Savior of Port St. Lucie 'working on his fastball'

Hey Johan Santana, here's a little tip about playing in New York.


You know the electric chair is warming up and the phasers are set on stun when The Daily News starts dropping your contract numbers into the third paragraph of a game story.


Or when they write the name of the guy who just took you deep and mention, parenthetically, that his "most recent professional experience came in 36 games as a Long Island Duck in 2006."


Or when they drop the sentence "Of course, Santana did allow an American League-high 33 homers last season" into paragraph four.

The Swedish-meatball-stuffed scribes in St. Paul were "Minnesota Nice," using words like "please" and "excuse me," which you won't hear for the duration of your contract in New York.


Best wishes, dude.


Note to Mets fans: Former Met Rick Anderson remains the pitching coach of the Minnesota Twins. He did not come with Santana as part of the deal. Anderson? He was the guy who kept Santana's head screwed on tight after each and every one of those 33 home runs last year.