We are just two days away from the Boston Red Sox pitchers and catchers reporting to camp in Ft. Myers. Yesterday saw the arrival of Josh Beckett and Takashi Saito among others joining the players that are already there.

Of course yesterday there was a funny exchange between Beckett and Saito. And as Texy from Center Field says, “who is going to tell Josh that Saito is not from Mexico?”

Classic Beckett!!

John Smoltz arrived today as did Brad Penny. Smoltz was later seen throwing a football around.

Kevin Youkilis also held court today briefly, talking about the ARoid situation and the Red Sox offense.

On ARoid: “It’s an unfortunate thing to hear that,” Youkilis said, when asked if he had watched the interview on ESPN with Rodriguez. “It’s also a good thing that he came out and admitted it.

“Sometimes it’s hard to go out there and admit to something in your past. There’s a lot of people in this world who have done something wrong. Myself, I’ve done things wrong — not in that nature. But it’s tough. I think it’s tough for people in general in life to admit to some of the things they’ve done wrong.”

Youkilis added that he hoped that fans wouldn’t assume that all players are on performance-enhancing drugs, given the recent revelations. He said, “I’ve never done anything like that in my life and I plan on never doing it. … I want the fans really to know that not everyone does it.”

On The Red Sox offense:

“The one thing I always say about baseball and all other sports is one player can’t win a championship,” Youkilis said. “You’ve seen over the years it’s not even the 25-man roster, you’ve got to go all the way into the 40-man roster to win a championship. It’s definitely going to be different in the lineup without Manny Ramirez. He’s definitely probably one of the greatest right-handed hitters of all time, and there’s no player in this locker room that has the talent that Manny has, hitting-wise.

“I think the biggest thing is we have a lot of depth still. We have four guys that can go 20-plus home runs.”

I don’t know about you but I’m excited as I can be right now for baseball to start.

Rob over at The Bottom Line asked some questions from various Red Sox Bloggers including myself. Here are the answers to question 1 and question 2.

And So it Begins [Extra Bases]

Testing Rocco Baldelli [Boston Herald]

9 key questions facing the Sox as they head into spring training [Boston Herald]

Youk ready for 2009 [ProJo Sox Blog]