If you want to see what a young hitter is made of, stand about 15 feet behind him as he takes his cuts in the batting cage. All eyes at Milwaukee Brewers Spring Training camp were on Prince Fielder, the young slugging first baseman. Son of former home run king Cecil Fielder, Prince has a compact, powerful swing.

Will Prince be the next Ryan Howard, a slugging first sacker who comes NL Rookie of the Year? Looks promising.

According to a list I saw, there are 62 living members of the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame. I think it’s out of date, but my goal for 2006 is to capture as many of the living members on video as possible. Given I will be at the World Baseball Classic finals and the MLB All-Star Game, I might get to quite a few. Some will be simple: Billy Williams and Ryne Sandburg are at Cubs spring training. Others, such has Steve Carlton, will be close to impossible.

For starters, here are two: Fergie Jenkins and Harmon Killebrew. That leaves me with about 60 more to go…

We were fortunate enough to attend opening night in March, 1992 of the then-redone Scottsdale Stadium. It was one of the smaller HOK projects, but the stadium looked cool as we watched the Giants play the A’s. Today, 13 years later, we toured Scottsdale Stadium as a new facelift had been completed.

The Giants made noises about leaving Scottsdale as a Spring Training facility and heading out to some new Arizona spot such as Goodyear. Scottsdale responded by upgrading the stadium and surrounding practice facilities. Did the city do a good job? Judge for yourself.

A sunny afternoon in Arizona is the perfect setting for The SRP Garage Band Competition. Held at the Desert Ridge Marketplace, the competition is for local bands whose members are in high school or college, with the grand prize being a spot at the Circle K Tempe Music Festival, opening for John Mayer.

The competition is in a series of rounds, with six bands performing at each round. In addition to the spot at the music festival, the winners get a SRP-sponsored scholarship and a bunch of Fender ® equipment in honor of Fender’s 60^th anniversary.

Featured in this clip are Epic Memory and the Nudniks.

In my year-plus of videoblogging, my best coup is the footage in this clip--the Chinese national baseball team as they prepare for the World Baseball Classic. The team is very quietly training in Scottsdale under the tutelage of Jim Lefevbre, former LA Dodgers player and ex-manager of the Mariners, Cubs and Brewers. Lefevbre will manage the Chinese national team in the WBC; a team from Taiwan also will be represented in the classic. The teams from the Asian region will play their first round in Tokyo.

This is the first of a long series of World Baseball Classic reports, running through the finals in San Diego. The teams from South Africa, Mexico and USA will train in Scottsdale; the fourth team in the Arizona region, Canada, will train in Florida (they are being hosted by the Toronto Blue Jays) before heading here the first week of March for games at Scottsdale Stadium and Chase Field.

The most humorous thing about this clip is that my producer and I had to walk across an active driving range to get to the practice field. Luckily, John Daly was not on the range at the time.

After speaking to a number of folks who haven‘t sat glued to their sets, I am beginning to believe that traditional TV coverage of the Olympics just does not work anymore. With TV ratings down and Web visits to Olympics sites up, the answer could be in utilizing new technology as a broadcast medium for such sports spectacles.

Here’s my take--

Maybe it’s the fact that I live in Arizona, one of two major U.S. sites for Spring Training and the World Baseball Classic, but baseball fever is in the air. Here’s a quick pictorial look at last season featuring a number of familiar faces and places including Ryan Howard, Huston Street, Petco Park, Citizens Bank Park, Cactus League and Arizona Fall League.

Podsafe music is “The Driving Song,” by Bob Hughes.

One of the hot buzz phrases in the Web 2.0 space is “integrated communications.” Google has combined Gmail with Google Talk in one application. In essence, you can access the Google chat function within Gmail. So, you get an email from someone (in your contact list) and want to immediately communicate with them, and that response would play better in a real-time “conversation,” Voila, you are there. Nice!

Practically all the mail-messenger companies have some sort of link between mail and chat, but not like this. BTW, this is on a limited rollout initially….

The judges have spoken. Here are the picks for best (and worst) commercials of Super Bowl 40.

The judge from Pennsylvania says:

1. Emerald Nuts (Druids are just funny)

2. World Baseball Classic (but, of course!)

3. Dove

4. The Budweiser young Clydesdale

5. Careerbuilder “Jackass”

The judge from Seattle says:

1. (tied) Kermit the Frog in the Ford commercial and Budweiser young Clydesdale

2. Dove

3. Career builder “Jackass”

4. Pirate with the retractable Sharpie

5. Emerald Nuts

Worst ads? The PA judge says “Sierra Mist” with Kathy Griffin. The Seattle judge says Go Daddy.

Here's the Budweiser ad with the young Clydesdale, "American Dream."

The score at halftime is 7-3 (the good guys are winning), but we’re far more concerned with the TV commercials. So far, the judges cards are split. The judge from Seattle rates the Ford Hybrid commercial with Kermit the Frog #1 (He’s green and different as is the new car) and the judge from Pennsylvania (not Pittsburgh) rates the Dove commercial #1 because it has a message, clearly states the brand promise and has a call to action.

We'll be back with the winners after the game.

I hate LA. I always have, and suspect I always will.

Reasons? The traffic, the smog, the $60/one hour cab ride from the airport, the plastic people, mindless conversations about long work commutes, oddball posers on the street, the pretense…and did I mention the traffic? And how can you like a place that recognizes the talent of the Olsen Twins by rewarding them with a Star on the Walk of Fame. And what's there to like about the Dodgers and/or The Lakers?

Podsafe music is "Lost Angeles" by Berman.