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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Baseball encounters shaky finances

Many teams cut while Yankees spend

Ronald Blum Associated Press

NEW YORK – Baseball’s boom may be over, a golden age of crowded ballparks replaced by a season of uncertainty.

The average salary likely will drop slightly for only the third time in 20 years, the first since 2004, and many teams are fretting over ticket sales.

“People aren’t going out and spending their money right now,” said Johnny Damon, an All-Star used to playing in front of full houses at Yankee Stadium. “They’ve got to think, well, ‘Should we watch it on TV or should we go?’ A lot of people are going, probably, to watch more games on TV.”

Last year’s World Series teams, Philadelphia and Tampa Bay, must prove they have staying power, and the Yankees have gambled again on pricey free agents.

The Phillies no doubt will have many full houses, starting when they host Atlanta in the major league opener tonight and hoist a pennant celebrating their first World Series title since 1980, just their second overall.

“I’d like to add to that trophy,” manager Charlie Manuel said. “It would be nice to have a couple sitting beside it.”

No team has repeated since the Yankees from 1998-2000 or even reached the World Series in consecutive years since the Yankees in 2001.

But hope is the buzz word for this time of year.

That’s why the Los Angeles Dodgers gave Manny Ramirez a $45 million, two-year deal, convincing the perplexing power hitter to linger in Los Angeles and help the team try to win its first title since 1988.

The only player who makes more than Ramirez this season, Alex Rodriguez, will be missing opening day – and when New York moves into baseball’s Versailles, a $1.5 billion new Yankee Stadium that hosts its first regular-season opener April 16.

It might be a relief for Rodriguez to be out of the picture, if only for a moment.

Following a tumultuous offseason in which he admitting using steroids from 2001-03 while playing for Texas, the three-time A.L. MVP needed surgery to repair a hip injury and will be sidelined until May. He’ll collect $174,863 a day from his $32 million salary while he heals.

If those numbers seem boggling, try a few more from Yankees world. Fans will pay up to $2,625 for the top seats at the new stadium to watch a team that spent $423.5 million to add pitchers CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett, and first baseman Mark Teixeira.

Across New York City, the Mets capped prices at a relatively reasonable average of $495 for the best seats at $800 million Citi Field, which opens April 13.

Contrast that with the rest of the majors, where overall two-thirds of teams froze or lowered either some levels of tickets or their average price.

Houston even pulled its $27 million, three-year offer to pitcher Randy Wolf, who wound up accepting a $5 million, one-year deal with the Dodgers that allows him to earn $3 million more in bonuses.

Thirteen teams cut payroll led by San Diego, which sliced more than $30 million, and the Chicago White Sox, who chopped more then $25 million.

Many top stars’ salaries crumbled: Garret Anderson went from $12 million last year with the Los Angeles Angels to $2.5 million this year with Atlanta; Ken Griffey Jr. dropped from $12.5 million with Cincinnati and the White Sox to $2 million with Seattle.

But much will be the same.

While the New York teams move to new homes, the Minnesota Twins will be at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome for the 28th and final season before returning outdoors to grass in 2010, when they move to Target Field.

And those dear ol’ Chicago Cubbies are back again, still trying to win the World Series for the first time in the lifetime of 99.99 percent of their long-suffering fans. It’s been a century-plus since their last title, back in 1908. That’s a full 15 years before the previous Yankee Stadium opened and was hailed as a Colosseum for the ages.