Notebook: Schilling, Wells have plenty to say

TAMPA, Fla. — With the Curt & Pedro tandem broken up, Boston began its first spring as World Series champions since 1918 with some striking words from Schilling and new teammate David Wells.

Schilling arrived at the Red Sox camp in Fort Myers yesterday, saying he hopes to recover from ankle surgery in time to pitch Boston's April 3 opener at — where else? — Yankee Stadium, possibly against former Arizona teammate Randy Johnson.

After Schilling and Pedro Martinez helped lead Boston to its first title in 86 years, Martinez left to sign with the New York Mets. Schilling said he enjoyed pitching with Pedro a lot more than Martinez liked pitching alongside him.

"I think that was pretty obvious at the end, not while it was happening. But I guess when you look at what he said afterwards it was obvious that it wasn't as fun of a thing for him as it was for me," Schilling said. "When the playoffs came and he made the comment about somebody having to have a lot of guts to come up and tell him he wasn't going to pitch Game 1, that kind of told me where we were at."

Wells, who helped New York win two American League pennants and one World Series, got right into the swing of the Red Sox-Yankees sniping, saying Alex Rodriguez "has to earn it" and admitting he didn't get along with Yankees manager Joe Torre.

"I remember reading the press conference or something when he went there," Wells said of A-Rod. "He said: 'When we.' He said a 'we' in his comment about like he's won like three or four rings with them and he hadn't, and that kind of disturbed me.

"He shouldn't put himself in that category," added Wells. "You've got to earn it. It's like he's been there the whole time. But you can't take away what A-Rod has done for the game. He's a great player, and he will continue to be a great player."

Wells remembered difficult times with Torre and pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre.

"I've never had a good relationship with Joe," he said. "We've had a few run-ins and Mel Stottlemyre as well, and Mel's probably the best pitching coach I probably ever had. But just when you have run-ins like that, it just leaves a sour taste, and who needs it?"

At the Yankees' camp, Johnson playfully got into it, too. The Big Unit said he didn't think that merely by signing with the Yankees he'd join A-Rod as a target of the Red Sox and their fans.

"I haven't done anything to them," he said.

Not yet, but his job is to lead the Yankees to their first title since 2000.

"So they'll be mad at me if I pitch well against them? Bring it on then," he said, laughing.

In Mesa, Ariz., Cubs manager Dusty Baker said he reached out to Sammy Sosa after the outfielder was traded to Baltimore, seeking to understand why his relationship with the All-Star came apart at the end of last season.

"I got hold of him and we had a short conversation. I wished him well. I did ask him, I said, 'Hey, man, I'm still bewildered about what happened and why,' and he didn't really have an answer," Baker said before Chicago's first workout of the spring.

"He said, 'It's in the past, good luck and God bless you.' And that was the extent of the conversation."

In Lakeland, the Detroit Tigers learned that reliever Ugueth Urbina would not be in camp until at least early next week.

Urbina's mother disappeared Sept. 1 from her home in Urbina's native Caracas, Venezuela. A senior Venezuelan police official has confirmed that the amount of ransom demanded was about $3 million.

• Baseball umpires have ratified the five-year contract their union agreed to in December, the commissioner's office said. Baseball owners approved the agreement last month. The contract calls for 5 percent annual increases, with this year's salary scale ranging from $87,859 to $357,530. The deal also resolves the grievance over management's use of a computer-evaluation system and calls for owners to bring back three of the 22 umpires who lost their jobs in a 1999 labor dispute, raising the total of rehired umpires to 11.