Armando Benitez Has NO Natural Cow Sense

Spring training news and notes:

*The Mets have the right idea. They're occupied with trying to surreptitiously balance things on Luis Castillo's head -- bubble gum, plastic cups -- while the Yankees are getting into shoving matches with the Devil Rays to defend the honor of Francisco Cervelli. Or something.

*Logically, I realize it must somehow seem like a good idea to sign Armando Benitez... because teams keep doing it. But I'm damned if I can understand why. The Blue Jays must not have watched many Giants games last season.

*Young Yankees pitcher Ross Ohlendorf has "a lot of natural cow sense." That's good to hear. After all, how many promising pitching prospects have we gotten excited about over the years, only to see them fall short at the Major League level due to a tragic lack of cow sense? Never again!

*The Red Sox traveled by plane to a spring training game recently. The Twins, naturally, did not, and wise and sparkly-eyed little baseball elf Ron Gardenhire shared some old bus ride stories:

"... the bus catches on fire and Big Fella [clubhouse legend Wayne Hattaway] tells Tom Kelly, 'I'm not leaving, T.K. I'm going down with the ship.'

Wayne Hattaway is a great character, by the way, and still going.

The Dude abides

*Joel Sherman of the Post has a good story about Shelley Duncan, who sparked yesterday's silly "benches-clearing incident" by spiking the Devil Rays' second baseman:

Shelley Duncan Shelley Duncan once had a minor-league incident, in the Florida State League, when all heck broke loose on the field around him. He had slid into second base and the shortstop on Detroit’s Single-A team had thrown from an unnaturally low angle, at least in Duncan’s opinion, and nearly hit the sliding Duncan in the head. He chased around the shortstop all over the field as the benches and dugouts emptied. But he never did catch the shortstop. The identity of the shortstop: Current Mets New York Mets farmhand Anderson Hernandez Anderson Hernandez . And Duncan says the two became friends after the incident.

What's great about this is that Hernandez didn't even consider any of the usual macho posturing, but just turned and ran like the wind. Quite right, too, since he's about half Duncan's size.