""Who's talking: Me or the neck?'' In the brilliance of yet another blue-perfect day for spring training hopes and dreams in the Valley of the Sun, we are talking about aging and irony and frustration and the difference between being hurt and being injured. Scott Rolen was the heart and role model for the 2010 Reds, but he played wounded half the year and will be 36 in less than a month. His body never lets him forget it. I ask Rolen, "If you could have a negotiation today with your neck (and back, hamstrings and hips), how would it go? How would you like things to work this year? Rolen wants to know who's making the pitch - him or his neck. • Photos: Brewers 15, Reds 2 • Photos: Getting GABP ready for Opening Day "You are,'' I say. I guessed Rolen might say, "Give me 140 games, and I promise I won't haul any mulch until I retire. I won't chop wood. The heaviest thing I will lift will be a can of Diet Coke. Empty. "Give me a good 140, I will take you to a spa five times a week. I will never turn you violently, not even if I see Brooklyn Decker blowing me kisses behind the third base dugout. The rest of your life, you'll be as pampered as the Queen Mother.'' Instead, Rolen says this: "Let me know when it's time to sit down for a second.'' Rolen's importance to what occurred last summer cannot be exaggerated. Young players need a wise man to tell them who to be. They don't arrive at the summit without a sherpa. It helps if the sherpa has the sort of three months Rolen had last year, between April and June. " Read more: http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20110307/COL03/303070090/
