Another slow news day today

Tino Martinez, an assistant coach at South Florida, doesn't want any nonsense when the Yankees play an exhibition game against the university today:

Tino Martinez remembers a San Diego State player sliding hard into second base against the New York Yankees in a 1998 exhibition game in San Diego. As a volunteer assistant coach at South Florida, Martinez also knows the college players will be nervous today at Legends Field when the Yankees host the Bulls in an exhibition game.

So, Martinez, also a special assistant to Brian Cashman, spread the word to the USF staff that there will be no "look-at-me-slides" and no trying to jam Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter and the rest of the Yankees' star-studded lineup.

"I told our coaches, no pitching inside," Martinez said. "You don't want a catcher setting up inside on Jeter or A-Rod and then having the pitcher be nervous and miss," Martinez said.

From the same article, the big three will each pich today. I know it's a spring game against a college team, but I can't wait to hear how they fare:

Chamberlain, Ian Kennedy and Phil Hughes will be the first three pitchers used by Joe Girardi today. Chamberlain and Kennedy will throw two innings and Hughes one.

Again from the same article, don't expect to see Mo until Wednesday:

Don't expect Mariano Rivera in a game before Wednesday. Rivera isn't slated to work Sunday against the Phillies at Legends Field and doesn't normally travel, so he won't pitch Monday (at Houston) and Tuesday (at Toronto).

"Mo knows exactly what he is doing with his body," Girardi said of the ease-into-it plan Rivera adopted the past two springs.

This shouldn't be surprising; this is how Mo typically does spring training. We'll probably see him for 8 - 10 innings. What I do wonder about is if we'll see him bust out and continue to work on the changeup we saw him throw with some success last year. It could be a huge weapon for him as he continues to get older.

The Times makes even harder to not love Joba Chamberlain:

If everything works out for Joba Chamberlain — and life has been a dream lately — he will start and finish this season with a trip to Disney World. That is where athletes go after winning a championship, and it is where Chamberlain is going this weekend, with a family from Nebraska in tow.

Chamberlain is still so new to the major leagues that he remains, officially, a rookie. He will start the Yankees’ first exhibition game Friday against the University of South Florida, and his outsized persona — incandescent on the mound, effervescent off it — has made him an instant celebrity.

That status is felt most acutely in his hometown of Lincoln, Neb., where he is revered as a role model. An American Indian of modest roots, Chamberlain might as well be Johnny Appleseed or John Henry, a folk hero for children.

“For Lincoln to have someone like Joba, it’s the ultimate dream of little kids here,” said Deb Dabbert, the principal at Belmont Elementary in Lincoln. “He’s someone who worked really hard and made it great. Teachers use Joba a lot as an example of work ethic and following your dream. But they also stress his humbleness, because fame has not changed him.”

Chamberlain is 22, and his talent is the envy of pitchers much older. But he remains a “big kid,” he said, enamored with tattoos and text messaging, bounding through the clubhouse and telling no one in particular about the virtues of a big bowl of Apple Jacks.

Chamberlain has never been to Disney World. His father, Harlan, worked at a prison and raised two children without a wife, and he could never afford a family vacation. Chamberlain did not fly on an airplane until he was 18.

Last November, as he relaxed after a dizzying season, Chamberlain reflected on how far he had come and decided to invite someone like himself along for the ride. When he gets to Disney World this weekend, a family of five from Lincoln will be there with him, courtesy of Chamberlain.

“There are a lot of foundations, like Make-A-Wish, that do things for sick kids, and that’s great,” Chamberlain said. “I love that, and I do things like that. But a lot of things go unseen about parents that live paycheck to paycheck and make it by, but they don’t have anything extra to go take a trip.

“I’ve never taken a family vacation my entire life. I started thinking, I want to do something for a family — not necessarily that has someone sick, but someone who works for a living, pays their bills, provides for their family but doesn’t have enough extra money to do something that they want to do.”

Chamberlain often trades text messages with Jerome Ehrlich, his high school coach, who was one of the first people he contacted after he reached the major leagues last August. Ehrlich is also the physical education teacher at Belmont Elementary, which Chamberlain remembered because Ehrlich used to take the baseball team there to read to the children.

Chamberlain asked Ehrlich and Dabbert, the principal, to pick a worthy student from a working family to accompany him to Disney World, where he will take part in a weekend promotion for ESPN.

The student they picked was a fifth-grade boy, Kristan Martin, who will meet Chamberlain with his parents, Jeremy and Jeni Mort; his brother, Peyton Mort; and his sister, Sage Mort. Jeremy Mort told Dabbert that he cried after learning of the trip.

“We’re all in shock; it’s phenomenal,” said Mort, who is the general manager for the Kabredlos convenience store chain. “It speaks volumes to his character that he’d do something like this for a family he’s never even met before.

“The teachers obviously saw something in my son as far as his work ethic, which is something my wife and I try to instill in all our kids. It’s a Nebraska thing — hard work, that’s what we do.”

He's an amazing pitcher, and an equally as amazing person. How many athletes, met with almost instant celebrity and larger-than-life status in New York, would do something like this? I can't think of many.

How many teams regret letting Joba fall into the Yankees' hands with the 41st overall pick in 2006? Although, to be fair, I don't think the Yankees could have foreseen his meteoric rise to the majors.