We arrived in Viera late Friday night and couldn’t wait to get to the practice fields on Saturday morning. We arrived around 9:00 am and quickly scoped out the complex. It’s a great, fan-friendly set up and easy to hop around from field to field to catch different players and drills. Shortly after we arrived, the full team warmed up together before splitting into smaller groups.
Stephanie and Lindsey started by watching the catchers group while I went to watch the middle infielders. Injured catchers Lo Duca and Estrada threw the ball, while Ivany practiced throwing runners out at second base. Ivany was working closely with Jose Cardenal, who was pumped to hear that we had traveled down from DC. Jose Rijo and Johnny Estrada were equally enthusiastic.
In the middle infielders group, the guys warmed up by playing catch at various intervals. We paid some close attention to Felipe Lopez and Christian Guzman, who stood side by side during warm-ups. 
Lopez looks alive and happy. He patiently signed lots of autographs, looked happy on the field and displayed a heightened level of energy. Bret Boone was brought up to major league camp today and stood next to Aaron during these warm-ups (Bob was patrolling the camp grounds, so all 3 Boones were on the fields at the same time).
I then traveled over to watch some bullpen sessions, catching most of Odalis Perez’s first practice. Randy moved back and forth monitoring the simulatenous bullpen sessions – which included Tristan Crawford and Luis Ayala. Later, we would see Hill, Redding and Chico all complete their sessions for the day too.
I then moved down to watch a group of pitchers practice fielding with Coach Aponte. This was definitely the group you’d want to be in. Ray King, Ryan Wagner, Jason Bergmann and Chad Cordero seemed happy to be reunited. King entertained everyone drawing lots of laughs. He jumped for a grounder to his right, executed the play and told Aponte, “you can’t get nothin’ past me.” This group was fun to watch.
We then watched a different group of pitchers practice covering first. Everyone worked through the drills, but Jon Rauch executed every play with 100% effort. He really impressed us with his energy and dedication today.
Next, the guys practiced some squeeze play drills. These were a lot of fun to watch too, as they always are entertaining in games. Justin Maxwell was on hand to be the baserunner.
After the drills, all four fields hosted batting practice sessions. The first group we saw was Elijah Dukes, Lastings Milledge and Wily Mo Pena. Tim Redding threw to the guys. 
Tim asked if it was time to start, and Pena, in the batter’s box said, “I’m ready. Right here and waiting.” The sluggers were really impressive – a lot of power from these three. We were a little nervous when Tim Redding nailed Dukes with an inside pitch. A collected, calm Dukes took the hit without much of a reaction.
As far as Dukes goes, we have to admit, we were impressed today. His press conference a couple days ago was encouraging, but today Dukes talked to fans, signed autographs and really put himself out there. He was patient with fans and generous with his time. There might be some hope afterall.
When this group took BP, GM Jim Bowden showed up via segway. You have to see it to believe it, but Jim whips through the various practice fields at light speed with this contraption. He seemed pretty pleased with himself, even taking questions from the press aboard the segway.
We then watched Zimmerman, Lopez and Belliard take BP. They looked pretty good. Nearby, Shawn Hill worked out on a stationary bike while Zimmerman poked fun at him. He told everyone to call him Shawn Webb, a tribute, we assumed, to Brandon. 
We didn’t watch too much of Johnson and Kearns today, but we’ll try to focus on them more this week. No sign of Jesus Flores yet. Ryan Zimmerman reports that his wrist “feels real good.”
Camp wrapped up today around 12:45pm and in case you are wondering, the last guys off the field were Zimmerman (no long-term contract yet), Young, Lopez, Estrada and Orr. Justin Maxwell was still in the batting cages when most everyone had already returned to the clubhouse.
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