Don't Play Chicken With A Crazy Man

It appears that Soriano has blinked. WTEM just reported that he's going to play today.

Updates later as more comes in....

Ladson gets the scoop:

Alfonso Soriano has decided to play left field in the Nationals' Spring Training game Wednesday against the St. Louis Cardinals, a team spokesman said.

Soriano, who on Monday refused to take the field for a game against the Dodgers at Space Coast Stadium in Viera, Fla., told MLB.com on Tuesday that he would think it over about playing and he would talk it over with his agent and wife. Apparently he had a change of heart after those discussions.

Svrluga updates his story:

But on arrival in Jupiter, catcher Alberto Castillo said Soriano had told him on the bus that he would accede to the club's wishes and move to the outfield.

A Nationals official also said that Soriano told Robinson that he would play the outfield....

Castillo said that Soriano had talked over the situation with his family and decided to accept a move to left field.

"I told him this is a job, this is a business," Castillo said. "It's going to be very hard for him, but after talking with his family and everybody else, he's going to go try and enjoy the outfield."

Frequent Commenter BoteMan is at the game, and has set up a temporary blog and is audiocasting the event. He has his first report up -- Soriano's 0-1 with a long fly ball.

The Baltimore Sun is doing a better job of keeping us updated. Roch Kubatko is blogging and has a few nuggets. First, he says that Soriano would prefer to play center and Frank is open to the idea. He thinks that Soriano looks pretty good out there, too.

So, how'd he do? He went 1-3 with a double and a walk. Seems like he did ok in the outfield, and he did have an outfield assist, doubling off a runner at second.

Did you know that there's an official MLB Chatroom on AOL? Me neither. But this guy was there, and he recorded all the gritty details when inJapan_Bowden was talking to BallparkFrank. l8r.