It looks like the upper decks and bleachers are selling fine; those sections look pretty full. It’s the seats closer to the field—the expensive ones—that

Take the kids to the game. College educations are overrated. (photo courtesy AP)

are empty. There are a lot of expensive seats at this stadium, so there are a lot of empty ones. As the season goes on, that’s only going to get more embarrassing.

The Yankees are in a tough spot; which, admittedly, they put themselves in. Even if they wanted to temporarily lower prices, they’d have to refund a big chunk of change to fans who bought season tickets. But those empty seats aren’t making them any money either. And again, it’s embarrassing. Seriously.

It’s worth noting that the Yankees—through greed or bad timing, whichever you prefer—have stumbled into the exact opposite of what most teams experience when they move into new parks. Usually there’s a period of about five years during which attendance rises sharply. If the economy stays bad, and if the Yankees stand pat with these prices, they’re going to see a decline in attendance.

Last year fans turned out to see a club that missed the playoffs for the first time in 13 years. The team thanked them by pricing them right out of the park. Embarrassing.

Umpire Brian O'Nora, after a shattered bat got a little too close last year in Colorado. (photo courtesy Purple Row)

to use these shatter-on-impact maple bats. C.C. Sabathia came within about a foot of taking one to the leg in today’s Yankees/A’s game, a day after umpire Kerwin Danley was hospitalized by a shard of Hank Blalock’s shattered bat. Fans have been injured. It’s amazing we haven’t seen a really grisly incident; gore fans stay tuned, though, because it’s only a matter of time.

Dangerous, unpredictable weapons are flying around stadiums all over the country, and MLB has responded with all the speed and administrative agility

Don't worry about it. (photo courtesy Ghost Man on Third)

of the unwieldy, handcuffed bureaucracy it is. You can’t even blame Bud Selig, tempting as that always is. This is another symptom of the most serious issue facing baseball today: an omnipotent, arrogant union.

The MLBPA refuses to discuss the complete banning of maple bats, which is the only sensible solution here. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking. No one knows when the alarm’s going to go off, but you can be sure it’s set. This alarm doesn’t buzz, or ring, or play the radio; this one sounds like screams of pain, and ambulance sirens, and crying relatives, and a memorial ceremony that’ll be tasteful, and heartfelt, and completely powerless to change what could’ve been prevented easily with just the thinnest splinter of foresight.

Which is good, because those numbers aren’t likely to be repeated. And when you think about how the careers of Giambi and Garciaparra began—both seemed bound for Cooperstown on the first ballot—that’s kind of a melancholy thought. I’ve got no pity for Giambi, who earned all the health problems and decline in production he experienced.

But still, there’s a certain element of Greek tragedy to the arc of Giambi’s career. The mighty fallen, and all that. And you can’t even say Garciaparra deserved his fall from grace. It just happened.

Nostalgic?

I definitely don't remember the giant red arrow.

stadium, in its first series). The nub is that the new stadium’s tiers are more gradually sloped, so wind doesn’t get trapped and swirl around as it did in the old stadium, which had more vertically-tiered seats. Instead the wind flows smoothly out to right field, carrying with it whatever baseballs it might meet along the way.

The article goes on the predict

Why would you bother to give it a shadow? (graphics courtesy AccuWeather.com)

that, if this theory is right, “games will only be affected during times when the winds are from a westerly direction and above 10 mph.” Generally, that would mean spring and fall; the jeetstream would tend to settle down come summer. So pay attention to tonight’s game (assuming they get it in), for which the wind is expected to be out of the south and southwest; a sudden HR dry spell could lend some preliminary support to the theory.

Still got it. (photo courtesy MLB.com)

I never got why the Yankees showed no interest at all in resigning Abreu after last year. Not picking up his option made sense; that would’ve cost them $16 million, in a market where free agent salaries were significantly lower than normal. The Angels ended up getting him for $5 million, a great deal in anyone’s book. And you have to think the Yankees could’ve gotten him for the same price. He’s 35 this year, sure; but the Yankees are locked into paying Alex Rodriguez until he’s about 50, so I don’t think they’re suddenly worried about age. It’s hindsight to bring the Nady injury into it; but was he ever a better player than Abreu in the first place?

It boggled me then; it still boggles me. I’m boggled.

Since Swisher is a switch hitter, shouldn’t he be a switch pitcher too? Shouldn’t he be able to throw from the right or left, depending on the handedness of the batter? Why hasn’t this switch pitcher thing ever happened?

Here, Swisher boasts of his impeccable record as a pitcher:

"I suck, but I'm rich, so..." (photo courtesy deadspin.com)

provides a good deal of the force necessary to carry the ball over the fence; it’s up to the hitter to connect, and professional hitters with a reasonable expectation of getting a fastball can do that. This winter Kansas City handed Farnsworth a two year, $9.25 million contract; as Hunter Thompson might’ve said, “For reasons which have never been made clear.” It would be a shame if Farnsworth’s tendency to give up the long ball kept the Royals from doing what some trend-riding analysts have picked them to do: contend in the AL Central. For a small-market club with a limited budget, this team makes some strange decisions.

Yankee fans had better hope the organization knows more than it’s letting on.

The Question in Question. (photo courtesy MLB.com)

If they’re really as clueless as they claim—and if Wang’s really developed some terrible super-neurosis capable of turning a two-time 19-game-winner into the absolute victim we’ve seen so far this season—then this team is in serious trouble.

Wang is like some vital but easily overlooked system in your car; the transmission, say. You take it for granted, assuming it’s going to keep on doing what it’s always done before, right up until it stops working; then you panic, and with good reason. The Yankees’ transmission is shot right now; utterly shot; epically shot; shot to the tune of a 34.50 ERA. Maybe that’s why the 2009 season has felt so shaky thus far; so anything but smooth. The gears are grinding; that metal-on-metal sound you hear is not your imagination, but genuine mechanical distress.

Right now fans are in the uncomfortable position of the driver of that laboring vehicle. You take it to the shop to get the repairs it so badly needs, only to hear the mechanic say something like, “Frankly, I don’t know what the hell’s wrong with it. Something’s wrong. Runs fine when it’s up on the lift, but as soon it’s on the road smoke comes pouring out of it and the damn thing catches fire. Don’t worry, though. It’s nothing physical.”

Check out the video on this page to see something which may or may not be significant. And check your transmission, while you still can.

The package about Sheffield, produced by Baseball Tonight and shown later on Sportscenter, had everything you’d expect from a slick piece of 21st century sports reporting, or almost. You have your glowing tributes by scouts from Sheffield’s high school days; your inspirational music; your historic perspective (Sheffield is the 25th member of the 500 home run club, but we’re still not sure how many players actually belong there). The only thing that was missing was any mention whatsoever of Sheffield’s ties to Barry Bonds, BALCO, or anything else related to the seamier side of baseball’s home run explosion. In the obligatory Hall of Fame discussion, steroids were similarly unspoken-of.

"Legiti-wha? Speak English." (photo courtesy Boston.com)

As far as we know, Sheffield has never flunked an MLB test for performance enhancers. But neither have Mark McGwire or Barry Bonds. Are they suddenly untainted too? If Sheffield—or McGwire, Bonds, Sosa, Palmiero, etc.—make the Hall, it’ll be by picking the lock on the back door with a syringe. Let’s not be children about this; let’s not pretend we don’t know what we know. Nixon made history too, and he’s not in anybody’s Hall of Fame.