Amaro

The carousel started last week when, after reportedly visiting both Philadelphia and Atlanta, B.J. Upton tapped 139 characters on his iPad. "I'm really blown away by the love other cities are showing me right now," Upton tweeted last Thursday. "Can't wait to see how this pans out. #intrigued" The modern hot stove is reduced to a hash tag, and the sentiment extends beyond Upton's 64,000 Twitter followers. The Phillies and Braves have both identified Upton as a priority, possibly their top target.

This is a post by David Murphy on the Daily News' baseball blog, High Cheese. A BASEBALL player, a lawyer and a rabbi walked into Ruben Amaro Jr.'s explanation for signing Delmon Young on Tuesday, and now a once-proud baseball team enters 2013 as a potential off-Broadway farce. In contemplating the general manager's justification for acquiring the 27-year-old outfielder, who in April of last season was suspended after a drunken confrontation that included his allegedly hurling an anti-Semitic slur, you can't help but wonder if the whole thing was an exercise in gallows humor.

It's a treacly world of Jolly Rancher-tinis out there, now that the 'tini-fication of America has dumbed the once-proud cocktail down into little more than a saucer of colorful punch with a kick. There is a rising resistance, though, among serious "cocktailians," a coterie of ambitious bar pros reclaiming the dignity of their drinks. High-end spirits, homemade mixers, vintage recipes, and creativity distinguish top local bars such as Southwark and Chick's. But when it comes to moving Philly's cocktail to the cutting edge, ultra-modern Apo (formerly Apothecary)

BEING RUBEN Amaro Jr. is kind of like being Tom Hanks, Bruce Springsteen or even the late Steve Jobs. You are constantly in competition with your previous hits, your biggest headlines, your biggest surprises. When you are asked what you are up to and you say, "Not much," maybe even your own mother has trouble believing it. Which brings us to Roy Oswalt, still out there shopping his services. Whether it was real courtship or something drummed up by an agent earning his keep, Oswalt's name has been linked this winter to, in no particular order, Boston, Detroit, Texas, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and this past weekend, back to the Phillies.

DALLAS - In Ruben Amaro Jr.'s perfect world, the Phillies will re-sign Jimmy Rollins and then turn their attention away from the team's offense. And that would be OK with Charlie Manuel. "I feel very good about it," said the Phillies' manager, who met with the media yesterday at the winter meetings. "At the end of the season, of course I was upset. It took me about a week to get over it. But I look at things, and you bring Jimmy back, and put our team on the field, and I like what I see. " On paper, the Phillies have not done much to improve their starting lineup.

Ruben Amaro Jr.'s first trade as Phillies general manager was for John Mayberry Jr. Given the fact that Mayberry is the leading candidate to become the Phillies' starting leftfielder next season, the GM's initial acquisition of a fellow Jr. and Stanford graduate appears to be quite a steal. Greg Golson, the outfielder sent to Texas for Mayberry and now in the New York Yankees' organization, is showing no signs of being worthy of a first-round pick, while Mayberry is looking like a classic late bloomer.

THE BATTING order went up, Ryan Howard was sitting down. Which was no big whoop since once the Phillies clinched the division he'd been planning to have a cortisone shot to try to alleviate the bursitis he has been experiencing in his left ankle. The twist here is that Charlie Manuel showed up at Citizens Bank Park before last night's nationally televised game against the Cardinals fully intending to start the National League RBI leader; the injection isn't scheduled until this morning.

SAN FRANCISCO - Chase Utley found serenity here, at a baseball diamond named for a coach who accepted a $1 salary for 16 years to save his college's team from abolishment. Dante Benedetti Diamond is squeezed into the corner of a sleepy neighborhood at the edge of the University of San Francisco's campus. Large black netting prevents home run balls from littering Golden Gate Avenue. Two freshman dorms overlook the field from behind home plate. An undergraduate student stuck a cardboard cutout of Mitt Romney in the window, so the smiling politician is always watching baseball.

NEW YORK - Rivalries are built through names and numbers, which might explain the lack of buzz that greeted the Mets as they ran onto Citi Field last night. With their setup reliever gone until at least late August, their dazzling shortstop sidelined with a torn hamstring, and their Phillies-killing first baseman gone for the next 3 months as well, beating their first-place, world-champion antagonists was more about survival than making any kind of statement. "At this point, any game we win is a huge game for us," manager Jerry Manuel said after his Mets beat the Phillies, 6-5. "That's the mind-set we have to have . . . regardless of who we're playing.

Who: Ruben Amaro Jr. Age: 43 Management career: Became an assistant general manager for the Phillies immediately following his retirement as a player in 1998, and has been in the position since. Just completed his third season under GM Pat Gillick. Growing up: Born and raised in Philly, he was a batboy for the Phillies from 1980-83 while his father, Ruben Sr., was a first-base coach. Education: The 1983 Penn Charter product graduated from Stanford University in 1987 with a bachelor's degree in human biology.