Fiery Milledge reflects Nationals' untapped potential

Lastings Milledge, 22, struggled with the Mets but is looking for a fresh start with the Nationals after an offseason trade. AP

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This spring SI.com senior writer John Donovan is touring the Grapefruit and Cactus leagues to cover baseball's biggest newsmakers. Today he reports from Nationals camp in Viera, Fla. Next stop: Dodgertown in Vero Beach on Thursday.

VIERA, Fla. -- On one side of the Nationals' clubhouse here at Space Coast Stadium -- a clubhouse which, as clubhouses go, is way more Our Gang than Augusta National -- young Lastings Milledge, the one-time untouchable whom the Mets unloaded this winter, works on loosening up one of his cleats. On the other side is Odalis Perez, a man whom no team but the Nats wanted to touch this winter.

Along the one wall is the genial Dmitri Young, who last season went from a reject with a bad record to reborn and an All-Star. A few stools down to his right is second baseman Bret Boone, who hasn't played since 2005 after a now-public battle with alcoholism. A few stools down from him are a couple of catchers, Johnny Estrada and Paul Lo Duca, who have both seen better times in their careers.

The imposing Wily Mo Pena, all potential with little proof yet, is in the room. Elijah Dukes, just 23 and already looking for a fresh start, is floating around. There are scads of rookies and other young players, too, with names that few people outside of the room know yet, some laughing, some sitting at small tables devouring the lunchtime spread, some just looking exhausted from a morning workout in the Florida sun.

These, ladies and gentlemen, are the 2008 Nationals, one of the most motley collections of talent ever assembled this side of a Congressional committee. The key word to remember is talent, however, because there's plenty here in Viera.

The question, and the big challenge for Washington this season, is whether the guys in charge can tap both the untapped talent and the seemingly tapped out talent.

The kid

No one is getting more attention at this camp than the ever-confident Milledge. The other day he told a New York newspaper, in so many words, that he couldn't wait to kick the Mets' butt. Manager Manny Acta got on him a little for that on Monday.

But GM Jim Bowden, in typical Bowden fashion, laughed it off, offering Milledge a fist-bump and a playful tap on the belly after a round in the batting cage. Bowden proclaimed, for everyone around to hear, that he relishes the fact that Milledge wants to play well against his former team.

"A lot of veterans [on the Mets] didn't like the way I play the game. They thought I didn't respect it," Milledge says later in the clubhouse. "But the vets here have no problem with me. They know I respect it. They know I work hard."

And, on his time in New York: "I can't go through anything worse than I went through in New York. It only gets better from here."

Milledge is not a shy kid. His joyful high-fives with the Shea Stadium fans after his first home run showed that. He's made some bad decisions. Some outright dumb ones, too, though he won't admit to that.

But apologize? Back off? Dedicate himself to proving his doubters wrong? No way.

"I don't have anything to prove to nobody but my manager, my front office and my family," he says. "And I don't have anything to prove to them. Everyone knows what I can do."

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