Let the countdown to spring training begin

It may not feel like it, not with bitter cold temperatures coming later this week, but we actually aren't all that far away from baseball season.

We're only 41 days away, to be precise.

Yes, only 41 days from now, Nationals pitchers and catchers will officially report to their new spring training facility in West Palm Beach, Fla., the club announced yesterday. That's Feb. 14, for those who have trouble counting. Not a bad way to spend Valentine's Day, though my wife may beg to differ.

Position players are scheduled to report three days later, on Feb. 17, with the first full-squad workout set to take place two days after that. Close your eyes and you can see, hear and smell morning pickoff drills taking place.

If these reporting dates sound a bit earlier than usual, they are. Major League Baseball pushes up the start of spring training every four years for the World Baseball Classic, the latest incarnation of which will be contested in March. In order to give players who are participating in the international tournament enough time to start getting in shape, camps open several days earlier than normal.

So it's going to be a long spring, with the Nationals in Florida a full 6 1/2 weeks, scheduled to play 34 exhibition games beginning Feb. 25 against the Mets in Port St. Lucie and concluding March 30 against the Red Sox in Fort Myers.

All of this, of course, assumes the new Ballpark of the Palm Beaches is ready in time for both the Nationals and Astros. At last check, the project remained on a tight schedule, though everyone still expects the facility to be usable when players begin to arrive next month, if not 100 percent finished.

In other words, if you're planning to attend the early workouts or the first few Grapefruit League games, you may be inhaling plenty of fresh paint fumes.

The complex may not be completely finished yet, but the Nationals are nonetheless thrilled to be moving to West Palm Beach, for one major reason: significantly easier travel all spring. Aside from a couple of long trips to Fort Myers and Lakeland at the start of the exhibition slate, and then the spring finale in Fort Myers, the Nats barely will leave the neighborhood this spring.

Last spring, when they trained in Viera and were a minimum one hour's drive from any other complex in the state, the Nationals logged 2,680 total miles. This spring, with the Astros sharing their new complex and the Cardinals and Marlins right up the road in Jupiter, the Nationals will log a total of 1,243 miles.

That's not insignificant.