Baseball’s Un-Players Report First Three Teams Open Spring Training With Replacements, Minor-Leaguers

A hodgepodge of potential strikebreakers, minor leaguers and non-roster invitees milled about the New York Yankees’ locker room Wednesday, giving a preview of replacement baseball.

And like the strike itself, the presence of the players raised more questions than it answered.

“We told them our policy, and I hope you get this correct, that they are not replacement players until April 3,” general manager Gene Michael said.

“We’re not calling them major leaguers, we’re not calling them minor leaguers, we’re calling it Yankees’ spring training, and if they make the team they’ll become major leaguers and play the games,” Michael explained.

Pitchers and catchers report today to the Yankees, St. Louis Cardinals and San Francisco Giants. The Seattle Mariners’ camp will be open for returning major leaguers, but “we’re not expecting any of them to report,” spokesman Dave Aust said. Other teams will open camps by Monday.

The Yankees held an orientation session in the morning, and players then underwent physicals, received uniforms and got a feel for the spring training complex.

The Yankees issued a roster with 27 players’ names, but the team made no differentiation between the 14 minor-leaguers who are going about business as usual and the 13 others who are either replacement players or non-roster invitees.

When the baseball strike began Aug. 12, the 763 players who were on major league rosters stopped working. Since then, the union has asked all players on 40-man rosters (major leaguers and top minor league prospects) to stay out of camp. That has pushed the total of potential strikers to nearly 1,100.

In addition, the union has asked minor leaguers to boycott games involving replacements. Michael said none of the players on the Yankees’ 40-man roster had agreed to come to camp.

“We’re going to bring in the best players we can,” he said. “We’re hopeful that the caliber will be good enough, we don’t know exactly what it is because it’s new territory, but we are going to have baseball.”

At the Cardinals’ camp in St. Petersburg, players were told they’d be given different color uniforms, some with the same numbers.