Where's The Beef?

PRINCE FIELDER is a meat-and-potatoes hitter: Last year he led the NL in home runs (or taters, if you're hanging around the batting cage) and was third in RBIs (rib eyes or steaks). The 260-pound Brewers first baseman also became the youngest player to hit 50 homers in a season. So what has he been asked most about this spring? "Being a vegetarian," Fielder, 23, says. "The more attention I get for it, the more it helps me stay with it. If you don't stick to it, you're not real."

Fielder was an avid carnivore until a few weeks ago, when his wife, Chanel, gave him a copy of Skinny Bitch, by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin. The book, which answers the question of what Upton Sinclair would have produced if he had written self-help manuals, opened Fielder's eyes to conditions in slaughterhouses. Grossed out, he immediately swore off meat. "There's so much other food out there," he said. "Beans, rice, tofu. You've got a lot of good food, baby!" And when he reported to camp last week, the portly Prince looked as if he's been enjoying all of it. "I really haven't lost any weight," he says. "That's not what this is about. This is just something I want to do to be healthy."