It’s not easy broadening your horizons while covering the biggest story of the baseball offseason. But as I get ready to leave for spring training, I’m happy to report that I didn’t let the Johan Santana saga completely overtake my life.

The first few days in Fort Myers, everyone always asks, “Do anything fun this offseason?” It would be a shame if the answer was no.

Having La Velle to share the workload afforded me the chance to have some memorable experiences that didn’t involve baseball sources or refreshing mlbtraderumors.com 46 times per day.

Anyway, I know you’re eager to begin dissecting every aspect of the upcoming baseball season. Beginning Sunday, you’ll get six weeks of spring training coverage, so I’m aiming for stuff a little different this week.

Today, like a seventh grader on the first day of school, writing his “What I Did This Summer” essay, I’d like to review a few personal offseason highlights.

Best thing I read that had nothing to do with baseball: S.L. Price’s profile of Rick Majerus in Sports Illustrated. Not to spoil the ending, but this is one of the best kickers I’ve ever read:

Some may understand. He’s almost past caring. Majerus will walk that long tunnel to the locker room alone, head down, two people indeed. There goes the happy coach, back in his element. There goes the saddest man you ever saw.

Best thing I read that has everything to do with baseball: One afternoon while working on my Hall of Fame ballot, I dusted off The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract and spent four hours studying the way James compares players from different generations. Seems like I have about one day just like this, every winter.

Best book I finished: The Best and the Brightest, by David Halberstam. We lost this journalism titan last year, and I decided I had put off reading this book for long enough.

Favorite new blog: Joe Posnanski gets the nod, running away.

Best vacation: My wife and I went skiing in the Italian Alps. We flew to Munich, drove through Austria and through the Brenner Pass to spend a week in a village in the northernmost tip of Italy. This was my eighth time making this trip, and it never disappoints.

Most relaxing week: We also spent a week visiting my wife’s parents in Mesa, Ariz. Again, were it not for La Velle, there would have been no relaxing anywhere on this beat.

Top 5 movies watched (including rentals):

1. Juno
2. The Great Debaters
3. The Bourne Ultimatum (Yes, that’s how far behind I was.)
4. The Bucket List
5. Capote (OK, that’s how far behind I was.)

Favorite sporting event: The Minnesota Girls State Swimming Meet. My half-sister, Julia Olson, won a swim-off in the 50 Freestyle to earn All-State honors. Those might have been the most exciting 24 seconds of my life.

Best thing I did to broaden my baseball knowledge: A hat tip right here to all the baseball people who returned phone calls and offered their perspective of the Twins’ offseason. I don’t think there’s anything La Velle and I do that is more important than this. We learn so much from these people every day, and hopefully, we do a decent job synthesizing that information for you.

Biggest individual honor: Some people get their star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame. We became characters in a surprise Batgirl Lego re-enactment. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Don’t know about you, but I am officially burned out on Hot Stove coverage. I have a pretty big appetite for this stuff, but it’s as if I’ve passed through an all-you-can-eat buffet and can no longer stand to think about food.

“Minaya thinks Mets have players to land Santana.”

Yeah? Wake me when it happens.

La Velle has been all over the news this week at the winter meetings. He just sent me four text messages during the Rule Five draft. Sounds like Twins minor leaguers are dropping like flies. Trust me, we’ll keep you covered, but while he finishes up in Nashville, I could use a diversion.

We’ve been at it for several weeks, speculating on where Torii Hunter would land as a free agent, watching the Santana negotiations unravel and then covering the futile frenzy of the Santana trade sweepstakes.

Sometimes, when the Santana and Hunter highlights flicker on TV, I’ll catch myself thinking about the pure baseball stuff for a second. Like what a thrill it was watching Torii sprint to catch a ball in the gap. Or watching Johan work the corners with the precision of a surgeon before putting hitters away with that Bugs Bunny change-up.

When Bill Smith completed the trade for Delmon Young last week, he mentioned the scouting report from Tom Kelly, who had noted that the ball makes a special sound when it comes off Delmon’s bat. I can’t wait to get to Fort Myers and hear that sound.

I’m sick of the Hot Stove League. I miss the game itself. Baseballreference.com has a countdown going on its site that tells us it’s 116 days until Opening Day.

For now, I’ll settle for another favorite pastime — reading a good book. I’d been meaning to do this for a while, but I’d like to recommend “The Soul of Baseball: A road trip through Buck O’Neil’s America,” by Joe Posnanski.

Loyal readers know I’m a big Buck O’Neil fan, and Posnanski is one of the best sportswriters in the business. I highly recommend his blog, and of course his work for the Kansas City Star. Posnanski traveled the country with O’Neil before he passed away in 2006, and the book is an intimate portrait filled with life lessons. It’s like “Tuesdays with Morrie,” only less contrived.

A sample from a game Posnanski watched with O’Neil in Houston:

Buck sat in his seat before the first pitch, and he watched the players warm up. It was an old scout’s habit. Buck watched everything – warm-ups, batting practice, pitchers throwing in bullpens, on-field conversations.

… In baseball, Buck said, anyone can spot the star. But the best scouts looked for the future star, the starlet in a drugstore. And to find those, Buck said, a scout had to look for small moments of grace. Buck looked around the field and took in the easy tempo of infielders tossing the ball around just before the start of the game, and he offered a running commentary.

“Look at that third baseman. He’s got a strong arm. The shortstop has soft hands – the ball sticks to his glove, like Velcro … The second baseman has bad feet. He looks like he’s stomping grapes. … The fist baseman just scooped a bad throw out of the dirt, but it was luck. He didn’t show that natural ease. He stabbed at the ball, and it was like, Look what I found.”

“You see today, but I see history,” he said. “That could be Babe Ruth out there, or Josh Gibson, or Willie Mays, or Cool Papa Bell. I see this game a little bit differently. I see a skinny kid swinging with an upper cut, I might say, ‘He looks like Ted Williams.’ I see a big man pitching, like this big man on the mound [Roger Clemens], and to me it might be another Nolan Ryan or Hilton Smith. I see little things that remind me. It’s beautiful.”

I saw the teaser during the Twins game that Torii Hunter would be making an appearance on “Best Damn Sports Show Period.” So I set the DVR and did my duty this morning by watching for any potential Hunter bombshells.

First, this served as a reminder that the show is indeed still completely unwatchable. Torii is a regular guest, but this time they had him paired with C.C. Sabathia and started asking them who would win a 1-on-1 in basketball (Hunter said C.C.), in the 100-yard-dash (”Are you serious?” C.C. asked) and 100-yard swim (”When I swim, I sink like a rock,” Hunter said.)

John Salley managed one serious question, asking why Hunter would turn down a $14 million per year contract extension. Torii again said there was no such offer, and that was pretty much it. Once again, Hunter’s charisma helped save a poorly orchestrated segment. I can’t believe that show has lasted all these years.

As a rookie blogger, I’m still learning my way. When the readers show the kind of energy you’ve shown this season, it’s hard on days when you can’t advance the story or at least add to the discussion. But my computer crashed this morning. Our tech gurus gave me a replacement, but I’m way behind on my work for our Sunday editions. So with that, I’m going underground for a few days.

La Velle will keep you on top of the Twins news during this road trip. And check out any of those links on the right side of the screen. Seth Stohs (link now fixed) has had some terrific posts of late, especially his Wednesday post about season splits. Anyway, much as it pains me to do this, I need some time away from the blog to keep afloat elsewhere. Thanks for your understanding, and I’ll talk to you again next week.

The Twins traded second baseman Luis Castillo to the New York Mets on Monday for Class AA catcher Drew Butera, the son of former major league catcher Sal Butera, and Class A outfielder Dustin Martin.

The Twins announced the move at 5:45 p.m. Twins General Manager Terry Ryan was scheduled to meet with the media at 6 p.m.

Castillo, 31, is making $5.75 million this year and is eligible for free agency at season’s end. As the Twins leadoff hitter, he was batting .304 with a .356 on-base percentage.