There's one thing everyone forgets – fans and Wilpons alike – when it
comes to baseball in the 21st century. This is about much more than
the 9 guys playing.
It's tv and tickets and marketing.
The smart thing for the Yankees to do is tell their distracting third
baseman to go have surgery. The baseball team can limp through until
the all star break. Torre's teams did that plenty of times.
The problem with that is that the NYYs understand that A-Rod is tv
programming, the "Yankee Years" are over and fans aren't all that
attached to the 21 guys not named Derek, Mariano, Jorge and Andy.
The Mets have a good shot to take back this town. I've had Yankee fans
admit to me that they think the Mets have the better stadium now. The
Mets are selling out exhibition games and college games in under an
hour. The Yankees are taking out full page ads so that they dont have
an empty lower deck. Look at the amount of ads they are running –
there's more than a few seats left.
Take A-Rod out of the lineup and those $350 tickets are that less
likely to move. Put the soap opera that is A-Rod on hiatus and folks
are likely to see what's on SNY.
I still think the Mets should have grabbed Manny for all the reasons
the Yankees Incorporated want steroids, hips and Madonna around –
it's a show!
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