FORT MYERS, Fla. — Spring training is for finding things. Pitchers discover new pitches. Hitters decipher holes in their swings. And teams sift out their strengths and weaknesses.

And for reporters, there is a little bit of everything. Yesterday, these are some things which I unexpectedly unearthed at City of Palms Park:

r Josh Beckett gets eczema on occasion and Mike Reinold knows his stuff.

In all the years Beckett pitched for the Florida Marlins, there remained a mystery as to why the pitcher consistently was saddled with blisters on the middle finger of his pitching hand. Then he came to the Red Sox and the riddle was solved.

Using the expertise of the team’s assistant athletic trainer, Reinold, it was determined that the condition known as eczema – an inflammation of the upper layers of the skin – had something to do with the blister problem. As it was explained after Beckett’s three-inning stint against the Dodgers yesterday, whenever the ailment crops up it is always irritated by friction, whether it be a shirt against the body, or, in this case, the ball against a finger.

A supplement called “CoQ10” was prescribed and since then the blister woes have been a thing of the past. Beckett still uses “Stan’s Rodeo Ointment” if there is any signs of potential problems, but for now the diagnosis by Reinold has been right on.

Reinold, in case you don’t know, had worked under Dr. James Andrews for four years prior to coming to Boston. The experience has come in handy when dealing with ailments to Red Sox players who often times are coming off of Andrews’ operating table, such as Matt Clement.

Reinold also painted a very interesting picture of the medical facility: “You would have NFL guys at one table, baseball guys in the next, basketball guys next, and hockey guys. And then there were the (World Wrestling Entertainment) guys. They were in there more than anybody. It might be acting but it is still very real.”

r Coco Crisp has had some bad luck.

I knew that Crisp had never been hit by a pitch before last season. But I had no idea that before breaking his finger sliding into third base in Baltimore last year, he had never attempted to steal second and third on successive pitches. And that was where it all started going terribly wrong.

The rest of the year Crisp struggled, failing to find a way to turn on fastballs the way he always had. This year, however, he is banking on his luck changing.

For the first time, he didn’t start hitting until January because of the surgery performed on his finger, beginning with bunting, and then strictly left-handed cuts, until the switch-hitter finally started swinging from both sides.

r Curt Schilling is (still) excited about his change-up

Schilling took the time to show exactly how the circle-change is gripped, with the pointer finger and thumb touching for a reason: For pitchers that pointer finger is considered the power finger, so taking it off the ball makes it easier for power pitchers to harness touch pitches such as the change.

When former Sox catcher Ken Huckaby -- who is now with the Dodgers -- was asked if remembered Schilling throwing a lot of change-ups, Huckaby said that the pitcher did quite a bit in side sessions, but not so much in games. Huckaby explained what can make Schilling’s change-up so effective is that it plays off his splitter. “It has the same look, but hitters will lay off of it thinking it will dip down in the zone, but it will stay up over the knees,” the catcher explained. “It’s like PlayStation,” he added.

r Jon Lester threw the sweetest eight pitches of the spring.

It was just a B-game over on the other side of town, but the sight of Lester throwing off a mound was inspirational, considering he had just finished off his last round of chemotherapy just a few months ago.

Lester’s fastball over the inning of work stretched from 88 to 90 mph, while he mixed in two slow curveballs. His final pitch – a 90 mph fastball – was perhaps his best of the day, with the heater tailing back in on Minnesota batter Mike Redmond, who grounded out to shortstop.

"Command was great," Lester said. "I went away when I wanted to go away and went in when I wanted to go in. I was in the general vicinity [with] all my pitches. I don't know what the velocity was. It felt good. We'll just build from here and hopefully get stronger as camp goes on, and if the velocity isn't there, hopefully it will build back up to normal ... I don't think the treatments are a factor right now. I'm still building it back up from the offseason, but I think I'm right about at 85 or 90 percent, getting close and starting to feel a little more comfortable with my body and how things are flowing."

r The Dodgers are entertaining.

With one visit to City of Palms, we learned these things about some of the visitors from Los Angeles: 1. Former Sox pitcher Rudy Seanz battled a bad case of tendonitis for much of last season and plans on beginning his professional ultimate fighting career if he doesn’t make the a big league team this season; 2. Damian Jackson, a member of the 2003 Sox, has no fond feelings toward Fort Myers, having had the rims off of his car stolen; 3. Nomar Garciaparra’s favorite thing isn’t talking to the Boston media; 4. Bill Mueller, Boston’s former third baseman, has used the QRS machine on his ailing knee. The cosmonaut-tested contraption isn’t FDA-approved for use in this country, but is used all over Europe. Mueller said if he was still playing he would pay the $3,000 to purchase one.



Rob Bradford writes for The Eagle-Tribune in North Andover, Mass.