D-Train won't crash

Willis remains one of the bright young lights in the game. He's handled everything that's come his way about as well as anyone, and that includes the one blip on his resume, his DWI this winter. "I never want to do anything to bring negativity to the city, to the organization or to my family,'' Willis said. "It's a learning experience. Sometimes different things have to happen to different people in order for them to get grounded. And maybe that was something that needed to happen to me to get back to what I needed to focus on -- and that's my family and baseball.''

	A Todd Helton-for-Manny Ramirez swap would be complicated, since both players have 10-5 rights for vetoing trades. AP
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Willis's response to the negativity was so positive, it almost sounded too good, like it was scripted. But Beinfest said, "With Dontrelle, what you see is what you get.''

Around the Majors

• While Adam Wainwright is expected to make an easy transition to the rotation, Cardinals pitching coach/magician Dave Duncan will really earn his salary (now tied for the highest-paid pitching coach at $500,000 with the Orioles' Leo Mazzone), if he can turn Braden Looper and Brad Thompson into starters, as well.

• If not, it would seem a natural to make a trade with the Phillies: relievers for Jon Lieber.

• Regarding new Cub Cliff Floyd's recent claim that Willie Randolph was "confused" when he decided to let Floyd pinch hit rather than bunt against the Cardinals in Game 7 of the NLCS, one Mets executive complained that Floyd wasn't even on the side of the dugout to hear Randolph's conversation with his coaches. While no one denied Floyd's story that bench coach Jerry Manuel talked Randolph out of bunting, it seemed a little strange that Floyd would out the two men for mistakenly placing faith in him.

• Rick Ankiel, the former pitching phenom who lost the strike zone, is back in Cardinals camp after missing last year with a knee injury suffered last spring training; and he's trying to make the team as a spare outfielder. And with Jim Edmonds sidelined after right shoulder and toe surgery, Ankiel will see decent time this spring. Ankiel has sworn off pitching for good, and says, "Now it's fun and exciting to come to the park every day. I look forward to coming here.''

• Even if the Todd Helton-for-Manny Ramirez trade talks never get resurrected -- as I speculated they may in the last column if Ramirez continues to make goofy choices (like wanting to skip training camp to attend an auto auction) --several baseball people do think the Rockies may still talk to the Red Sox about Helton, who's believed to want to go to Boston. Helton has a carefully cultivated image in Colorado, but several folks believe he'd prefer to be with the Red Sox, if the teams can arrange it.

• Hard to believe dept: Olmedo Saenz is the longest-tenured Dodger. The pinch hitter is heading into his fourth season with the team that's long on youth and turnover.

• Wouldn't you know it, but the first pitcher Gary Sheffield faced in Tigers spring camp was Kenny Rogers, the very pitcher Joe Torre benched Sheffield against in the AL Division Series.

• Tigers outfielder Craig Monroe's cousin, Nathan Vasher, is a defensive back with the Chicago Bears, meaning they played (and lost) the big one. Vasher is also memorable as the player who said he wanted to marry Oprah Winfrey, even though he doesn't know her.

• Recommended reading: Tyler Kepner's story in the New York Times of Colter Bean, the 30-year-old Yankees reliever who hasn't been given much of a chance (three major league games) despite superb lifetime stats. It's Bean's body (he's large and lumpy) and apparently his body language (Torre took him out in the middle of an at-bat, citing such, and he hasn't been heard from since, at least not as far as the majors are concerned) that's cost him with the Yankees. It would be nice to see them let him go elsewhere, so he can have a chance.

• Get-well wishes go to Bo Black, the wife of Orioles bench coach Tom Trebelhorn, the former Cubs and Brewers manager. As the high-profile woman who ran Milwaukee's well-known Summerfest and once was a Playboy cover subject (with clothes), the glamorous Black is a major celebrity in Milwaukee. Trebelhorn was expected to be in camp Saturday but stayed back in Scottsdale, Ariz., to be with his wife, who was said to have shown some improvement after recently suffering a stroke and brain aneurysm.