SPRING TRAINING EXTRA TODAY

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Eight-page digital section preparing you for the start of spring training

Pressure is on baseball’s $100 million pitchers Every team previewed Complete spring training schedule with Chanel. If you are counting at home, that’s four hours a day on workouts. And that doesn’t include time spent swinging off a tee to keep the swing in shape.

Around five, he picks the boys up and has been spending an hour or so watching and informally instructing them on basketball. School tryouts are coming up and on a recent windy evening, Fielder pulls up an Adirondack chair and starts watching.

The boys immediately head for the 6-foot goal on the other end of the court.

“Uh-uh,” Fielder says. “It’s cold and that doesn’t benefit anybody. I’m not going to watch you waste time.”

Jadyn, his shock of frizzy hair bouncing, shows off his dribble.

At one point, Haven stalks off, upset that his dad isn’t calling fouls. Haven can get a little moody at this age. Soon enough, though, he comes back. Fielder joins them on the court. The instruction gives way to encouragement. The encouragement gives way to laughter.

“They are going to get older and it’s going to run out soon,” said Fielder, who was 20 and at Double-A when Jadyn was born. “I want to spend as much time as I can with them before they get too cool to hang out with me. It’s the most time I’ve ever gotten to spend with them, and it’s been amazing.”

Soon enough, though, Fielder will be at spring training. The kids will still be in school. The visits will become more infrequent. Baseball will again become the constant, but it will no longer be routine.

“For once in a long time, he’s got everything lined up the way he wants it,”said longtime best friend Tony Gwynn Jr. “He’s happy. He’s not a guy who likes to talk much about baseball during the offseason, but when we spoke recently, and I asked him how he felt, he was really quick and decisive. He said, ‘I’m ready to go. I can’t wait to get going.’”

Chanel says the injury “was probably the greatest thing that could have happened to recharge the batteries. I think this time was highly needed to get him back to where he needed to be, back to where he loved the game and enjoyed every part of it.”