Baseball got healthy this spring.

There were 69 players on disabled lists at the start of the season Sunday, down from 106 last year and 97 in 2007. The only lower total since the major leagues expanded to 30 teams in 1998 was when there were 66 in 2006, the commissioner's office said yesterday.

Rob Manfred, MLB's executive vice president of labor relations, said the figure counters those who say the World Baseball Classic causes more players to get hurt.

"More important, the WBC injuries were, almost exclusively, the type of small injuries (oblique strains) that are common in spring training, with or without the WBC," he said.

Foreign players: The percentage of major league baseball players born outside the 50 states remained the same this year.

Of the 818 players on rosters at the start of the season, 229 were born outside the 50 states, the commissioner's office said. That matched the 28 percent last year.