Live from Port St. Lucie, the Stew brings you Mission Johan Santana. The Discovery shuttle sits on a launch pad 90 minutes from here, but the spaceship Santana was ready to go Thursday night.

Blast off!

Mets ace Johan Santana, whose debut had been delayed because of a setback with his left elbow, said his first voyage of the season went great.

"I was excited, you know?" Santana said. "Finally I got a chance to pitch and get into a game — even though it was a spring training game."

Santana threw 47 pitches, including 32 for strikes, over 2 2/3 innings on a warm evening at Tradition Field in Port St. Lucie. Santana says his elbow, which he tested with breaking balls, felt A-OK.

"For it to be my first time in a real game situation, it felt great," Santana said. "I threw some sliders; I threw some good ones. I was able to throw my fastball inside. That’s a good sign."

Santana allowed three runs and four hits, including a long homer to Dan Uggla, who was sitting on a fastball.

"Uggla, he

Welcome, Stewies, to another season of Answer Man, the baseball Q&A that doesn't necessarily have to be with only one interview subject.

At a recent stop in Clearwater, Fla. I checked in with Maui native and world bleeping champion Shane Victorino. There, I found out that the Flyin' Hawaiian is learning that ascending to the top helps you meet all kinds of new friends, such as the dad of sextuplets on cable TV's wildly successful "Jon & Kate Plus Eight."

It also leads to lots of questions — or no questions asked, as Victorino might put it.

David Brown: If Hawaii seceded from the Union and you guys had to replace, say, South Africa as a WBC team, could you fill out Hawaii's lineup card?

Shane Victorino: OK, so, catching would be [Kurt] Suzuki. First base would be Kila Ka'aihue from the Royals. Second baseman... I don't know. Shortstop... ooh. I'd be in center. Let's see, who else we got?

DB: Where's Benny Agbayani?

SV: Benny would be in left. Mike Fetters would be a pitcher. Sid

Don't look at spring statistics, Justin Verlander asks.

OK, I promise not to look OH JEEZ.

I looked.

Verlander has allowed six earned runs, nine hits and nine walks over 9 1/3 innings for the Tigers in Grapefruit League play so far. Verlander walked four in two innings against the Yankees on Wednesday.

As a fan in the stands at Joker Marchant Stadium noted during Verlander's struggles, "He's all over the place!"

All part of the plan, folks, so Verlander says. Detroit's ace right-hander personified his team's nosedive in '08 by going 11-17 with a 4.84 ERA. For the Tigers to rebound, Verlander must also rebound.

The bounce is coming, Verlander said. He can feel it.

"I definitely feel like today was a lot better than the statistics show," Verlander said. "Yeah, there were a lot of walks but in between there were a lot of good pitches. I’m the only one that knows how they felt."

The 2006 AL Rookie of the Year and '07 AL All-Star claims to be rejoining us shortly. We just have to trust

If there's somethin' strange, in Sheff's neighborhood, who's he gonna call?

If there's something weird, and it don't look good, who's he gonna call?

The t-shirt says it all. Gary Sheffield ain't afraid of no ghosts.

Shortly after finishing a two-home run spring game against the Yankees on Wednesday — which doesn't count, sadly, toward his career total in the regular season — Sheffield started to walk out of Tigertown in Lakeland, Fla. without it going on the permanent record that he was doing so while wearing a "Ghost Busters" t-shirt.

Not so fast, Mr. Probable Hall of Famer.

Sheffield was 15 years old when the original spirit trappers first worked their ectoplasmic magic in the summer of '84, and he was an everyday player in the majors by the time its sequel came out in '89. Twenty years after that, another sequel is in the works and it obviously has Sheff in a tizzy. How excited would he be to attend a "Ghost Busters III" premiere?

"Meh, not really that much," said Sheffield (and,

Sure, they're both Hall of Famers and well into their golden years, but that doesn't stop Yankees legend Yogi Berra and Tigers legend Al Kaline from helping out their respective clubs as coaches during spring training.

Here, Yogi and Thomas Magnum's favorite Tiger talk golf (but stop long enough to wonder "What's with the guy and the camera?") down the right-field line at Joker Marchant Stadium in Lakeland, Fla., winter home of the Tigers forever (actually 73 years). Kaline wants to know if Berra has played the course at the Old Memorial Golf Club in Tampa.

These guys and their golf. Maybe someday ...

Marchant Stadium is probably the nicest spring park I've seen so far. Not just because it has parking spots reserved for Kaline and Willie Horton. It's recently been refurbished and puts fans right on top of the action. A-Rod, were he present, could hear whatever a fan wanted him to hear. In case you were wondering, Joker Marchant was a Lakeland original who was instrumental in keeping

Joba Chamberlain got over the hump by standing a little taller on the bump.

In some good spring training news for the Yankees, Chamberlain hit 96 mph on the radar gun and used two different sliders effectively against the Reds on Tuesday night.

Chamberlain, who had suffered through two poor spring starts, felt motivated to improve before opening day got any closer.

"We're less than a month away now," Chamberlain said. "You understand there's work to be done, but you also have to have that sense of urgency.

"Maybe you need a kick in the rear end every once in a while."

Chamberlain’s line: 3 IP, 3 H, ER, 0 BB, 3 K. His ERA dropped from 18.00 to 6.75.

Much more like how Real Joba's supposed to pitch. Maybe the other guy was Fake Joba?

Chamberlain looks slimmer to me than last year's model and he looked a lot more comfortable on the mound after making an adjustment in how he toes the rubber and delivers the ball.

"It's just two little things; staying taller over the rubber and just feeling

Hey, Stewies! After a hiatus for a few days, I'm back stalking around spring training sites in sunny Florida. I ran out of postcard stamps, but K-Duck said to post anyway between Answer Man recon.

Legends Steinbrenner Field in Tampa is a great place to spot the stars, of course. You could (fist) bump into Yogi Berra, you could catch a glimpse of the (non-Springsteen) Boss in an elevator, or you could find Reginald Martinez Jackson hitting fungoes before a game.

Even better (or worse, if your political bent goes right) you could spot Mr. October chatting with the host of MSNBC's Countdown, Keith Olbermann, during batting practice.

Reggie, you might have heard of. Olbermann, the former ESPN SportsCenter co-host back in the Dan Patrick heyday, became more prominent during the past election cycle by anchoring his channel's coverage of all that led to the Barack Obama coronation.

More importantly, Olbermann is a huge baseball fan whose family has owned Yankees season tickets at least long

Big League Stew contributor David Brown has been in Florida on a spring swing through the Grapefruit League. This is his last daily report but he'll still be posting throughout the spring season — both to the Stew and his Twitter feed.

Hey Stewies!

Just had to check back in one last time as Pedro Martinez took the mound for the Dominican Republic in an exhibition game against the Orioles back in Fort Lauderdale.

The old-school stadium seemed an appropriate place for Martinez to make his competitive debut in 2009. Martinez started with a rocky inning but pitched strongly in his second, all in all a solid start for a guy auditioning — even with his accomplishments — for anyone who still wants him.

Reminds me of the story Shelley Winters used to tell about being asked to read lines for a movie. She came to the audition, but just whipped an Oscar out of her purse and said, "Here's my resume."

"It was awkward at first," Martinez said. "But you know what? For the first day, it was pretty