MLB.com’s Marty Noble on Lastings Milledge’s musical aspirations.



Milledge is a record producer, not a wannabe, an “is.” At age 21 — Milledge turns 22 next month — he is the president of Soulja BoI Records, Inc. Hip hop, R&B and gospel for the masses, he hopes. He has the material — he has written two songs and produced 13 others — the capital, the equipment, the inclination, the motivation and, after taking a course in music engineering, some expertise.

“I’m getting there. I don’t have everything yet,” he says. “But I’m working on it. I just don’t sit around all day, I actually get stuff accomplished.”

Soulja BoI Records — the “I” in BoI is upper case, he says, because it looked too small in lower case — is all his. He put out $20,000 to purchase equipment, including music-production software for his laptop that allows him to shape and “clean up” the music. The laptop makes occasional visits to the clubhouse. It makes bus rides to Kissimmee, Fla., wrapped in an orange Mets towel and placed in a bag. Headphones in place, Milledge can produce anywhere. A more traditional studio is at his home in Bradenton, Fla.


The talent is in Bradenton, too, provided by Milledge’s friend from home. When the CD the friend is working on, as yet unfinished, is released, the name on it will be Manny D; the name on his birth certificate is Immanuel Dent (above). He and Milledge go back almost as far as guys in their early 20’s can. “It would be great if he had a career,” Milledge said.

Milledge is already looking for more talent. He’s courting Jose Reyes, who he thinks could become a reggaeton artist

Milledge plans to remain behind the scenes, even though he thinks he has a performer inside. “What people will look at … my image, I want to keep that clean,” he says.

Roch Kubatko
notes that former Mets P Steve Trachsel was mostly effective in his Grapefruit League stint against the Cardinals, a performance more encouraging than his Game 3 NLCS debacle.

“Completely different, completely different,” he said of comparisons to yesterday and the NLCS. “Here, I’m working on things. There, I was just trying to get through some innings.

Not to nitpick, but last October, Trachsel got throught precisely one inning.

The Bergen Record’s Bob Klapisch on the Mets’ Tom Glavine :

There’s nothing about Glavine that suggests he’s on his way to the Hall of Fame “ not his ego (surprisingly ordinary), his fastball (less than that) or even his physique (closer to a blogger’s than an athlete’s).

Ahem. And those professional sportswriters, man, you wouldn’t want to meet any of them in a dark alley.

Rob Bradford, in what might be one of the spring’s more intense examples of investigative journalism, claims the Dodgers’ Nomar Garciapara is not wearing New Era’s newfangled 2007 batting practice cap and has instead “decided to wear his normal in-season hat, but painted little white arches on the side to give the impression he was wearing the spring training lid.”