join the workouts.

The New York Yankees are going to experience a totally different Spring Training Season this year under the guidance of their new manager Joe Giardi who is very eager in bringing back the 27th World Series title that has been eluding them for sometime now. Giardi is very keen in setting up a whirlwind change in the existing organizational set up and wants to make his impression felt in the organization’s future. The vigorous training session for the Yankees is to start next week and the manger has selected uniform No 27 as his campaign shirt as he wants the players to realize the importance of playing very well in order to achieve the World Series title.  Joe Giardi is said to be a hard task master and the abundance of energy in this 43 year old man will be reflected in the training sessions that he will conduct for the pitchers and catchers. There will be a lot of workload for the players in the coming days and the star performers of the Yankees team like Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy, Joba Chamberlain etc are all looking forward to the training season with the former back stopper of the Big League.

Andy Pettitte has admitted that he has doped (using Human growth hormone HGH) twice while he was recovering from injury in 2002. In his clarification, he admitted that he had used HGH because he was on the disable list and he thought he is obliged for his team and wanted to go back to his team as soon as possible to offer his required services. He has heard that HGH will help a quick recovery of his elbow injury. Initially I thought its not against the rules but I stopped it as soon as I realized; but he has used drugs on other occasions as ‘wrong, hurtful and nonsense’. Yankees have also issued a statement that they support his coming forward. Andy Pettite, 34, has started of his career as a pitcher with Yankees and has enjoyed success. He has pitched for the Yankees since 1995 to 2003 and he spend three seasons with his hometown Houston Astros, but he has recently signed up the new one-year contract with Yankees. He is a winner of his league for seven time for the best Pitcher and has issued a declaration through his lawyer in which he strongly denied the accusations that he used performance-enhancing drugs.

Earlier reports have said that Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling may lose his career if he undergoes surgery on his throwing shoulder. He has had a disagreement with the Sox as to whether he should go through with surgery or opt for something less severe.

According to him, their disagreements stemmed from the Red Sox’s desire to adopt a solution for his shoulder injury that would still give him a chance to pitch as much as possible this season. In his blog, Schilling writes that he has decided to follow the suggestion of his team to rest and undergo rehab for his shoulder and not push through with the surgery.

Schilling had previously signed an $8 million contract including $5 million worth of performance bonuses with the Sox. But according to him, he passed all physical exams before the contract was negotiated. Officials from the Red Sox have not given any comment regarding the issue except for a statement on Thursday night that confirmed Schilling’s shoulder injury. Now that Schilling will be gone for a long time, the team will bank on Daisuke Matsuzaka, Josh Beckett, Clay Buchholz, Time Wakefield, and Jon Lester. The team will not be applying the six-man rotation for this season.