A Note About The Attendance For Today's Yankee Exhibition Game Against Team USA

Apparently, today's Yankee Spring Training game at Steinbrenner Field against the star-studded team USA was not sold out.

Lets take a look at the attendance figures for this year's Spring Training slate so far at Steiny Field:

10,693 vs. Rays
10,686 vs. Twins
8,822 vs. Team USA

So, residents of the state of Florida would prefer to see the Minnesota Twins Double-A and Triple-A players get a couple of at bats each instead of seeing Chipper Jones, Adam Dunn, David Wright, Ryan Braun get a full game's worth of at bats?

In the most damning evidence for Floridians, the Yankees drew a crowd of 10,482 for an exhibition game against the University of South Floriday last February. Hardcore Yankee fans will remember it as the game that Kei Igawa got lit up by college kids.

Peter Abraham attributes the low attendance to the fact that exhibition games against WBC teams were added to the schedule late, preventing people from planning ahead to see the game. This is simply not true. I was planning a trip to Spring Training (the recession ruined that plan) since this past fall, and I had my eye on this game as the premiere game of the entire slate. I assumed it would be the first game to sell out.

It is common knowledge that Spring Training games often feature 2 innings of starters and 7 innings of minor leaguers. One would assume that even if team USA decided to give their starters a rest, the replacements would be major league starters.

The popular news aggregating website Fark.com has a special tag for Florida news stories, because the people there do such dumb things on such a regular basis. This inexplicably low attendance in relation to other Spring Training games in Tampa definitely would qualify for Fark's Florida tag.

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March 3rd may be a preview of 2011 for Yankee fans

From NJ.com, via the AP, comes this interesting story about Derek Jeter suiting up in the red, white and blue to face the team he has played for his entire career. In a move that is likely as much of a publicity stunt to promote the World Baseball Classic as it is preparation for the actual tournament, Derek Jeter will be playing for Team USA when they play against the New York Yankees in an exhibition game on March 3rd.

The game at Legends Field in Tampa, FL will likely be the hottest ticket in Spring Training. Those obsessed with the A-Rod vs. Jeter drama will be disappointed as A-Rod will be off playing for his native Dominican Republic in exhibition games preparing for the WBC and not for the Yankees.

Many Yankee fans never thought they would see the day when Derek Jeter was playing against the team they love. On the other hand, there has been growing sentiment among Yankee fans that re-signing Jeter after the 2010 season isn't a certainty. Without getting into a bashfest of El Capitan, it is important to note that his defense has pretty much always been a liability (YES, even when he won a gold glove - that award is meaningless), and his offense is likely in full decline mode. As we have seen in recent offseasons, dynasty Yankees have a sense of entitlement and aren't keen on taking a "hometown discount, " even if their best days are in the past. Andy Pettitte eventually succumbed to the pressure (likely due to the allure of pitching opening day at a brand New Stadium, a lack of other offers, and a P.E.D-riddled past) and signed team-friendly deal. That wasn't the case in better economic times as Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada held up the Yankees for every last dollar, with Jorge using the cross-town rival NY Mets for leverage.

Jeter will likely fall somewhere in between. There is no way he will completely lack bargaining power like Pettitte. He will also not be coming off of an unlikely career year at an advanced age like Posada and Rivera were after the 2007 season. If Cashman is still at the helm in the offseason prior to 2011, you can bet there will be a showdown. If Jeter continues to decline (as PECOTA predicts), he will probably have to agree to move from shortstop and take a legitimate paycut from his 21 million per year. In my opinion, 4 years at 12 million per year would be fair for both sides. While clearly overpaying in both years and dollars, it would likely guarantee that Jeter would retire a Yankee without crippling the payroll for 4 more years.

Nothing like a stupid exhibition game inspiring a short essay about the future of Derek Jeter!

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Never too early to plan a trip to Spring Training!

The Yankees issued a press release yesterday, outlining plans for Spring Training 2009.

You can find the Yankees complete Spring Training 2009 schedule here.

There is definitely some noteworthy information for those of you planning a trip down to Florida (like myself). According to the press release, this is the earliest start to Yankees Spring Training games in the past 60 years (apparently that is as far back as their data goes)- good news for those late February travelers to Florida who usually see nothing more than players working out! More importantly, the World Baseball Classic will be running from March 5 - March 23, so expect some of the headline players to be absent from Spring Training for a good portion of the schedule.

Headline games of Spring Training will likely be March 3rd, when the Yankees host team USA (which team will A-Rod and Jeter play for?!) at Steinbrenner Field and the 7:15 PM game against the Red Sox at home on March 24th. The seamless transition from Legends Field to Steinbrenner field is complete. It is truly the "House that Big Stein built."

Now is the time to start booking the hotel, plane, rental car etc. Season tickets for the entire home schedule of Yankees Spring Training 2009 go on sale in the 2nd week of December (date TBA) and individual game tickets go on sale sometime in January (date TBA).

See you in Tampa!

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