Miller: Reds camp report - Reds camp report: Wackiness aside, Phillips' gloves no joke

GOODYEAR, Ariz. -- Meet Sweet Lue.
She's, well, sweet. And nicely put together. And, um, leathery. Very leathery.
Then there's Dilly.
He's broken in like a champion. Pure gold.
Casper? New this year. We'll see.
"He's real friendly in my hands," the Webmaster says. "He's a cute little glove.
"Sexy, too."
Brandon Phillips, Cincinnati's endearingly (to some) flamboyant (to all) second baseman, names each of his gloves. This started a few years ago.
"I said, 'You know, why don't I put some flash into my gloves?'" he explains. "I was like, 'You know what? I'm going to start naming them like a kid."
What keeps this from being simply another roll-your-eyes, wacky athlete antic is what Phillips actually does with his gloves once he names them.
With Dilly, so dubbed because it's been his father James' lifelong nickname, Phillips earned his first Gold Glove award in 2008.
With Sweet Lue, lovingly named after his mother, Lue Phillips, he won his second Gold Glove award in 2010.
"They love it," Phillips says of his parents' reaction to their namesakes. "They're golden, too. If not for them, I wouldn't be the athlete or the man that I am.
"This way, I can take my family out to the field with me."
As the Reds prepare to defend their first NL Central title since 1995, Phillips is on the launching pad toward superstardom. An All-Star in 2010 in addition to winning a Gold Glove, Phillips in '07 became only the second second baseman in major-league history to grab at least 30 homers (30) and steals (32).
At 29, he's still growing.
"He's not there yet," Reds manager Dusty Baker says. "He's still getting better. And he works at it. I mean, this guy works.
"People don't understand. You see the flash, and this and that. Brandon works. This guy works as hard as anybody.
"And he has fun while he works."
You bet he has fun. He loves Nutter Butter cookies with "my fav drink in world! 'It does a body good'" (milk). He also likes to "eat fresh" (Subway).
How do we know this? Because just over a month ago, he started a rocking Twitter account (@DatDudeBP). Now, in addition to being one of baseball's best all-around and most productive second basemen, he also might be the game's most prolific social media hound.
"Whatever comes into my head," Phillips says. "Whatever's in my mind, I tweet it."
Which promises to be a very dangerous (not to mention, exciting and thrilling) proposition, being that this is the same guy who sparked a brawl between the Reds and St. Louis last summer when he called the Cardinals "whiny little bitches."

Breakout ... Jay Bruce: Heading into 2008, Bruce ranked ahead of Evan Longoria as the best prospect in the game, but he didn't take off the way Longoria did, stalling due to a high strikeout rate and an abundance of injuries. That changed about midway through August last year. Whatever the reason, Bruce took off, batting .385 with 14 homers and a 1.335 OPS over the final six weeks -- and that was with him missing two of those weeks with a strained oblique. Anyone who saw him play then would have a hard time believing he won't hit 40 homers now, but enough Fantasy owners had tuned out by then that he should still slide to the middle rounds. Bust ... Francisco Cordero: Cordero got his usual 40 saves last season and now has 265 since 2004, the third-most of anybody during that span. But at age 35, he's showing signs of the wheels coming off. He's never had the best control, but his WHIP was an unsightly 1.43 last season, mostly because of his increasingly hittable stuff. His strikeout rate, which used to be over 10 per nine innings every year, dipped to 7.3 last year, showing he's not fooling hitters the way he used to. Worse yet, the Reds don't have to give him an especially long leash with Aroldis Chapman and his 100-mph stuff in the bullpen. Cordero isn't a bad pick in the middle rounds since the Reds figure to give him plenty of save opportunities, but he's not as safe as some people would have you believe. Sleeper ... Edinson Volquez: Volquez has been out of the minds of Fantasy owners for the better part of two seasons, and it's not like he had a chance to firmly entrench himself before then, putting together only one Fantasy-relevant season before hurting his elbow in 2009. But now that he has recovered from Tommy John surgery, the hard-throwing right-hander is ready to pick up where he left off as an emerging ace and strikeout artist. What helps him from a value standpoint is the fact he didn't set the world on fire in his initial return last July. But after spending a couple more weeks in the minors, he came back in September to strike out more than a batter per inning with improved control and a 1.95 ERA in four starts. He wasn't a finished product before the injury, so you can't assume he'll perform like an ace this season, but he's one of the few late-rounders with a chance of doing so. -- Scott White

"I want people to know what kind of person I am," he says of his hyperactive Twitter account. "People think I'm a certain type of person, but they don't know."
How does he think some see him?
"Some people think I'm lazy," he says. "And arrogant.
"Those are the two main things. But people don't know how much work I put into the game. I'm down to earth. I love the fans. I sign autographs every day. I give back.
"It's crazy that people can go with what they hear from the papers. People hear what I said about the Cardinals [and draw their own conclusions]. The only thing I can do is play the game the best way I know how.
"The key word for me, if I describe myself, is 'misunderstood.' That's me."
So he's on an impressive one-man mission to reveal his real self to the world while taking dead aim toward another Gold Glove and All-Star season. It's all right there on his Twitter page. One minute he's "talking basketball" with "Texas boys" teammates Jay Bruce and Drew Stubbs. The next, he's an innocent victim of a cold, rude world: "I was in Chipotle & this lady bump me hard as hell didn't even say sorry! It's cool tho! She had a "BMW" anyways! 'BODY MADE WRONG'! NO BUENO."
Wonder why he wasn't at the ballyard Monday? "Good morning! Just left the doctors office and I have flu like symptoms! This sucks! So I got to leave the field so I won't get anyone sick."
"That's his thing," Baker says. "If he goes too far, I'll hear about it. And I'll address it. It's a modern world. I wouldn't do it, or couldn't do it. I'm modern to a lot of ways, and in a lot of ways I'm not. That's one way I'm not. I'm more private."
While at times Phillips may anger opponents, he amuses his teammates.
"I've always described Brandon as an alien," starter Bronson Arroyo offers. "He doesn't really fit in with the black guys. He doesn't really fit in with the white guys. And he doesn't really fit in with the Dominicans. It's like he's on his own island.
"But he mixes and matches really well with everyone."
"He's like a chameleon, then," outfielder Jonny Gomes cracks. "Right?"
The Reds have become well aware of Phillips' affinity for social media. But let's just say they don't avidly race home to read the second baseman's latest Twitter musings.
"No," Gomes deadpans. "I work with the guy. I don't need any more of his antics. I get enough at work and in the shower with him every day."
"I wouldn't say I follow it," says center fielder Drew Stubbs, who lockers next to Phillips this spring. "He tells me some stuff he puts on it."
"Twitter is perfect for him," pitcher Mike Leake says. "That's who he is. He's kind of a short-answer guy, with goofiness involved."
Phillips is rightfully proud of his Gold Gloves because "it shows how the hard work I put in really paid off." He gives an assist, by the way, to Mini-Me -- the glove he uses in offseason and spring workouts that is so tiny it ensures his fundamentals, such as making sure to get in front of the ball, stay sharp.
Mini-Me replaced Flat Back, the glove he once used in practice that was so pancake-flat it forced him to use two hands on each ground ball.
As for Sweet Lue and Dilly, the leather that helped him become golden, they're in a special place of honor: Phillips removed the actual gold glove from each trophy, replacing it with Sweet Lue on one award and Dilly on the other. The actual gold gloves are displayed in a case atop those now-altered trophies.
Maybe Casper will assist him in winning a third -- and the Reds a second consecutive division title. Only problem, sexy as it is, it's a white glove. And Phillips is concerned that MLB might not approve it.
"If not, I've got a backup glove," he says. "But it's not named yet."