Horse shit.

and you are Spinal Tarp?... Spinal TAP, my mistake.

Well, that was certainly a lovely day at the ballpark. Once again, the Yankees flip the bird to the fans.

of course the game will be played at 7 tomorrow night. i'll be in class all night.

perfect.

Lame, I rushed home to start watching the game (had it queued on the DVR), only to fast forward through two hours of the Royals-Tigers game.

At least my Extra Innings is working. I decided to watch Brewers-Cubs.

3 sorry 'bout yer day at the park, but what might you expect: Randy Levine souvenir ponchos for the first 18,000 to exit the Stadium?

6

Hank Steinbrenner bobbleheads!

5 mehmattski, I heard a rumor that EI is now showing both home AND away broadcasts this year. Can you please verify, seeing I'm stuck at work? Thanks in advance!

6 There's a good joke in there, but I am ill-equipped to make it.

6 I think they tried to sneak in a game when they should have known it was a very long shot.

I might be a little more tolerant if they didn't flip the bird quite so regularly. For example: I've sat through rain delays of 3 hours or so, at the end of which there are no more than a few thousand diehards left in the stands. But the Yankees still keep security people at every aisle down at field level, because god forbid that anyone should sneak down into the good seats.

Also, I was at the playoff fiasco a couple of years ago, the same scenario as today - except then they actually announced the rainout on ESPN quite some time before announcing it at the Stadium.

8 I can only find one broadcast for the games that are on the air right now, and there are only ten channels allocated on my cable. Perhaps it was MLB.tv you heard the rumor about?

Well, since we're going to have to wait another day to get Yankees baseball, we could always get wound up on a topic that's not as important in the big picture as we might make it out to be... but it's still fun talking about: lineup construction. This is likely the baseline lineup (per PeteAbe's report today):

L - Johnny Damon (LF)
R - Derek Jeter (SS)
L - Bobby Abreu (RF)
R - Alex Rodriguez (3B)
L - Jason Giambi (1B)
L - Robinson Cano (2B)
S - Jorge Posada (C)
L - Hideki Matsui (DH)
S - Melky Cabrera (CF)

I dig the love for Cano, but man, unless Matsui is not right from the knee work yet, 8th?! Bouncing Damon to 8th, moving Abreu to lead off, and maybe shifting Cano to third would be better? Matsui/Po/Giambi for 5-6-7 is pretty debatable, and might best shake out by their health.

Man I hate the rain, and the schedule makers...

Why don't they start every year with games in domes & warm weather cities?

And does anyone want to bet that if this were the last season for Fenway, Bud Selig would have the Red Sox close out on the road?

R - Derek Jeter (SS)
L - Robinson Cano (2B)
L - Bobby Abreu (RF)
R - Alex Rodriguez (3B)
L - Jason Giambi (1B)
S - Jorge Posada (C)
L - Hideki Matsui (DH)
S - Melky Cabrera (CF)
L - Johnny Damon (LF)

I'd just like to say I was there. It stopped raining before 2pm and its still not raining in manhattan. The forecast tomorrow is awful, much worse than today. They definitely could have played. Had they started at 1:30 in the misting, drizzle they could have easily gotten an official if not full game in. Disappointing.

12 Are there enough domes and warm weather cites? I like the idea, but I don't remember what's a dome anymore, and what isn't.

And yes, I believe that if Fenway or Wrigley was closing, MLB would make sure that the Sox and the Cubs closed out that year at home.

11 13 I actually like the line-up as is. I think the Jeter-Abreu-A-Rod-Giambi combo is perfect.

15 I'm not sure. The teams I think are most in trouble with cold weather in early April (late march?!) are Boston, NY, Baltimore/Washington, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, . . .? Will Minnesota's new stadium have a dome?

Which is nine.
I wouldn't mind a tradition of the Yankees starting off playing Tampa, though I guess that won't be an issue starting next year.

16 I'm pretty sure Minnesota's new stadium is open air. Then again, I had to look up Houston's "new" place, which is 6 or 7 years old, to see if it had a retractable roof or not (it does not), so I might not be the best source.

Ok, I looked it up - the new MIN stadium is open air - http://tinyurl.com/39q8eo.

One advantage to a 154-game schedule was being able to start in mid-April, instead of late March.

16 And make Boston open on the West coast.

Minnesota's new stadium is open-air.

17 No offense Shaun, but Houston DOES have a retractable roof. According to the team website, "The roof at Minute Maid Park ... retracts completely off the ballpark to reveal the largest open area of any retractable roofed baseball stadium in existence today. A total of 50,000 square feet of glass in the west wall of the retractable roof give fans a view of the Houston skyline, even when the roof is in the closed position."

Not a drop of rain has fallen in five hours. Not a drop. I call shenanigans.

Torre just went to his old reliable EDSP in a 5-0 game in LA. Some things will never change...

21 By "some things will never change" do you mean a team managed by Mr. Torre winning baseball games? :-)

21 Gotta get him some work...

It looks like right at game time tomorrow the rain stops. With a little luck we'll get to see some baseball on or a little after 7. I'm still not holding my breath, however.

I was there too... can't really blame the Yanks for the unpredictable weather, but standing around the filthy and crowded bleacher concourse for two hours, I have to admit the idea of a new Stadium suddenly looked more appealing to me than it ever has before.

The thing is the weather didn't look that unpredictable to me. When I left my office around noon, I looked at the radar and there was very little activity on or near the city. There was a lot of heavy stuff hitting further north, but nothing coming in directly to the city. When I got back to my office, the radar was showing the same thing! Nothing in the city, some rain north, nothing coming in.

It's 9:15 pm now, about 7 hours since the rescheduled the game, and IT STILL HASN'T RAINED.

Early season always sees more delays and rain outs, especially because the off days make it easier to pull the plug early. That said, are we really surprised that weather was a factor, given that the season now starts in March???

26 Couldn't agree more. I went back the office after they called the game, called up the doppler and saw nothing on it. I don't know what they were looking at. I'm a scientist, I know how hard it can be to predict weather far out, but in a 3-4 hour window with little to nothing showing on the radar, you can make an informed decision. Coupled with the likely poor weather all day and possibly evening tomorrow it made no sense. Having a rain out when its not raining the entire afternoon/evening is shameful.

8 Yes, at least on DirectTV, Extra Innings is offering both home and away broadcasts, which I think is great.

9 As one of the fnas who sat through the delay, I am not sure what else they could do. I checked the forecast in the morning, and it called for clearing in the early afternoon. If they call the game in the AM and that forecast comes to fruition, everyone would be complaining. As much as it sucked to schlep up to the stadium and waste a day off, I can't blame the Yankees. That's what happens when you play baseball in March.

I could see some people being upset over the 7:00PM start, but ultimately, I think that should work best for most. It would be tough to skip work for two straight days, so at least a night game allows everyone to avoid having to do that.

25 I thought the same thing as I tried to walk through the jammed packed walkways while waiting out the delay.

What do you mean what else could they have done? The radar was pretty clear to me before I left and when I got back. There was no heavy rain over or near the city. It's well past 10 pm now and there still hasn't been any rain - that's a good 8 hours of rain-free time.

8 29 I just discovered it! No more listening to NESN, The Hawk, or Psycho in LA. I'm so happy.

21 He pitched to two batters today, and hadn't thrown in 3 days (counting exhibition games) so I don't think it was all that illogical or abusive. But yes, I predict he'll throw in a lot of games this year. ;-)

Sorry about the rain out today Yankee fans, hope they get the game in tomorrow.

28 I don't know how hard or long it rained up there but could there have been drainage issues? The field may well have been dangerous, I'd rather miss one than have somebody hurt. Just a thought.

Kepner in the NYT gives the impression that it was really wet, so I'm confused.

► Letterman visits Spring Training (2008)

http://tinyurl.com/2xubaa

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► Brand New ESPN/Yankee Parody Commercial

http://tinyurl.com/2ztutj

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► Fan Freak Over the Rainout

http://tinyurl.com/2lh3d7

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► Riot at DC Stadium

http://tinyurl.com/2z94ff

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30 33 34 From where I was sitting, the field looked pretty soaked. Sure, they may have been able to play the game on a wet field in a drizzle, but the conditions would have been poor. Once again, this is baseball, not football. Rainouts happen.

The new field drains exceptionally well. It easily handled the rain we got yesterday, which by 1:15 was mmmmmaybe a quarter inch. Probably less. They've played games after much more rain than that and the field was perfectly fine. In fact, tonight's game (if they can get it in) will be played after a nice all-day rain, much more than they got yesterday.

I continue to be baffled as to why they didn't play - the radar was showed no incoming rain, the field was certainly playable.

36 I have to agree with 37 . I was sitting out by the LF foul pole and while the field looked wet, it didn't look muddy or anything even close. What's baffling about all this is that today's forecast is much worse than yesterday's. Had the weather today been forecasted as sunny and clear then I could understand the decision a lot more. As it is, checking my hourly forecast, at 8pm tonight there is an 80% chance of rain, gusty winds and a chance of thunderstorms. This, coupled with the fact that it will be raining basically all day means if anything the field will be much worse tonight. Its just odd and I think a poor decision. There's something about walking home from a rainout when its not raining that is weird.