Very strange site here at Legends Field right now: the simulated game.
The Yankees didn’t want Andy Pettitte to face the Red Sox today. It’s a long trip (2 1/2 hours each way) to Fort Myers, and there’s no reason to let the Sox see Pettitte before the games start to count. So here he is at Legends, with no one in the stands except a few writers and the guys power-washing the upper seats.
Around the diamond, you have Don Mattingly at first base and some familiar uniform numbers at other positions. Someone wearing No. 22 (but not Roger Clemens) is at second base, someone wearing No. 51 is in left field (but not Bernie Williams) and someone wearing No. 6 is in center field (but not Joe Torre).
The fielders I can identify are Derek Jeter at short, Alex Rodriguez at third and Jorge Posada catching. I don’t know who the right fielder is. This sounds like an Abbott & Costello routine.
Also, Andy Phillips is batting constantly. He hasn’t gotten into a game all spring (he missed a week after his mother’s car accident — she’s slowly but steadily making progress down in Birmingham, Ala.), so Torre is giving him as many at-bats as possible.
It’s the second “inning” and by my count Phillips has been up five times. Pettitte throws until he gets three outs, then he sits down in the dugout for 10-15 minutes and takes the mound again. The goal, of course, is to make this as realistic a workday as possible for Pettitte.
Physically, that is happening. Mentally, it must be hard for Pettitte to really get into it. Phillips (him again) just flew out to the guy in the Torre uniform for the third out of the second, and Pettitte lingered near the mound, apparently forgetting the number of outs.
Now they’re between innings again. Yogi Berra and Reggie Jackson are on the field for some reason, neither in a uniform. A-Rod is making idle chatter with the guy in the Torre uniform. Ersatz Bernie is clustered near second base, talking up Jeter.
Phillips? He’s just sitting on the concrete wall beside the dugout, bat in his hand, helmet on his head, ready for still more cuts — just as soon as Pettitte finishes his simulated breather between simulated innings.
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