Nick Markakis tells the media about his surgery and that he will be ready for opening day at FanFest
Markakis said he's doing a lot of pool activity to "strengthen my lower half of my core. Starting to jog a little bit lightly. Each day, something new is added in and we'll go from there. "This could be a good thing. I've never actually taken off a full off-season to rest. I talked to Aubrey (Huff) before I had my surgery, and he came off his best year after the surgery, and he was kind of on the same routine I'm on. He rested the whole off-season and he got back in the swing of things after he had his surgery in January. I'm not saying I'm expecting to go out there and have my best year, but we'll see how things play out and we'll go from there." Markakis won't change his style of play because of the surgery. He'll still dive for balls in right field and crash into the occasional fence. "It's fixed now, so if it were to happen again, there's nothing I can do about it," he said. "I'm not going to alter the way I play out there." Markakis was asked about teammate Brian Roberts. "That's one of those things that nobody really knows," he said. "It's a head injury and it's something serious you have to deal with. That's basically up to how his brain heals, I guess. You don't want to rush anything like that. It's a pretty serious injury."