Touch 'Em All: Mets pitching prospect Zack Wheeler injured before spring start

Zack Wheeler left the New York Mets and their fans hovering around the panic button Wednesday morning. The franchise's best pitching prospect hurt himself hitting.

A routine session in the batting cage led to tightness in Wheeler's right side, forcing the Mets to pull the plug on his starting assignment less than 90 minutes before a 12-4 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals.

The Mets were calling the injury a mild right oblique strain. General manager Sandy Alderson told reporters there was no timetable yet but said the decision to sit Wheeler was "mostly precautionary at this point." Wheeler said he intended to make his next start, but manager Terry Collins wants to exercise caution.

Maybe it was race-car driver Jeff Gordon's shout-out to the fans at "Wrigley Stadium." Or Ozzy Osbourne, who decided the lyrics of "Take Me Out to The Ball Game" were not nearly as interesting as the mostly unintelligible words he'd picked out for himself.

Whatever the reason, the Chicago Cubs have decided to make the broadcast booth at Wrigley Field, and more important, the microphone, off limits to the likes of Vanna White, Erik Estrada, and Mickey Rooney. Marion Ross apparently will be the last member of the Happy Days cast to sing during the seventh-inning stretch.

"I think the last couple of years we had gotten away to a couple of people who weren't tied to Chicago," said Jim Oboikowitch, the Cubs' in-game programming director in a bit of understatement after more than a decade of Peter Frampton, David Cassidy, Barbara Eden, and Frank Sinatra (Jr.) leading the Wrigley faithful in song.

Lance Berkman is set to make his spring training debut for the Texas Rangers on Thursday.

Berkman has been bothered by a mild right calf strain, and the Rangers have been cautious with the 37-year-old switch-hitter. He played only 32 games with St. Louis last season because of two operations on his right knee and a left calf strain.

While being held out of the first six spring games, Berkman has still been going through workouts and some baserunning drills. He is scheduled to be the designated hitter Thursday against Cleveland.

New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi said Phil Hughes, penciled in as the team's No. 4 starter before spring training began, might not be ready to start the regular season because of a bulging disk in his upper back, according to a story on ESPN.com.

"Is it in jeopardy, his starting? It's possible, yeah," Girardi said after the Yankees lost, 10-7, to the Baltimore Orioles on Wednesday at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa., Fla. "I think it's too early to tell, though."

One of the baserunning sausages, a familiar sight at Milwaukee Brewers games, went missing.

Someone wearing the Klement's Racing Italian Sausage costume recently posed with bar patrons in Cedarburg, Wis. The 7-foot-long, $3,000 costume was in a backroom at the Milwaukee Curling Club during a Feb. 16 fund-raiser. Someone saw the sausage walk out the door that evening, and it hadn't been seen since.

Two Milwaukee TV stations reported late Wednesday night that the sausage named "Guido" had been found.

The costume is owned by the Milwaukee-based sausage company Klement's. The Racing Sausages costumes are available for rent.

- Wire reports