The traveling man, that’s me, spent his first day at Mets camp today, this was after going from Clearwater to Viera to check in with the Nationals and Lastings Milledge and then down to Port St. Luice last night.

That’s a lot of driving, about five hours worth and I’ve already crossed the state four times.

But the weather is once again perfect and since I went east then south, it’s a lot warmer than Tampa, too.

In fact, the Mets players were complaining about the heat today. Life is tough here, it’s too hot. Time to jump in the pool to cool off.

Duaner Sanchez threw 26 pitches in his first appearance on the mound in a year and a half and was a happy camper after the intrasquad game. His changeup was working and there was no pain in his shoulder. He had a three-pitch strikeout of phenom Fernando Martinez, striking him out on a change, making Fernando look bad.

“What a changeup,’’ Martinez said.

Jose Reyes tripled and looked in mid-season form. The Mets played on the field that has the same dimensions as the new Citi Field. What a beautiful park that is going to be, fans are going to love the right field overhang.

You meet all kinds of great fans here and in the parking lot today I actually met Casey Stengel. No kidding. Casey is a beautiful 12-year-old foxhound that just arrived today for spring training. His owners are retired and buy spring training season tickets and just sit back and enjoy baseball and the sunshine for a good month.

Now that’s living.