"Alfonso Soriano walked into the clubhouse during a game late last week, and as soon as he spotted a group of reporters, he feigned a look of surprise and dread.

"Fight? Fight?'' he said before breaking into a wide smile. "No? OK. .?.?.''

OK?

It has been a lot more than OK this spring for Soriano, who not only avoided being anywhere near that Carlos Silva-Aramis Ramirez scrap last week, but who said he's rediscovered a sense of youth and joy at 35 that has him envisioning the kind of season that will stop all the whining about his big contract.

That's some serious vision, considering he's only halfway through the eight-year, $136 million deal (which included an $8 million signing bonus) that has become one of the great cautionary arguments against the kind of contract Albert Pujols wants.

But there's no denying that something is different about Soriano this spring — different than at least any of his last three Cubs springs.

Maybe it's the more filled-out upper body after a heavier offseason lifting workload. Maybe it's the renewed importance of the role baseball plays in his life since the sudden death of his mother in January.

Or maybe it's the lower-body hitting-mechanics work he did over the winter at the urging of hitting coach Rudy Jaramillo. Or the general sense of physical well-being he feels after putting a full year of baseball under his belt since knee surgery.

Whatever it is, he says his 7-for-15 start — including an opposite-field homer and a pair of singles to center on breaking balls — is the best first week of spring games in his career."