One More For The Road: Cubs vs. Yankees at New York, Saturday 4/4, 12:05 CT

by Al Yellon on Apr 4, 2009 10:00 AM CDT in Recap/Game Thread

I watched until the bottom of the third inning last night and then headed to the Bruce Springsteen concert at Jobing.com Arena in Glendale. Sounds like I made the right choice, as after I left Yankee hitters started teeing off on Ted Lilly, slamming three home runs in a 7-4 New York win over the Cubs in front of 48,402, about 3,000 short of capacity in the Yankees' new palatial estate. (Mini-review of show: long setlist, 25 songs, the usual outstanding Springsteen performance, though it did slow a little in the middle of the show with songs like "Johnny 99" and "The Ghost of Tom Joad". It ran two hours and 45 minutes after starting an hour after the scheduled 7:30 time.)

Many of those empty seats, from what I saw on the broadcast, appeared to be the $2,625 per game seats that are right behind the plate (those are going to look pretty embarrassing on TV all year if they don't sell). That's a lot of money for a baseball ticket even if you're a New Yorker, and you don't even get a mango-scented towel as you do at Camelback Ranch here in Arizona.

In any case, we have reached the end of this seemingly interminable spring training journey: one more game and then it's off for the Cubs to Houston to open the season on Monday.

Alfonso Soriano and Aramis Ramirez were taken out of last night's lineup because of the sketchy weather. But had they played last night, Lou said he was going to sit them today, so with today's weather looking windy but dry, expect to see both of them play. Soriano didn't get his wish to be the first batter at the plate in the new park, but any "firsts" last night don't go into the record books anyway -- those will wait for the Yankees' first regular season game there against Cleveland on April 16. Chris DeLuca details Lou Piniella's thoughts about the new stadium.

Today's game will feature Rich Harden vs. A. J. Burnett. It can be heard on WGN radio (I'm not sure I understand, either, why they sent Pat & Ron to NYC and only did one game), and televised on CSN Chicago. It is NOT on the MLB Network today (they are covering the Red Sox/Mets game at noon CT) but you can watch for free at the MLB.com Mediacenter. And if you didn't do this last night and want to do it today, definitely download the NexDef plugin. Watching via my laptop using that plugin was really impressive -- I can see why they gave away the telecast for free, it was a heck of a promotion for the service.

MLB.com Gameday

Discuss amongst yourselves.

0 recs | 155 comments

Comments

NexDef

Extremely impressive on my 37" LCD though it’s an absolute outrage that it doesn’t support dual screens…. full screen on one monitor (tv) and being able to work on the other. There has to be a very sizable amount of MLB.tv users including myself that want that functionality – or at least being able to resize the video window, which also isn’t possible.

In other news, I’m watching Bull Durham right now in honor of baseball being back on Monday… as I do every March/April.

sanantonecub - April 4, 2009 reply

what are you using to hook up to your tv?

USB?

LT - April 4, 2009 reply

HDMI

sanantonecub - April 4, 2009 reply

duh

I just noticed my laptop has an hdmi output…

LT - April 4, 2009 reply

Very impressive, indeed.

Just out of curiosity.

I’m in DeKalb and when I tried to get MLB.TV last year I was blacked out, obviously, from the Cubs games (didn’t read the fine print) so I got my money back.

I was wondering if I had just put down another city or something if it would have worked.

I guess what I am asking (MLB.TV users) is does MLB.TV detect where you are trying to view the game from or are you blacked out based on the city, state you put down during your registration?

EJThunder - April 4, 2009 reply

In my experience

They block you based on IP address…. two years ago when I was in San Antonio I was blocked from Astro and Ranger games, but then when I visited family in Omaha I was blocked from Cards/Royals/etc. and in Chicago from the Cubs, etc…

sanantonecub - April 4, 2009 reply

Damn...

Thanks for the info.

EJThunder - April 4, 2009 reply

Yeah Dekalb

I live in Dekalb too and have comcast and was told we could not get MLB network in our area…I know your takling about MLB.TV just worndering if you have it

NIUcubbie - April 4, 2009 reply

Glad to hear the Springsteen concert was good.

Did you get to hear “Outlaw Pete?” Joe Posnanski has a pretty good post about it over at his blog.

Bill Potter - April 4, 2009 reply

Yes, they played "Outlaw Pete".

Wow, Posnanski really hated it. To me, it wasn’t the best song I ever heard, but neither was it the worst. And he didn’t bring his kids on stage last night.

Al Yellon - April 4, 2009 reply

So after Harden today

I would think both Patton and Guzman get shots to throw.

Here’s Guzman’s take on the competition, from the Tribune:

“I know they’re going to do the best for me,” Guzman said. “They’ve been doing it the last four years [through arm injuries]. I want to help the team. I’ve been here a long time, and I like the chemistry in the clubhouse. But I know the decision is not about Angel Guzman or [my] ‘great arm.’ It’s not about that anymore. It’s about getting the job done, and I think this is the right time.”

Bill Potter - April 4, 2009 reply

WGN Radio

had Blackhawks hockey last night…That’s why Pat and Ron are only on today…

PurpleLineToWrigley - April 4, 2009 reply

Thanks for the clarification.

You’d think they could have farmed out the Cubs broadcast to another station.

What are they going to do during the hockey playoffs?

Al Yellon - April 4, 2009 reply

Well, not sure about playoffs...

Next week, when there are scheduling conflicts, the Blackhawks will be carried on WGNRadio.com and WIND, and then picked up on WGN Radio if the Cubs end before the hockey game is over…

For playoffs, I don’t know if Hawks will have priority over Cubs. They have a little wiggle room since NHL games can be carried over the station website, unlike MLB games…

PurpleLineToWrigley - April 4, 2009 reply

Probably WIND, then.

I think the Cubs have priority.

Al Yellon - April 4, 2009 reply

Nothing against hockey

But a lot more people care about the Cubs. They’ll work something out.

wrigleyrocker12 - April 4, 2009 reply

I missed the entire game, so...

what’s the consensus of the new ballpark after the first game? I haven’t read many positive media reviews of it in the last few months, but everything I’m reading today seems positive. What does everyone here think of the new stadium?

stadiumguru - April 4, 2009 reply

Anyone watching this on mlb.tv? get it to work yet?

the link for Cubs / Yankees is not active – all I see is “Watch” in dull black letters

ballhawk - April 4, 2009 reply

I was just about to ask the same question

And I’m logged in and everything. WTF?

Bleed Cubbie Blue