FORT MYERS – Trot Nixon, the man who started all the A-Rips, arrived in camp yesterday after spending a few days at Disney World with his kids.

It’s a small world when it comes to the Red Sox and their thoughts on Alex Rodriguez. This was a day Curt Schilling and several other veteran pitchers realigned their lockers, flip-flopping stalls with young pitchers so they can be farther down the line from where the press gathers.

Nixon, one of the more standup players in the game, did not take back his comments from a week ago, although he went out of his way to say that he was speaking only for himself.

“It’s just one man’s opinion,” Nixon said. “Other ballplayers are going to have opinions, but they really don’t mean much in the whole big swing of things.”

Nixon smiled and said, “I think it was kind of refreshing not to talk about steroids. I look at it that way. That day we talked about the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry instead of steroids.”

Nixon said that Rodriguez’s comments regarding working out while other players were sleeping or taking their kids to school did upset him.

“It just kind of rubbed me wrong a little bit,” Nixon said. “Because I take my kids to school and then I go work out and I go pick them up. That’s just what I want to do. I love my son. But the biggest thing I was trying to say was that’s my opinion and my opinion doesn’t mean much to anybody. It might mean something to my wife, myself and maybe my teammates, but that’s all it was. It wasn’t a direct attack.

“It was good bulletin board material,” Nixon added. “I’m not knocking what abilities he has.” Asked if he would say anything to A-Rod, Nixon, said, “Probably not. He’s never approached me, so . . . ”

Johnny Damon showed up late in the day and was asked about the A-Rod flap. “Waking up at six in the morning, there’s been many nights when I haven’t been to bed,” Damon began. “If that’s what it takes to be him, he’s a heck of a player. If it takes getting up at six o’clock in the morning for him, that’s great, but like Trot, I enjoy taking my kids to school. Trying to shake them at 7:45 in the morning trying to say, ‘Get up, you got school.’ They’re just like me, they don’t want to go. I take them, after that, I get my work done.”

As for twice referring to A-Rod as a clown, Nixon said, “I was being stupid and flying off at the mouth. That’s not like me. I’m not going to disrespect somebody that plays the game obviously as hard as he does, but I’m a clown too. I’ve been called a clown before and Johnny called us all idiots last year. I’m sure I’ll be called a few more things at Yankee Stadium.

“My opinion is not going mean much to Alex and is not going to mean much to those guys in that clubhouse because I got a lot of respect for those guys in that clubhouse over there, even though they are the rivals of us.”

As for his comment about Rodriguez not being a true Yankee, Nixon said, “He’s only been there one year. So when I think of Yankees I think of the Posadas, the Jeters, Bernie Williams, Rivera, those guys, Paul O’Neill, even though he’s retired, Reggie Jackson. Obviously a bunch of Yankee fans look at him as a Yankee. He is a Yankee, but, in the same sense when I was asked that question, I thought of Jeter and those other guys, more than I thought of Rodriguez.”

To his credit, Rodriguez said on Monday he understands he will not earn his pinstripes until he wins a ring.

“(Rodriguez) is a Yankee,” Nixon said. “Until he wins a ring, hopefully it won’t be in my lifetime with the Red Sox.”

This is The Rivalry that keeps on giving.