"Mariano Rivera showed up at Yankee camp customarily late Thursday and looked quizzically at me when I asked him if he needed to lose any weight.

"Why?" he said. "I don't need to. I'm okay. Really."

Already, there are a lot of weighty issues in this Yankee camp but, rest assured, Rivera, the greatest closer of all time and a physical marvel, is not one of them. Obviously, however, as he remained holed up in his Westchester home this week with a bunch of sick kids, he hadn't kept up on the news reports from Steinbrenner Field, where Joba Chamberlain's expanded girth has become a major issue. It's only a matter of time until Joba is indicted by the Yankee diet police for absconding with CC Sabathia's leftover cartons of Cap'n Crunch.

Such are the contrasting images in camp thus far - Sabathia having trimmed down 25 pounds to 290 and Chamberlain having put on 25 to 30 pounds to an estimated 250-260. It's uncertain just how much weight Joba has put on, although, suffice to say, if it was only five to 10 pounds, GM Brian Cashman would not have shown the dismay he did the other day when he repeatedly said of the one-time top-of-the-rotation prospect-turned-closer prospect-turned eighth-inning man-turned seventh-inning candidate: "He's heavier."

Thursday, the Chamberlain weight issue reached the agent level when Cashman met with Joba's rep, Alan Hendricks, who was in camp to discuss with the GM his other clients, top pitching prospect Dellin Betances and outfielder Greg Golson. During the course of their meeting, however, Chamberlain's weight was brought up. For the record, Hendricks also still represents Andy Pettitte, but when I inquired as to whether that was the purpose of his visit to Yankeeland, I was told that "Family Man Andy" had definitely not had any change of heart about his retirement."