LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - Bill Mueller was on his way to a much-welcomed chair yesterday when a familiar face stopped him in his tracks.

"You know," the white-haired figure said with a southern-drawl, "a week ago this guy and I were riding in the back of a pickup truck through the Dominican Republic."

How times had changed for Grady Little and his former third baseman.

While Little remains entrenched in his life's work as a major league baseball manager - currently with the Los Angeles Dodgers - Mueller has found himself in the midst of a metamorphosis. The man who not too long ago was leaping on the celebratory pile after the last out of the 2004 World Series, is starting all over as a rookie in the world of big league baseball decision-makers.

Mueller has come to the Walt Disney's Swan and Dolphin Resort wearing a new uniform and carrying a newly-anointed title. The baseball duds have been replaced by a blue suit, and instead of manning third base for the Dodgers he is now helping monitor the goings-on in the hotel lobby as a special assistant to LA general manager Ned Colletti.

"I was looking forward to coming here because I never thought about the other side, and now I'm in it," said Mueller of the Baseball Winter Meetings. "It's fun. Walking into the situation you don't know anybody because everybody you knew and were friends were players. I feel like I just entered college for the first time, sleeping in the dorms and trying to make friends all over again."

The reality of Mueller's situation is made evident with even the simplest stroll across the hotel's lobby. With each step, he feels the creaking in the right knee which decided it was going to give in before the former American League batting champ's skills did.

If it was up to Mueller, watching Arizona Fall League games, wearing suits, and even riding through the countryside of the Dominican Republic, he would be put this on hold in favor of getting ready to play out the second, and final, year of a $9.5 million contract. But just more than two weeks ago, the former Red Sox came to grips that the decision wasn't his anymore.

"When you start trying to make progress, and you can't get out of Level 1 on the bike, you start getting realistic about your chances," said Mueller, who played in just 32 games last season before undergoing what would be career-ending knee surgery. "You start to understand the severity of what is happening and that this is going to be very, very difficult."

That's when the wheels started turning for Mueller.

Even as the World Series came and went, the third baseman was looking at next season with a small glimpse of optimism. The Dodgers had just hired former San Francisco trainer Stan Conte and Mueller was looking forward to giving it one last try via a newly-structured rehabilitation process.

But the opportunity to get better kept diminishing by the day, forcing Mueller to look for a new set of open doors. The career which had begun with his dad, Big Bill, throwing him tennis balls in the back of the family's Maryland Heights, Mo., home was coming to an end, and the process of finding something else had made an impromptu appearance.

"You starting thinking about how you feel," he said. "Do I want to be home all the time? Do I want to go back to school? Then you start talking to some people and figure out where I'm at and what I want to do. After talking to friends and people in the game, I knew that I wanted to stay in the game, and I knew what capacity I wanted to stay in the game. So I talked to Ned and it worked out perfect. It was an opportunity I didn't think I could pass up."

Mueller has been pressed into action by Colletti, experiencing as much as possible when it comes to an organization's decision-making process. There has been the scouting, evaluating, developing, and supplying input during his brief tenure. And now there is the next step, the winter meetings.

"You know me, I'm never an extremist anyway," said Mueller, who was known for his workmanlike approach during his two seasons with the Red Sox. "I'm pretty even-keeled and try to make decisions gradually. I just felt this was the right one."

Bill Mueller on Grady Little

"With Grady, you feel like one of the guys. He's your buddy. I never had that barrier. Even though the respect was there ... it's Grady.

"The way Grady is, I think people start to take on some of that make-up and characteristics. He's even-keeled, you don't know if it's the seventh game of the World Series or the fifth game of the season because he approaches it the same."

Bill Mueller on J.D.Drew

"I tell you what, he's a great player, a great individual, and a character guy. Any left-handed bat like his, the way he uses the whole field, he could have great success there. Unfortunately for us, he went somewhere else, which is his option. The market is great and he took advantage of it.

"Boston is such a great, great, great place to play. It's hard for me to say don't go to Boston because I think everybody should be able to experience playing in Boston. It's the Mecca of the game."

"You definitely have to have a certain mentality going in. The way J.D. is, he goes about business the way I do. Usually when people have that kind of personality, they do fine because they go out there and play their hearts out."