ALBUQUERQUE — Dallas McPherson started his 2007 spring training in bed.

While the rest of his Los Angeles Angels teammates were working themselves into shape under the Arizona sun, McPherson began rehabilitation from spinal fusion surgery in his lower back from bed. He then watched the rest of the season from a television set.

"It was tough going through it, sitting there watching baseball every night," McPherson says. "It's mentally straining, but I knew it was going to be a process."

It was a year-long recovery for the 6-foot-4, 235-pound third baseman, but surgery was the final attempt to cure back pain that curtailed his development as a third-base prospect for the Angels.

It began in 2003, but McPherson used willpower and cortisone shots to get through the next two years. Slowly, but surely, the pain became too much for McPherson to bear, and surgery was his best option.

But he lost his standing within the Angels organization. Now, McPherson hopes to regain it with the Florida Marlins, who signed him as a free agent in January. His road to recovery continues with the Albuquerque Isotopes, where he was optioned by the Marlins on March 21.

McPherson has to show that his back is completely healthy to get back to the big leagues. If it is, McPherson is in the perfect place to show off his power stroke, which allowed him to hit 43 home runs in 2004 while at Double-A Arkansas, Triple-A Salt Lake and with the Angels. He was rated as the club's second-best prospect by Baseball America heading into 2005 because of that year.

During Monday's batting practice, Isotopes manager Dean Treanor noted McPherson's power.

"You saw how he was swinging the bat today," Treanor says. "If you look back at that year, he hit 40 home runs over Double-A, Triple-A and the big leagues. Those are impressive numbers. With that bat, I got a place for him."

It's there only if he's healthy, though. The back pain limited his range in the field and slowed his bat, which resulted in a .244 batting average and eight homers with the Angels in 2005. He played just 96 games at Salt Lake and Los Angeles a season later, but he hit 24 home runs.

"You couldn't really play through it," McPherson says. "It would get so insane, but I was getting cortisone shots every year. Cortisone kind of kept it to where I needed to it be to play, but in 2006, it just quit working."

On Jan. 22, 2007, McPherson went under the knife at the Carrell Memorial Clinic in Dallas. After a short period of rest, McPherson began physical therapy to improve the flexibility in his back.

"I had to do a lot of flexibility exercises, where I had to do a lot of core strength in the lower back, ab exercises, " McPherson says. "I have to really make sure I am up on all of that. I'm probably never going to have the full range of motion I once had, but I'm not going to have to deal with the pain I had."

McPherson returned to the field in November for the Arizona Instructional League, hitting
.240 with two home runs and four RBIs in 11 games, but he became a free agent when the Angels didn't tender him a contract in December.

The Marlins signed McPherson because they had a hole at third, but a strained oblique muscle and pulled groin limited him to two hits in 21 at-bats.

Treanor knows the Marlins want to see if McPherson can play on a daily basis, but he also has an eye on McPherson's health. And since McPherson wants to get back to the majors, Treanor is unsure whether he will be as forthcoming about how his body is responding to the playing time, especially early in the season.

"If he plays the night before, he's not playing that day game," Treanor says. "On travel days, I will ask him how he feels. So you want to protect him in that sense. The last thing I want is him getting hurt here because I've run him out there too much."

And the last thing McPherson wants is to watch the 2008 season from anywhere but the field.