Don't blame it just on Say Nay Rays
Braden Calise of Port St. Lucie, Florida, right, and his aunt Theresa Wagner of Carmel, show their disappointment at the cancellation of the Yankee game. (July 8, 2011) Credit: David Pokress
Maybe Friday night's Yankee Stadium rainout makes you angry.
Maybe you want to point a finger at someone. You'd like to know why Friday's game will be made up Sept. 22 rather than as part of a Saturday doubleheader.
You'd like to see Derek Jeter get his 3,000th hit at home, creating an instant Yankees Classic on the YES Network.
If you qualify for the above paragraph, then I think you're being silly, and that Yankees officials are pandering to the likes of you. But more to the point, know this: The Rays are not the bad guys here.
Tampa Bay's players exercised their collectively bargained right to block the Yankees from imposing a day-night doubleheader Saturday. What they couldn't have prevented was a straight, one-admission twin bill, which would've given Jeter three home games -- rather than two before the All-Star break and an ensuing eight-game road trip -- to tally the two hits he needs for his milestone.
"I think if they wanted the doubleheader tomorrow, they would've made it happen," Rays player representative Evan Longoria said of the Yankees.
A reporter asked Yankees general manager Brian Cashman, the straight shooter in the room, why the Yankees didn't schedule a straight doubleheader. Said Cashman: "Gate. We're not interested in going from 81 home games to 80."
That's absolutely their right. No one is naive to the Yankees' business needs.
But then they can't claim the moral high ground, either, as Joe Girardi attempted to do when he said: "People have made a lot of arrangements to try to see this happen on the day that they pick. It's unfortunate that they lose a game here. It's important to our fans because of what our fans have meant to our organization."
The real question is whether the Yankees should've been in such a hurry to play the game. Losers of four of their last five, they're currently mired in one of their "old-and-broken-down" phases. Girardi didn't have Alex Rodriguez in his starting lineup Friday, as A-Rod had an MRI on his ailing right knee. Nick Swisher, who hurt his left quadriceps Thursday, also was unavailable.
Asked if the Yankees factored their list of wounded, Girardi wouldn't engage, instead saying, "We voted to play two, knowing that you got three days off coming."
It felt as though the Yankees were prioritizing Jeter's milestone agenda over the team's World Series title agenda, a notion that Cashman disputed.
"It's nice because of Derek, but it's the best situation for our team," Cashman said. "We've got the All-Star break right behind it, our pitching is ready to go, all that stuff. It's more adverse to go push it later in the year and do it another time when you don't have the benefit of all those different things."
Which brings us back to the idea that if the Yankees really felt that strongly about it, they could've forfeited a seven-figure revenue by playing the straight doubleheader.
The Rays wanted to push the game back because "it's tough to play a doubleheader. Especially in this stadium," Longoria said. "One game is mentally draining enough. To play two and try to win two games is really tough.
"The thing that I keep going back to and playing in my mind is, if you went over there and asked Derek the same question, I'm sure that he would do what's best for the team. The best thing for the team is probably not to play a doubleheader."
I'd go with "definitely" over "probably." It falls upon Jeter to live up to his reputation as a clutch player, to give Yankees fans what they want so badly. Or at least what the Yankees think their fans want.
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