By Pete Williams

We’re still four days from Opening Day, three if we count the Sunday Night ESPN travesty (Yankees/Red Sox, you’re kidding?). I thought I’d beat the rush with my preseason picks.

AL East – New York
AL Central – Minnesota
AL West – Seattle
AL Wild Card – Tampa Bay

NL East – Atlanta
NL Central – St. Louis
NL West – Los Angeles
NL Wild Card – Philadelphia

ALDS

Tampa Bay over Minnesota
New York over Seattle

NLDS

St. Louis over Philadelphia
Atlanta over Los Angeles

ALCS: Tampa Bay over New York
NLCS: Atlanta over St. Louis

World Series: Atlanta over Tampa Bay in six games

Usually when you spend a lot of time around teams, their weaknesses seem more pronounced than they are. I’m based in Tampa Bay and usually spend more time around the Rays than I do any other team. This spring, however, I worked for Fox Sports South covering the Braves.

So naturally I’m calling for a Braves/Rays World Series. The main reason is because so many baseball people I respect said the Rays and Braves were the teams that impressed them the most this spring, at least in Florida. And since there’s no team in Arizona that looked like world beaters, I’m sticking with Atlanta and Tampa Bay.

Rays officials like to say this is their most talented team ever and that’s true, though the 2008 team had far more character and veteran leadership. Last year’s team missed guys like Cliff Floyd, Eric Hinske, Trever Miller, Rocco Baldelli, and Jonny Gomes. Pat Burrell’s toxic presence seemed to cast a pall on the clubhouse like so many Harry Potter dementors and he’s still around. Still, the Rays have too much talent, along with their best remaining window to win it all.

The Yankees again went out and bought the pieces they needed. This year’s Christmas gifts of Javier Vazquez, Curtis Granderson, and onetime Devil Ray Randy Winn should help. Theo Epstein and the Red Sox somehow cultivate a reputation as an underdog build-from-within operation when all they do is out-Yankee the Yankees. They’ll take a step back this year, along with the Angels.

That leaves the Mariners and Twins. Seattle has followed the Rays blueprint of building around defense, but they don’t have nearly as much offense. As for the Twins, moving in to a new ballpark is always good for five additional wins (unless you’re the Mets). So how ironic will it be when the Twins, finally free from the Metrodome trash bag, fall to the Rays in the Division Series at Tropicana Field? As magical as the 2008 season was in Tampa Bay, fans never enjoyed seeing the Rays knock out the Yankees, who missed the playoffs. This year, the Rays will win an epic ALCS over their “crosstown” rivals. (Not since 2007 has a team reached the World Series that did not train in the Tampa Bay area.)

That will change this year. The Braves train on a Disney sound stage adjacent to the Magic Kingdom. (Okay, it’s really a very nice ballpark, but Team Rodent sometimes forgets they’re putting on a baseball game.) The Rays moved their spring operations from St. Pete to Port Charlotte for 2009.

Frank Wren and Bobby Cox quietly upgraded a Braves roster that won 86 games last year. Troy Glaus is healthy and playing first base. Melky Cabrera helps the outfield and rookie Jason Heyward is being called the left-handed Albert Pujols. Billy Wagner and Tim Hudson are fully recovered from Tommy John surgery, Derek Lowe has new confidence-boosting mechanics he swears he’ll stick with, and Tommy Hanson and Jair Jurrjens might be the most underrated pair of young pitchers any team can send to the mound.

Plus, the Braves have the ultimate postseason trip insurance: Eric Hinske. Not only is he a valuable backup to the fragile Glaus and Chipper Jones, he’s bidding to become the first player to reach the World Series four consecutive seasons with four different teams (Red Sox, Rays, Yankees, Braves).

Cox, who is retiring at season’s end, is forever linked to contemporaries Joe Torre and Tony La Russa. That’s why it will be only appropriate when the Braves knock off the Dodgers and Cardinals in the N.L. playoffs before facing the Rays in the I-75 Fall Classic. There the Braves will get the best of their old friend Rafael Soriano and send Cox out with his second World Series championship.

AL MVP – EVAN LONGORIA, Tampa Bay. Joe Mauer will be unfazed by his new contract and probably respond with big numbers. But I’m taking Longoria since he spent the off-season training for the first time at Athletes’ Performance in Phoenix. I write fitness books with the training center’s founder, Mark Verstegen, so admittedly I’m biased. But I’ve noticed that guys almost always have monster seasons following the winters they’re introduced to the “Core Performance” program.

AL CY YOUNG – CLIFF LEE, Seattle. Lee won this award in 2008. Now he’s moving to one of the game’s top pitcher’s parks to play in front of perhaps the game’s best defense with the incentive of looming free agency. That’s a good recipe to win hardware in November.

AL ROOKIE – WADE DAVIS, Tampa Bay. For all of the hoopla surrounding David Price, Matt Garza, James Shields and previously Scott Kazmir, the Rays owe a good chunk of their success over the last two seasons to the back of the rotation. Edwin Jackson and Andy Sonnanstine were stellar in 2008 and Jeff Niemann carried the team at times in ’09. Niemann made a run at Rookie of the Year, but Davis will go further.

NL MVP – ALBERT PUJOLS, St. Louis – Pujols, Ryan Howard, and Jimmy Rollins have accounted for the last five N.L. awards, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see any of them win in 2010. Pujols will be the first to win three straight since Barry Bonds Laboratories won four in a row from 2001-04.

NL CY YOUNG – ROY HALLADAY, Philadelphia – If Halladay hadn’t spent his career with the remnants of the once-proud Blue Jays franchise, he’d have more than one Cy Young Award. Now he’s moving to the N.L. and the league’s best team over the last two seasons.

NL ROOKIE – JASON HEYWARD, Atlanta. I was around Alex Rodriguez a lot when he arrived and I don’t remember people talking about him the way they did this spring about the “J-Hey Kid.” I spent the last month with the Braves and it seemed every day a respected scout or manager rolled into town and raved about the 20-year-old outfielder.

By Pete Williams

Now we know why Stuart Sternberg, JFK fan and Democratic Party contributor, was in such a hurry to get a new ballpark built for his Tampa Bay Rays by 2012.

The Republicans are coming to Tropicana Field!

It’s not official, but RNC officials left town yesterday gung-ho about awarding the 2012 Republican National Convention to Tampa Bay. The event, if awarded, most likely would be held at the St. Pete Times Forum across the bay in Tampa, but there’s a possibility the much-maligned St. Pete dome could stage the nomination.

Imagine that. “The Trop,” the last of baseball’s non-retractable domes, with its catwalks, artificial turf, and circus-tent roof, a building deemed unacceptable for baseball by the overwhelming Republican majority that runs Major League Baseball, is considered the frontrunner to host perhaps the most important Republican convention since 1980.

Somewhere, Vincent J. Naimoli is licking his chops and chomping on his gum. The ex-Devil Rays owner is tanned, rested, and ready, poised to kick down his old office door, scream at reporters, berate a few underlings.

“Honey! I’m home!”

First, journalists and delegates must find The Trop. Anyone who watched the 2008 World Series and listened to Fox and ESPN commentators talk about being “live in Tampa” will need to fire up the GPS and head to St. Pete.

They’ll be disappointed to find than many of the area’s top attractions are not in St. Pete but in Tampa: Ybor City, Bern’s Steakhouse, Mons Venus.

In fairness, The Trop has many fun sights, including a cigar bar, touch tank of actual cow nose rays, and a museum dedicated to Republican legend Ted Williams. Since Teddy Ballgame would have liked to attend the convention, John McCain could pull some strings and bring some of Ted home from Arizona.

Here in the Tampa Bay area, we’re unfazed by national politicians who constantly suck up to us, knowing we’re the most unpredictable voters in the country. After all, we literally decided the elections in 2000 and 2004. In 2008, we couldn’t get rid of candidates.

“Hey, Obama is speaking in Dunedin today and Palin’s in Clearwater tomorrow. You want to go?”

“Nah, I saw them last week.”

Will The Trop’s usual rules apply? Will Republicans have to travel four in a car to get free parking? Will they be allowed to bring in their own food and drinks? Will there be a different price for admission every day of the week, especially if there’s a concert involved? What if you don’t show up more than five hours ahead of time?

Will the Rays pull the tarps off the top rows of seats? Will Dick Vitale show up? Will Pat “The Cooler” Burrell be allowed in the building?

Look at it this way: How often do the Rays sell out the building without a single Red Sox fan?

If Republicans want a state-of-the-art, booming sound system that never – ever – lets up, they’ve come to the right place. If they want a friendly guy from “The O.C.” to show them around the building, maybe host a wine tasting, Joe Maddon is the man. If they need one of their local brethren to throw like a girl while delivering a ceremonial first pitch, Charlie Crist and Clearwater mayor Frank Hibbard are available.

And if they need a former Devil Ray to offer a few words, well, someone can round up John Rocker.

By week’s end, everyone in attendance will be able to say they’ve spent more time at The Trop than Bud Selig.

Oh, it will be a memorable time, one of so many The Trop has hosted. Long before the fuss about ballparks staging the NHL’s “Winter Classic,” The Trop was home to entire Tampa Bay Lightning seasons. There was Arena Football, boat shows, soccer games, motorcycle events, tennis, monster truck competitions, karate, gymnastics, and equestrian events.

In 1999, The Trop became the first (and still only) baseball-specific venue to host The Final Four, with Connecticut beating Duke for the title. In 2008, The Trop was site of the Rays worst-to-first turnaround and march to the World Series.

By mid-2012, the Rays and Sternberg could have the basic financing in place for a new ballpark and the Republican National Convention could send the building out with a bang.

At The Trop, where baseballs go up and don’t always come down, anything is possible.

Friday, August 31, 2012. Booming sound system, lights sparkling off the catwalks.

“Hi, I’m Vince Naimoli. Please join me in welcoming the next President of the United States….Sarah Palin!”

By Pete Williams

Nomar Garciaparra officially retired today, concluding a once-promising career derailed by assorted injuries.

It was only 10 years ago when Garciaparra, now 36, was considered among the best shortstops in baseball, along with Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter. No-mah won back-to-back American League batting titles. Ted Williams said Garciaparra reminded him of Joe DiMaggio.

I’ll always be grateful to Garciaparra for training with Mark Verstegen, whom he met at Georgia Tech when Nomar was a student-athlete and Mark was a trainer. In 2000, I wrote a story for USA Today Baseball Weekly on Nomar’s success training with Mark and his revolutionary “core” training program. A year later, Sports Illustrated wrote a more in-depth article. Those stories helped raise Mark’s profile to the point where Mark and I landed a book contract for “Core Performance,” one of the better selling fitness books of recent years. I’ve had the honor of writing several more books with Mark; our fifth – Core Performance Women – came out in January. (Nomar wrote the foreword to the original book and his now-wife Mia Hamm also contributed a column for the book.)

Nomar’s relationship with the media, especially in Boston, could be contentious but I always found him insightful. That’s why he’ll be terrific in his new gig as an analyst with ESPN, assuming the Worldwide Leader can find a spot for him among their ever-growing stable of analysts.

By Pete Williams

I’ve long believed there’s no tougher job in journalism than that of the daily baseball beat writer. To call it a grind is an understatement. It’s 10-to-12 hour days from mid-February until at least the end of September, if not October. It’s mostly six or seven days a week dealing with players, managers, front office officials, agents, and readers who often make their lives difficult.

It’s merciless, punishing, and it’s only gotten worse now that baseball writers are expected to blog almost around the clock. It’s why I’m grateful I never had to do it, having started my career back in 1991 writing features and covering the national baseball beat for USA Today’s Baseball Weekly. It’s not that I didn’t work hard for BBW – and even harder the last 11 years as a freelance sports journalist.

But baseball beat writing? Nothing compares to that.

This month, after covering baseball to varying degrees for nearly 19 years, I get to be a baseball beat writer, covering the Atlanta Braves spring training for Fox Sports South. It’s a combination of blogging, feature writing, and video reporting. Not for a minute will I pretend that I’m cranking out as much material as David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal Constitution or Mark Bowman of MLB.com, both of whom own the Braves beat. But I’m finally getting a taste of what it’s like.

Baseball is a constant reminder of the passage of time. Braves manager Bobby Cox is 68 years old and retiring after this season, completing a magnificent Hall of Fame career. In 1976, Cox was a 35-year-old Triple-A manager when I saw his Syracuse Chiefs face the Richmond Braves in the first professional game I ever saw.

When I began covering baseball in 1991, there were only five players younger than me in the Majors. Only two of them – Pudge Rodriguez and Jim Thome – are still around. These days, I’m hard pressed to come up with five older than me. (Jamie Moyer, Matt Stairs…Is anyone going to sign John Smoltz and Gary Sheffield?)

Three years ago, I took up triathlon and became a morning person, getting up at 5:20 a.m. at least six days a week. It’s possible to maintain that schedule during spring training, though I’m finding it’s easier to get my workouts in right before dinner. I won’t be going on any lengthy bike rides — just spin classes, hour-long swims, and short runs.

The idea is to be ready for triathlon season next month. My gig with Fox Sports South ends with spring training.

I’d be willing to bet no full-time baseball beat writers ever have completed a triathlon.

What they do is a much more impressive endurance feat.

By Pete Williams

Ever since the New Orleans Saints beat the Indianapolis Colts Sunday night, the NFL has been touting Super Bowl 44 as the highest-rated program in television history.

The NFL is lying.

On Sunday, 106.5 million people in this country watched the Super Bowl, slightly more than the 106 million who watched the final episode of M*A*S*H in 1983.

The difference, of course, is population. There were roughly 235 million people in this country in 1983. Now there are 308 million. As a percentage of viewers, which is what TV ratings represent, it’s not even close. M*A*S*H still holds the record – a Nielsen rating of 60.2 and a 77 share of the audience.

Super Bowl 44 got “only” a 46.4 rating and a 68 percent share. If the NFL wants to trumpet this as the “most-watched” TV event, that’s true, though only by a slim margin. But to call it the “highest-rated” program is false, not that the NFL worries too much about the truth. This is a league, after all, that would have you believe that it’s free of performance-enhancing drugs and that long-term brain damage is not a problem among ex-players.

For people who don’t remember 1983, it must be mind-boggling to think that a network television program drew nearly two-thirds of the population on Feb. 28, 1983, a Monday night, for a two-and-a-half hour season finale.

Back then, many households did not have cable television. Network TV still ruled. M*A*S*H, one of the five best shows ever, still commanded a huge audience even though it lasted four times longer than the Korean War it portrayed.

Even at 13, I was a huge M*A*S*H fan and was horrified when my youth basketball coach didn’t call off our Monday night practice. There was no such thing as a DVR back then and we didn’t even have a VCR yet. I would have missed the show. Thankfully, the coach called practice when only four of us showed up.

I thought of that Sunday night when my son’s swim program staged a weekend-long meet that included a Sunday evening session. Not until Sunday morning did the organizers realize it might be a good idea to move that session up two hours from its 5:30 p.m. scheduled start.

There’s no denying that the NFL is a white-hot entertainment property, arguably as popular as it has ever been. But because of the fragmentation of our media culture, nothing – not even the Super Bowl – will ever again command the audience that M*A*S*H drew on Feb. 28, 1983.

It’s a record that will never be broken.

By Pete Williams

Most pro and college sports teams are tone deaf when it comes to the economy. Despite the worst economy of our lifetimes, ticket prices keep going up. Remarkably, teams wonder where all the fans went

Here in the Tampa Bay area, the Buccaneers raised prices across the board nearly 35 percent in 2008, even as the economy was tanking. Fans fled, the stadium emptied, and even now the Bucs still don’t get it. They’ve made only token reductions in ticket prices the last two offseasons.

Even in the best of economic times, teams have mortgaged their long-term futures by making tickets so ridiculously expensive it’s impossible for families to attend.

That’s why the University of South Florida’s basketball team is so refreshing. Back in November, the team announced that all school-age children – kindergarten through high school seniors – would be admitted for free. Not just for one game, not just for non-conference games, but for every game.

Not only that but many seats in the building go for just $10. And since the Bulls don’t draw well, it’s possible to move into better seats if you like. (Ushers guard the lower bowl, as they should.)

Yesterday I took my two sons to a Bulls game for $10 (plus $10 to park). We saw two teams from a major hoops conference (Big East) square off in a terrific game. USF, led by the hottest player in college basketball (Dominique Jones) knocked off Pittsburgh, which came into the game ranked 17th in the nation.

Jones scored 37 points and has averaged 37 over his last three games – all Big East conference wins for the Bulls.

It cost us a grand total of $20. I even brought a backpack full of snacks for the kids into the game. I’m not sure if this is allowed or the guy at the door was just being nice.

Either way, it cost just $20 for the three of us to attend. I’m frugal, but I saw other parents spending a lot on concessions.

Now you could argue that the USF basketball team has been so bad for so long, they have nothing to lose by letting kids in for free. Even on a non-football Sunday against a ranked opponent, the Sun Dome was barely half full.

But USF is hardly the only college or pro team that has struggled for years and has been playing in half-empty buildings. My youngest son (4) had never seen a basketball game and might not have any time soon were it not for the free admission. My 7-year-old seemed more engaged in the game than when I took him to one two years ago. They’re far more likely to become basketball fans than they were 24 hours ago.

There were a lot of kids at the game and if USF keeps winning, there no doubt will be more. Take a look around the next time you go to a major college or pro sporting event. Kids make up 5 percent of attendance, if that. Where are the fans going to come from 20 years from now?

Pro sports already have lost a generation of fans. I know this from speaking to classes of grade school, high school, and college students about working in sports journalism. Few kids follow sports. Why should they? Their parents were priced out long ago.

Imagine the goodwill if the Tampa Bay Rays announced that kids got in free for every game this upcoming season. If the Rays insist on excluding games against the Yankees and Red Sox, fine, though given the Rays attendance last season, that’s probably unnecessary. Like USF, the Rays could limit the free tickets to the two cheapest sections. Make it significant, however, including all upper deck seating.

In fairness to the Rays, they already offer free parking (for carloads of four or more) and allow fans to bring in as much food and non-alcoholic drinks as they like. Rays tickets are among the most affordable in all of sports.

Still, for a team whose initial trial balloons for a new ballpark have been rejected, wouldn’t this be an obvious thing to do? After all, watching Pat Burrell mail it in is a lot to ask kids of any age – even for free.

Maybe USF will discontinue this policy when the season ends. After all, basketball coach Stan Heath is building a program worthy of paid admissions. But the school deserves praise for its kids-for-free policy.

It’s a promotion other teams, especially in the professional ranks, would be wise to emulate.

By Pete Williams

I grew up a huge fan of Dale Murphy, the center fielder for the 1980s Atlanta Braves. On Friday night, Murphy was the featured speaker at a Hot Stove banquet on the campus of The Citadel in Charleston, S.C.

The school’s baseball program shares a ballpark with the Class A Chaleston RiverDogs, who co-hosted the banquet. The team’s president (Mike Veeck) and I wrote a business motivational book several years ago and Mike gave me one of my biggest professional thrills by allowing me to introduce Murphy. Here’s what I said:

I might not be here were it not for Dale Murphy. Back in 1993, I was covering my second spring training, for USA Today’s Baseball Weekly. And if you’ve ever been to spring training, you know it’s a laidback time of year. That’s also true for the players and media, who have had a five-month break from each other. Players generally are more open to talking.

Unfortunately, one morning in the Phillies camp in Clearwater, I approached the wrong guy, an intense third baseman named Dave Hollins. It was still two hours before gametime and I asked Hollins if he had a minute. He glared at me, bat in hand, and told me where I could stick my tape recorder. I should add that tape recorders back then were much larger than today’s sleeker digital models.

Before this could escalate, Dale Murphy appeared out of nowhere, tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Isn’t it time for us to talk?” There was no pre-arranged interview, of course, and Murph’s gesture may have saved my life. So on behalf of my wife and sons, Murph, I want to say ‘thank you.’

As I kid I’d often hear men of my father’s age talk in reverential terms about Mickey Mantle. They’d bring him up to refer to a more innocent time in baseball, a more innocent time in America. As a kid, I could never relate to those feelings.

My dad wasn’t a Mantle fan but he did grow up in New York – a fan of Gil Hodges, the classy first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers. In 1977, we were living in Richmond, Virginia, and Dad took me to my first baseball game, featuring the R-Braves at Parker Field. And there must have been something about a 21-year-old Braves catcher that reminded my dad of Gil Hodges because Dad handed me a pen along with this baseball (holding up ball) and pointed me in the direction of Dale Murphy.

The following season, the man known as The Murph made it to Atlanta for good and there he became the first star of cable television. These were memorable years for Braves owner Ted Turner, who launched TBS and CNN, won the America’s Cup, and was smart enough to send his sons to school here at The Citadel.

But for all of Ted’s success, he struggled with baseball. Within a three-year span, he fired two young managers by the names of Bobby Cox and Joe Torre.

I wonder whatever happened to those guys.

Murph played parts of 18 seasons in the Majors, but only one of his teams reached the playoffs and only three posted winning records. Back then, some Braves fans thought WTBS stood for Where the Braves Struggle.

The exception, of course, was Dale Murphy. He won a pair of National League MVP Awards, five Gold Gloves, four Silver Sluggers and played in seven All-Star Games. He was one of the first members of the 30/30 club and hit 398 home runs back when that still was a huge number AND an honest accomplishment.

He played in 740 consecutive games before the streak was broken in 1986. The guy in second place at the time? Somebody by the name of Ripken.

But those numbers don’t begin to tell the story. Murph won baseball’s two most prestigious awards for community service – The Roberto Clemente and Lou Gehrig Awards – and also was honored with a share of Sports Illustrated’s Sportsman of the Year Award.

He set an unofficial Major League record for autographs, which is especially impressive considering he signs with his non-throwing hand. He served as a clean-living role model for a generation of us who grew up watching TBS. He did not smoke, drink, or swear and his only vice appeared to be eating lots of ice cream.

His teammates admired Murphy for his clean living philosophies, though not many shared them. Not long after The Murph was traded to the Phillies, John Kruk was asked to characterize the clubhouse. “It’s simple,” Kruk said. “We’re have twenty-four morons…and a Mormon.”

Like many kids, I wore Murphy’s Number 3 in Little League. Most of us never played beyond high school. Others, like Alex Rodriguez, made it a little further.

Watching The Murph on TV in the ‘80s, he seemed like a huge guy at 6-4 and 215 pounds. Watching that same footage today on ESPN Classic or The MLB Network, he seems almost skinny.

His career ended in 1993, the early days of the Steroid Era. At the time, his 398 home runs ranked among the top twenty-five all-time. Now, just 17 years later, it ranks forty-eighth.

In his second year on the Hall of Fame ballot, he received 23 percent of the vote. For some players, that’s been enough of a base to build upon to reach Cooperstown. Earlier this month, 10 years later, Murphy received less than 12 percent of the vote.

Three years ago, I actually got to see Murph become a Hall of Famer. It was the Ted Williams Hitters Hall of Fame, where Murph was inducted with Fred McGriff, another Braves slugger who did not use steroids.

But rather than campaign for Cooperstown or defend his numbers, Murph has spent his time doing more important work. He and his wife Nancy raised eight children. He oversaw Mormon missionary work in Boston and three years ago he launched the I Won’t Cheat Foundation, encouraging young people to avoid performance enhancing drugs.

At a time when many current and former players refuse to speak out against steroid use – If you believe Mark McGwire, they don’t make much difference anyway – Dale Murphy has campaigned against them. These days, steroid use is epidemic. We’ve grown accustomed to our sports figures cheating on and off the field, from baseball and football to cycling, track – even golf.

It’s tough to have a sports hero or even a sports role model but I’m glad mine has stood the test of time. He’s the same guy I got my first autograph from in 1977.

Even Mickey Mantle proved to be a tragic figure, though he redeemed himself later in life. ““Don’t be like me,” the Mick famously said.

As for me, I still want to be like Dale Murphy.

These days I find myself sounding a lot like those middle-aged guys who talked about Mantle when I was a kid. Like the previous generation, I find myself reminiscing about a more simple time in America, a more simple time in baseball. Now more than ever sports needs Dale Murphy.

Fortunately for us, we have him for this evening. Please join me in welcoming No.3 – Dale Murphy.

By Pete Williams

I’ve always been good with names and faces. It probably comes from collecting baseball cards as a kid, sorting thousands of cardboard photos by name and number. In school, I could hear the roll call on the first day of class and have everyone’s name down cold.

I don’t know if I’ve “monetized” this talent, as we say these days. As a sports journalist, it’s helped me keep the names of thousands of athletes straight. If nothing else I hope it’s saved me the embarrassment of forgetting a name on occasion.

It’s probably just another useless talent, like my encyclopedic knowledge of Richmond Braves baseball and Bob Seger songs.

I recently ran my AOL address book through Facebook, searching for lost friends and contacts. Since I’ve had AOL for 13 years, keeping it through the company’s demise and my move to broadband and a different primary e-mail address, there were hundreds of potential Facebook contacts. I sent friend requests to about two dozen.

One sent back an interesting note:

“Thank you for requesting that I link you as a friend. I’m feeling embarrassed to admit it, but to be honest, I’m having trouble recalling meeting you. It is my personal policy to link as on-line friends only those people that I already know face-to-face in real life. Could you please help me recall our meeting?”

He was right; we had never met in person. But we work in similar fields and have two dozen mutual Facebook friends. Somehow we’ve ended up on each other’s email newsletter lists. I find his newsletter interesting and since he’s never unsubscribed to mine, I assume he reads it on occasion. Since he was in my AOL address book, we must have exchanged personal email at least once over the last 13 years.

But, alas, no face-to-face meeting. I sent back a note summarizing the above and here was his reply:

“Oh, yes, Pete, I do know who you are, but that’s not the same as knowing you personally. We’ve each achieved some level of fame (or infamy) in our own (professional) circles, but since neither of us can recall even meeting one another, it would be too much of a stretch to call us “friends.” Therefore I will respectfully decline your request until we have spent some time getting to know one another face-to-face.”

Fair enough. People use Facebook differently. This guy seems to use Facebook the way many people, myself included, use LinkedIN, accepting only those people as contacts that we’ve done significant business with over the years.

There’s also the danger of stockpiling anonymous friends and creating a “page” that’s not useful for anyone. This is called MySpace.

Admittedly, this is an uncomfortable subject, sort of the professional version of that college quandry where you debate whether to say “hello” to someone in passing. (“Do they remember who I am?”)

But it got me thinking about “face-to-face” friendliness in the modern age. There are people we exchange dozens of e-mails with that we never meet in person. I’ve been a guest on certain radio shows many times and have never met the host or producer in person – even though I’ve spoken to them off air as well.

I’ve sent friend requests to people I’ve heard speak and met afterward, though they no doubt remember me from the flurry of handshakes and brief greetings. Does that count as “face to face?” What about the many people we meet briefly at trade shows and business gatherings?

I get friend requests from people I haven’t met face to face but am thrilled to receive since we have mutual friends and I could benefit professionally from getting to know them. Some are fellow triathletes, runners, or school alumni.

I’ve sent out more than a few of those friend requests, some of which have led to stories I’ve written, guests for my radio show, and helpful training advice.

I went through the first 50 names in my Facebook friends list and found that I had met 44 of them face to face. That’s 88 percent, a figure I thought would be lower. I’d be curious what the ratio is for people with thousands of Facebook friends. I imagine my LinkedIN number would be slightly higher, my Twitter much lower.

This isn’t to say the face-to-face policy of my would-be “friend” is wrong. It’s probably more common than not, though I’ve discovered that people with online platforms like his – or mine – generally are aggressive at building social networks

Then again, with privacy always a concern, it’s amazing so many of us share as much as we do, even with “friends.” There is no right policy for this, of course, other than to wish we could get more face time with our friends

By Pete Williams

Tony Dungy spoke to USF’s embattled football team Monday at the request of athletic director Doug Woolard.

You have to figure Woolard placed a call to Dungy last week and it went something like this:

“Coach, Doug Woolard here. I was wondering if you’d be willing to come speak to the football team.”

“Sure, happy to. How about 3 o’clock on Monday?”

“Great!…Um, while I have you, I don’t suppose you’d be interested in coaching the team?”

(Laughs) “No, but I appreciate the offer. I’ll see you on Monday.”

“Alrighty then!”

Has there ever been a better fit for a football coaching vacancy? Right now, USF needs the exact opposite of Jim Leavitt. The school needs a gregarious, respected, accomplished, humble, people-person coach who, by the way, also is the man least likely in the entire coaching profession to strike a player.

They need a guy who can step in just weeks before signing day and retain all of the recruits Leavitt has landed and convince a few undecided blue chippers to come to USF. They need a guy with ties to Tampa who can start yesterday, a guy who can raise the profile of a commuter school, putting the geographically challenged South Florida on the map. They need a guy with the best record in Raymond James Stadium history, a guy who never coached in the building when it had empty seats.

They need a guy who would embrace the challenge of working with young people while delivering tough love to the knuckleheads who get in trouble off the field. They need a man so respected that he could land any job in the state – governor, U.S. Senator – but a man so modest he’d have no delusions of power like so many college coaches.

They need a man who could run a squeaky-clean program and not need to operate, like many BCS programs, in the shady underground of boosters, shoe company middlemen, and other charlatans to land players. They need a man who single-handedly could clean up college football.

They need a man who places family first, a coach who would attract assistants who know they will have to work hard, but not 100-hour weeks as they would for people like Leavitt.

Best of all, they need a man who is worth a $5 million annual salary who would be willing to give a hometown discount and work for the USF going rate of $2.5 million or so.

Is this idea so preposterous? Yes, Dungy retired from NFL coaching so he could spend more time in Tampa with his family. But his son, Eric, already is considering playing football at USF next fall. The Dungy family’s longtime home is only a 15-minute drive from the USF campus.

No matter what people like Urban Meyer say, coaching college is not as stressful and is less time-consuming than the NFL. Why else do college coaches routinely flop in the NFL? Steve Spurrier found he no longer could play golf four times a week in the NFL. Bobby Bowden, meanwhile, never let coaching get in the way of his afternoon nap.

Dungy would inherit a program in terrific shape. If he took the job this week, he could make a flurry of phone calls and end up with one of the better recruiting classes in the nation, if not the best. Who could possibly compete with Dungy on the recruiting front?

The worst part about college coaching is recruiting, but USF already gets 95 percent of its roster from the Sunshine State. Dungy no doubt could land recruits from around the country, but he’d find most of what he needs within a two-hour drive.

Other programs would suffer from Dungy’s presence. If Dungy joined USF, Jimbo Fisher might give the FSU job back to Bowden, Lane Kiffin would finally shut up, and Meyer might literally have a heart attack.

Dungy would not want to be perceived as one of those flip-flop coaches who retire to spend time with family only to resurface a year later. But would anyone blame him for taking the opportunity to coach his son just 15 minutes from home?

As Buccaneers coach, Dungy drove his kids to school and often was home for dinner. Heck, he’s probably going to spend as much time out of town as an NBC analyst than he would as a USF coach.

In recent years, the Big East has become a powerhouse. It owns Thursday nights and, not surprisingly, lands a lot of national recruits who watch the conference on ESPN. Yet, the Big East is wide open enough that Dungy could dominate quickly – and for a long time.

Imagine the staff Dungy could assemble. Herm Edwards finally could be a defensive coordinator, reprising the bad-cop, sergeant-at-arms role he played effectively for Dungy’s late ‘90s Buccaneers. Derrick Brooks could be linebackers coach, assuming he could get over working for a school other than his beloved Florida State. Heck, Lovie Smith might be available, if not this month than a year from now.

Tim Ruskell, the former Buccaneers assistant general manager, was just fired as president of the Seahawks. He’s a USF alum and looking for work.

Dungy could put the entire band back together!

On Monday, Dungy told USF players how the Buccaneers won the Super Bowl a year after making a coaching change. Just as Jon Gruden credited Dungy for putting all of the pieces in place, it’s easy to see Dungy winning a national title and thanking Leavitt.

Dungy is not a guy who would use a term like “unfinished business.” His legacy in Tampa is secure. Even though Gruden won the Super Bowl, Dungy is the Buccaneers most popular coach ever. But how cool would it be to dominate college football in the same stadium, bringing a national title to a town long overshadowed in the college ranks by Gainesville, Tallahassee and Coral Gables?

Dungy came to Tampa in 1996 at a time when Leavitt was preparing USF for the Bulls’ first-ever football season in 1997. Both performed sports miracles, with Dungy turning around the hapless Buccaneers and Leavitt taking a team from start-up to a No.2 BCS ranking in 2007.

As Dungy spoke to USF players on Monday, they had to be wondering what it might be like if he was there next coach. Dungy, who probably had never been in USF’s new football facilities, must have at least been intrigued.

Why not?

By Pete Williams

Some people like to drive around during the holidays and look at Christmas lights.

Not me. I decided to pay a trip to Derek Jeter’s new house. I had seen the photos taken by boat and helicopter but had to get a glimpse for myself.

It’s Ruthian. A 30,875 square foot colossus going up in Tampa’s Davis Islands section. The Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year paid $7.7 million for two adjacent lots and now is putting up one of the biggest homes in the Tampa Bay area.

It’s still under construction. At this point, it looks like small gray college. Jeter’s neighbors will include Vincent Lecavalier, who lives in a modest 7,636-foot home; and someone named David Wright who is not the Mets third baseman.

For the last decade or so, Jeter has lived in the gated Tampa community of Avila. It’s modeled after a walled Spanish city. Virtually every house in Avila is 5,000 square feet or more and it’s a popular place for sports figures. Warren Sapp, Jon Gruden, Tony Dungy, Fred McGriff, Lou Piniella, and Jorge Posada have called Avila home over the years.

A few years back, Jeter got tangled up with the IRS. The Feds took issue with Jeter claiming his Florida home, modest by Avila standards at just 4,493 square feet, as his primary residence and enjoying the tax benefits of the Sunshine State, which has no state income tax. After all, Jeter spends quite a bit of time in New York and traveling around the country with the Yankees.

Jeter, who paid $675,000 for the Avila home in 1997, settled with the IRS. Now he’s extending a middle finger to the Feds by building the type of permanent residence Jerry Jones would envy.

Unlike in Avila, not all of the folks in Jeter’s new neighborhood have mansions. Many of the waterfront homes, like Jeter’s, replaced smaller houses. But just two doors up the street from Jeter sits a 1,620 square foot bungalow built in 1959.

That home sold for $325,000 in October of 2007. Hillsborough County currently values it at $294,500, which might pay for the roof on Casa Jeter. Imagine having a home 20 times larger than yours going up two doors down. You’d feel like Ray Drecker in “Hung.”

Aside from the waterfront homes, the bungalow is typical of this well-maintained, tree-lined section of Davis Islands. Walk a block from the Jeter project along Bahama Drive, away from the army of contractors, and the neighborhood seems sleepy and private.

Still, Jeter has applied for a variance to get a six-foot privacy wall built. Paparazzi apparently will have to come by air and by sea.

When the house if finished, presumably late in 2010, the three biggest homes in the Tampa Bay area will be owned by Jeter, Hulk Hogan, and Matt Geiger.

That’s probably everything you need to know about the Tampa Bay area. Geiger, the 7-foot former NBA stiff who somehow once commanded a $48 million contract from the 76ers, has a 28,000 square foot compound near Tarpon Springs.

The house served as the home of John Travolta’s character in “The Punisher” and was for sale for $19.9 million in 2007. Hogan put his waterfront Clearwater home, which served as the set of “Hogan Knows Best” before his family fell apart, on the market recently.

Like Geiger, he’s found little market for homes in the ten-figure range.

With Geiger and the Hulkster apparently downsizing, it’s nice to see Jeter putting down more permanent roots, at least for tax purposes. He’d better enjoy it.

He won’t find a buyer anytime soon.