"For a few years now, Minnesota Twins pitchers have walked about their clubhouse in spring training with white tube socks tied around their heads, like off-brand samurai masters. The Twins' inner sanctum often is the domain of the ridiculous, the place that spawned naked batting practice sessions from Torii Hunter and Mike Redmond after bad losses. Anytime players add clothes, it's a bonus.

On most of them, the headband looks "Karate Kid" ridiculous. Only then in walks Joe Nathan, his beard more gray than brown, his walk deliberate, his countenance sage. The image fits. He is the wise and wizened man of the Twins' staff, 13 months older than Carl Pavano and nearly six years older than the next closest, and he may have learned more the past year than in any of his previous 35.

It's been 11 months since Nathan, usually runner-up to Mariano Rivera in any debate about baseball's best closer, pitched in a game. His elbow popped during a spring training exhibition against Boston last year. He underwent Tommy John surgery soon thereafter. He's been champing at the bit since. Standard return-from-injury stuff.

Except as Nathan prepares to make his return today against – naturally – the Red Sox, something has changed: The old man doesn't have his job anymore. He doesn't not have it, either. Twins manager Ron Gardenhire simply isn't ready to hand the ninth inning back to Nathan without seeing the zip on his fastball, the bite on his slider and the fade on his new changeup, especially with the Twins placing a $7.15 million hedge on proven closer Matt Capps.

"He's coming in here, thinking he's going to be the closer, and that's the only way he can come in here," Gardenhire said. "I don't make any decisions until the end of spring training. If he comes back and throws like he did two years ago, he'll probably be our closer. I've got a couple closers."

Gardenhire has known Nathan since 2004, when the Twins stole him and Francisco Liriano in a trade with the Giants for A.J. Pierzynski, and understands what motivates him. There are kids at home now, a dream place in Knoxville, Tenn., and Nathan very easily could've spent the standard year waiting for his elbow to heal. Instead, he pushed himself. He ran. He swam 700, 800 yards – sometimes more. His narrow face thinned out while the rest of his body started to resemble how he looked 15 years ago, when he was a lanky, angular shortstop in the Giants organization."