Sorry Charley

"Something suddenly came up."

-R. Furcal

First A.J. Burnett, and now Rafael Furcal. The Braves need a date for the prom.

But before you laugh at them, consider this: The Braves still have money ... so eventually, someone is going to sign with them.

Also eventually, somebody is going to make an offer to Oliver Perez. In this offseason of economic uncertainty, all rules of engagement (for example, Perez's desire to return to Southern California to pitch) are going right out the window. If you close your eyes, you could see Ollie coming back to Citi Field in a Braves uniform shutting down the Mets three times ... couldn't you?

Sunk-o On Cinco

Art Howe would probably say that Oliver Perez battled.

Then again, Art Howe would probably say the same thing about the moth that met its demise at the hands of my bedroom light bulb.

It only matters what Billy Wagner thinks at this point. And I can't imagine that Wagner would have a disparaging word about Ollie's effort on Monday night. After all, he did go six innings and saved the bullpen from everything except two innings. Of course, the six innings Ollie threw weren't particularly good, but we're in the realm of lowered expectations at this point for Perez. Five runs in six innings? He didn't have his best stuff, as evidenced by the bombs he gave up to Rafael Furcal, Blake "Don't Call Me Joyce" DeWitt and Matt Kemp, but in this era of lowered expectations for Perez, eating innings seems to be quite enough.

Hey, at least he battled. More than you can say for the Mets lineup, which did their best to help celebrate the 4,000th game in the history of Dodger Stadium by coming up with a single run (and don't worry ... if you didn't know you were watching a game at Dodger Stadium, SNY took every opportunity to mark the occasion with nice little vignettes scattered about the broadcast to help remind you). The same place that brought you Willie Davis, Orel Hershiser, and Hong-Chih Kuo, now brings you Chad Billingsley's second victory of the season, in which he ironically had 4 K's in Dodger Stadium Game 4K.

(Speaking of which, Dodger Stadium is supposedly undergoing a multi-million dollar renovation. For some reason, that includes trees and a big plastic deer in the bullpen. Because as you know, nothing says "Los Angeles" like the woods. Seriously, who gets paid to think of these things?)

Postcard From Florida: Behind Enemy Lines

Hope you're enjoying the snow back home in New York City.

Here, it reached a high of 78 in Sunny Florida ... a stark contrast from the 19 degrees we dealt with on Thursday night back at White Plains airport. That walk from the gate to the plane outdoors almost froze us before we got on the plane. I'll take 78, thanks.

I was excited when there was a good handful of Mets fans at the airport, thinking they were all coming to Orlando with me. I had thoughts of leading a chorus of "Meet the Mets" on the plane. But all the Met fans got on the plane to West Palm while we took the last flight out to Orlando for leg one of "Metstrapalooza: The Spring Training Tour".

Game one was spent behind enemy lines: Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex (at the newly christened Champions Field) for the Dodgers and the Braves. You probably missed the Braves taking advantage of the Dodgers' porous middle relief for a 10-3 victory. You also missed Dodger third baseman Andy LaRoche being the nicest guy in the world. He gave autographs to anyone and everyone. If LaRoche wasn't a third baseman I would demand that we trade for this guy right now! There were two Dodgers that were nice enough to sign baseballs for the crowd. Would you believe the other one was Rafael Furcal?

You also missed me chanting "Laaaaaaaa-rryyyyyyyyyy" at every opportunity (including the two ground balls he bobbled). I was texting people back home telling them to put on the ESPN game to try to hear me yell at him. Did any of you hear me by chance? (I think Larry himself might have heard me, right before his base hit in the fifth which signaled to me that I should probably knock it off before he gets madder).

And you just missed a conversation in the hotel room regarding Hank Steinbrenner's bitching and moaning about this being a Yankee World, to which I replied: "If this is a Yankee World, where's my spaceship to Mars?" (And now at this point, the Yankee fan in the room is talking about guest blogging for me. I'm not stupid enough to do that a second time.)

Well, it's a long drive to Lakeland tomorrow for leg two: Indians/Tigers at Lakeland, so I should probably get some sleep. It's all leading up to a reunion between me and the Mets at Vero Beach on Sunday. Hopefully, whichever star pitcher is on the hill will refrain from giving up a three run dinger to an 84-year-old man. I hate Juan Gonzalez.

In the meantime, enjoy more photos from Day One, and stop shoveling so much snow: