Miller: Five things to know

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla -- It is just past 8 a.m., and in sleepy spring training clubhouses across the game, morning-hating players are dumping cream into their coffee and grunting their hellos before another day of drills.

The D-Rays ditch the weights, give yoga a try during camp. (Provided to SportsLine)

Meanwhile, inside the Tampa Bay weight room, a pretty, lithe blonde is guiding roughly 16 or 17 Devil Rays through what appears to be the only organized yoga training in baseball this spring.

A few of the Rays are here because they're curious and open-minded.

A couple surely are here for the same reason pitcher Shawn Camp is -- his wife "encouraged" him to participate.

And some undoubtedly are attending because they misheard that little voice in their head and thought it was John Belushi shouting "Toga!"

Yoga?

"It's crazy, a bunch of grown men," Camp says. "At first, we were looking at each other like, 'What are we doing?' But now we're getting our moves down.

"I think we'll be ready for that dance show real soon, Dancing with the Stars."

Or at least they'll be prepared for baseball's regular season. They hope.

Really, once you get past yoga's girly image -- not exactly easy in the Maxim-reading atmosphere of the clubhouse -- it makes all the sense in the world. Why did baseball frown on weight-training for most of the 1900s? Because it's a game of flexibility, and weights were thought to inhibit that. Yoga is all about flexibility. Duh.

"I think as more guys try it, it's going to become more mainstream, like weight-lifting did in the 1970s," says forward-thinking Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon, who has practiced yoga in the past but has not attended the voluntary sessions here. "Guys stayed away from it because it was supposed to make you muscle-bound. Then people saw it could help, but it's gotta be baseball-specific.

"I think with yoga, you have to be baseball specific, too. And I think at some point somebody will be having a good year, and someone will ask him, 'What do you attribute it to?' and he'll say, 'My yoga.'

"And then I think you'll see people running all over the country looking for a yoga instructor."

That sure would please Dana Edison, the registered yoga teacher (RYT), owner of Radius Yoga Conditioning and the striking guru who, at the invitation of strength coach Kevin Barr, is helping the Devil Rays stretch and bend into anatomical ways most baseball players haven't seen since their Gumby days.

Camp, outfielder Rocco Baldelli, designated hitter Jonny Gomes, infielder Greg Norton, starter Scott Kazmir, reliever Chad Orvella and others are doing the Downward Dog, the Grasshopper Lunge and the Pigeon. Edison -- who is based in the Boston area -- has threatened them with the Frog, too, but has yet to ask them to do that complicated pose.

"I love it, I absolutely love it," Edison says of working with her newest pupils. "I love sports, so this is my dream job."

Though the Devil Rays so far are the only team that's signed her up -- two weeks' worth; Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings -- she has gotten nibbles from other clubs as well and is meeting with several during her time here this spring.

"Next year, I'll be busier," she predicts.

One of her projects with the Devil Rays is working to correct "sidedness."

Uh, what-ness?

"Unless you're a switch-hitter, because of how much batting practice these guys take, one hip is going to be more flexible than the other, one shoulder is going to be more flexible, one side -- oblique -- is going to be more flexible," Edison says. "Then when he's in the field and turning the opposite way, he's asking muscles to stretch on one side that just aren't as flexible, the side he hasn't used as much.

"Before I started my business, I looked at the disabled list and said, 'Oh my God, is anybody else looking at this?'"

She's in the wrong place, of course, because baseball traditionally has been about 20 years behind just about every curve there's been. Cutting-edge in this game generally means actually allowing a team from one league to play a team from the other league. It's only been within the past 10 years that most clubs have added strength and conditioning coaches.

"The trainers really have been open to it," Edison says. "But then it becomes an uphill battle because they have to sell it to their GMs."

Far as Devil Rays general manager Andrew Friedman is concerned, anything to help prevent injuries is worth taking for a test drive.

"Any way we can get in front of injuries and head some of them off, the better we're going to be," Friedman says.

Edison makes sure to call what she does "yoga conditioning" because "people have misconceptions about yoga." Such as: chanting. The Devil Rays do not sit around on their mats each morning, chanting.

"It's cool," Baldelli says. "I'm not a real flexible person anyway. Half of (the positions), I still can't do."

During her time here, Edison is running the Devil Rays through a sort of sampler program. Monday's was moderately difficult, Wednesday's was easier, and Friday's was more difficult. All involve stretching, balance, building strength by using one's own body weight (such as by holding certain positions for as long as 90 seconds or so) and attempting to relax the mind.

"Chad Orvella's pretty good," Camp says. "But he's got a couple of weeks on us. He's done it in the offseason."

Who has the most difficulty?

"Greg Norton," Camp says without hesitation. "I look at him and see him sweating quite a bit."

"That's a lie," Norton says. "I was sweating today. A lot of us were sweating today.

"It's not an enjoyable experience at 7:45 in the morning. But you've got to get in there. There's a reason I'm doing it. I need to get more flexible."

At 34, Norton is in Edison's target audience. The younger players don't need yoga quite as much as the older ones, Edison says. Naturally.

The trend is toward more and more players incorporating yoga in their offseason conditioning, too. Norton says he does it in the winter, and even some of the Devil Rays who are not participating in Edison's sessions say they do yoga in the offseason, including pitcher Doug Waechter and first baseman Ty Wigginton.

So, too, do many players across the game, including San Francisco pitcher Barry Zito and Detroit reliever Joel Zumaya.

"If people who have never done it before say it's easy, they're wrong," Camp says. "It's hard.

"There's this position called the Child's Pose, and if you get tired you're supposed to go into that. Dana said today that she's never seen so many grown men go into the Child's Pose."

Yes, it certainly does take a lot of little boy to play this game. And do the poses, too.

"She just stopped me in the middle of one pose," says Baldelli, the center fielder who batted .302 with 16 homers and 57 RBI last season, smiling sheepishly. "She said, 'Just stop. Lay on your back. That doesn't look right.'"

In Baldelli's defense, as the Devil Rays sit and stretch and pose on their yoga mats, truth be told, for an hour a day, many of them no longer are sure what the hell looks right from what doesn't.

"She's stronger than everyone in there," Norton marvels. "She can hold all the poses, do the pushups and the sit-ups.

"As I tell people: We're not athletes, we're baseball players."