Friday, March 20, 2009

Some Yankee Thoughts To Get Us Through The Dog Days Of Spring Training

At this time of year, Spring Training gets tedious for most people interested in baseball. The weather starts to warm up, evoking thoughts of America's past time being played in front of the baseball-starved residents of the Northeast. Players are mostly in game shape and the early bird specials in Florida likely aren't as satisfying as they were when they first arrived in Florida. Games are being played every day, but there isn't much to draw from them. The only people still enjoying Spring Training at this point are those who planned a trip to Florida for the end of March. With that in mind, here are some Yankee thoughts that will get you primed and ready to go for opening day.

  • From observing the chatter around the interwebs, it appears that the Yankee ticket presales have gone more smoothly than in past years. Our friends over at The Mets Police scored some good tickets during today's partial plan sale, and Nick mentioned our success from yesterday. Our previous 20 game plan presale password remained active even though we were upgraded back to the 41 game plan. We took advantage of this glitch by sharing it with a couple of out of town friends. They were able to score tickets to games when their favorite teams come to town, so we were able to spread the good cheer. We also were able to get pairs of tickets to each Cubs exhibition game, so Nick won't be forced to repeat his lonely Kei Igawa day.
  • Did anyone else notice that the first 4 games at the new Yankee Stadium are day games? As a matter of fact, 5 out of the first 7 will be played under the sun. Smart move by the Yankees, considering the cold nights that April sometimes has in store. For working folk, however, it is going to be a bummer to miss the first two games while slaving away at a corporation.

  • The joy of watching Spring Training Games wore off back in February, but people still paying attention are noticing that the viable options for the long reliever are slowly dwindling. Spring Training stats are mostly meaningless, but it can't be a good thing that early favorites Dan Giese and Alfredo Aceves have each given up 4 HRs in 12.1 and 10 IP respectively. Meanwhile, Kei Igawa has an ERA of 0.00 and Brett Tomko has an ERA of 1.59. If we were to put stock into Spring Training statistics for any players, it would probably be for those players competing for the long relief role. This spot usually goes to a player that is not a high ceiling prospect or a viable major league starter, so the people vying for the spot have much more to lose. The Yankees have been tricked into thinking Kei Igawa could be a major league contributor a few times before. Regardless of Igawa's emergence as Mr. March, Tomko seems to have put himself into a good position. The wild card with Tomko is that a spot on the 40-man roster would have to be cleared to allow him on the team, which is always a headache.
  • Watching Derek Jeter play shortstop for the United States in the World Baseball Classic has been a pretty depressing sight. This was touched on in the previous post, and we don't want to pile on El Capitan, but all Yankee fans should get used to hearing announcers exclaim: "Past a diving Jeter up the middle." Fellow blog-author, Nick, revealed that he had come to this harsh realization during a hilarious drunk-dial the other night. Nick was near tears while explaining that Derek Jeter was a liability at short and how sad it was to see. We'd love to be lying about this, but the guy really gets emotional when he is intoxicated.
The countdown on Yankees.com says it is 17 days until opening day in Baltimore. That Monday can't come soon enough.

2 comments:

nick2slick said...

For the record, I didn't cry.

Ross said...

near tears. I said NEAR tears.

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