Sweet sights of spring

Finally, the 2008 World Champion Phillies and the 2007 World Champion Red Sox have begun to take the field.

In a surprise, one of the first Phillies working out was Chase Utley - hopefully that means Marcus Giles won't set foot in Philadelphia.

The Inquirer has a nice photo gallery of the Phillies first unofficial day of spring training. And as usual, Utley wouldn't quit gabbing, this time about how his first fielding session went. He answered two questions from David Murphy with two words and five letters: No. Yes.

Ah, baseball is back.

{P.S. The Zo Zone is back, too.}

In Red Sox camp: The day was topped by news that Josh Beckett didn't show up fat and bloated like he did last year. There were also optimistic reports on Brad Penny and Mike Lowell and David Ortiz, but I just consider that spring optimism. I'm not ready to count on those three having healthy seasons yet.

But it was a day so positive that news of a Manny Ramirez book barely made a blip. After Alex Rodriguez's steroids, the AIDS lawsuit against Roberto Alomar and Joe Torre's book, who cares that Manny thinks the Red Sox elderly traveling secretary is rude? Or that Manny is liked by his friends?

[Photo credits: Philadelphia Inquirer (Utley), Boston Globe (Beckett)]