Aaaaand we're off.

It's a beautiful day here and for once in a long while the temperature is actually creeping up to near where it should be (it's 60-plus degrees right now). I picked up my all-parks access pass at the front desk today, which always gets me excited, and along with it my Media pass for the Rays season. I'm not by nature a very photogenic person, so I'm grateful to my last breath that the one picture Tampa Bay took and has used for the past five seasons for my ID card is actually a fairly decent picture of me (I left it in the car, I'll update with a pic later on today). I hope they still use it when I'm 80; nothing is worse than being haunted by a nasty photo hanging around your neck (think driver's license).

We just finished up a noon press conference with the Rays manager Joe Maddon and Andrew Friedman, who talked about the disappointments last season, battles for position this spring, and what Joe is listening to in his '94 Beemer (In his 6-disc changer: two Boss CDs, two of the Rolling Stones, an Allman Brothers and Simon and Garfunkel, as if that's a surprise). Eighteen questions and 25 minutes later, it was done and we ate great food (Caesar salad, Italian wedding soup, grilled chicken, salmon and a potato medley).

There were lots more faces in the press conference than there were when I first started following Tampa Bay five seasons ago (yeesh, has it been that long?). Back then, it was the Times, the Tribune, MLB.com and AP, and occasionally a TV station or two. Today Jayson Stark was there, along with three guys from the Times, two Tribbers, us, the Herald-Trib and about six or seven TV stations I didn't recognize. I'm guessing that'll peter out at some point and I'll welcome it. I miss the days when it was a small group -- MUCH easier to maneuver.

On my walk back to the media room I ran into my first Ray of the preseason - Gabe Kapler - who was in a great mood and said he's happy to be back in town again and eager to get the ball rolling. I think even he was a little surprised at the media turnout because he stopped short when he turned the corner (where all the cameras were set up) and said, "Wow." It was pretty funny.

The back fields look great, and it looks like the Rays have constructed an awning of some sort behind the backstop of the field closest to the batting cages, which makes it look extra sharp. The sun felt so good on my face it was hard to tear myself away from the fields and get back to work. The novelty of this always, always wears off as the six-week Spring Training march wears on - and even moreso on about Game 90 of the 120-game minor league season - but I never, ever forget how great and exciting everything feels the first day back at the ballpark. I hope I never do.

I'm in the middle of trying to figure out what exactly I should write about for tomorrow's paper, given the fact that the topics were all over the place. I'm in a bit of a hurry because I've got a high school baseball game to cover in about an hour here.

Anyway, that's all for today. Not really much in the way of news just yet; lots of Rays have shown up and the rest of the pitchers and catchers should be accounted for by Saturday at the latest, and that's when things really start to get fun. As always, read the whole Rays story from camp tomorrow at http://www.sunnewspapers.net/.

-Sportsgal