SURPRISE, Ariz. -- Call it the Royal Battle of the Health Food Nuts.
In one corner is the legendary Alex Gordon, he of the next-to-zero percent body fat who many years ago cheated on his diet with a cheeseburger. The shame.
And in the other corner, the young, upstart Whit Merrifield, who caught everyone's attention last year when he revealed he ate seven perfectly healthy meals a day combined with multiple workouts a day.
"I saw that," Gordon said of Merrifield's daily regimen. "Interesting."
Merrifield added about 15 pounds of muscle before the 2016 season with a diet that consisted of nine eggs and oatmeal for breakfast, then chicken, rice and vegetables three times a day, then red meat for dinner, and all of that supplemented by two protein shakes at different times of the day.