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Excitement, economic jitters as baseball begins

Fans watch from the upper deck as the Chicago Cubs play New York during an exhibition game on Saturday at the Yankees' new stadium. Game stats show attendance was 48,917 for the ballpark, which holds 52,325 people. The Yankees won 10-1.

Fans watch from the upper deck as the Chicago Cubs play New York during an exhibition game on Saturday at the Yankees' new stadium. Game stats show attendance was 48,917 for the ballpark, which holds 52,325 people. The Yankees won 10-1.

Ken Griffey Jr. swinging again for Seattle, K-Rod now closing for the New York Mets. A championship rematch at Fenway Park, a new start for CC Sabathia.

A year after the Tampa Bay Rays proved most anything is possible, opening day brings renewed spirit all over baseball – plus worries of more and more empty seats.

Even after finishing with a majors-worst 102 losses last year and then losing their general manager in a scandal this spring, the Washington Nationals were eager to get going.

“Once the bell rings and the national anthem plays and the games really count, I think these guys are going to be really energized,” manager Manny Acta said.

Twelve games are set for Monday, starting in Cincinnati when Francisco Rodriguez, Gary Sheffield and the revamped Mets visit chilly Great American Ball Park. Later, AL Cy Young winner Cliff Lee and the Cleveland Indians will watch former President George W. Bush throw out the first ball in Texas.

The AL champion Rays get an early test in Boston against Josh Beckett and the Red Sox. At night, Manny Ramirez begins his first full year in LA when the Dodgers open at San Diego.

A forecast of snow, cold and high winds in Chicago forced postponement of the game between Kansas City and the White Sox. They’ll try again Tuesday.

Several big names will be absent at the get-go. Alex Rodriguez, Ichiro Suzuki, Joe Mauer, ex-Arizona Wildcat Trevor Hoffman and John Lackey are among the injured. Also missing is Phillies reliever J.C. Romero, suspended 50 games by Major League Baseball after testing positive for a banned substance.

While A-Rod admitted taking steroids in 2001-03 while with Texas, the nonstop talk about performance-enhancing drugs seemed to diminish this spring. But concerns over the effects of the economy certainly increased.

MLB expects to see overall attendance drop as much as 7 percent, despite two-thirds of the 30 teams lowering either their average ticket price or some level of seats.

The Toronto Blue Jays offered season tickets in the upper deck for under $1 per game and the Minnesota Twins tied the cost of 6,500 outfield seats to the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

“You won’t see it as much in New York, but I think the teams that are going to be hurt a little bit obviously are small-market teams,” Yankees catcher Jorge Posada said.

The two new ballparks in New York, the $1.5 billion Yankee Stadium and $800 million Citi Field, host their regular-season openers next week.

In the meantime, Sabathia starts Monday for the Yankees at Baltimore. The ace signed a $161 million, seven-year deal with the Yankees, who also brought in pricey Mark Teixeira and A.J. Burnett.

“Hopefully I get the team off to a good start and get myself off to a good start,” Sabathia said.

Johan Santana will start for the Mets in Cincinnati, where it’s expected to be rainy and in the upper 30s at gametime. After adding Francisco Rodriguez and J.J. Putz to the bullpen, New York hopes to avoid a third straight September collapse.

For now, though, it’s time to focus on opening day.

“You still get the butterflies, you still get the sleepless nights. It’s good. It’s like that excitement, it’s that nervous energy. And that’s what you’re looking for,” Mets third baseman David Wright said.

Citizen Online Archive, 2006-2009

This archive contains all the stories that appeared on the Tucson Citizen's website from mid-2006 to June 1, 2009.

In 2010, a power surge fried a server that contained all of videos linked to dozens of stories in this archive. Also, a server that contained all of the databases for dozens of stories was accidentally erased, so all of those links are broken as well. However, all of the text and photos that accompanied some stories have been preserved.

For all of the stories that were archived by the Tucson Citizen newspaper's library in a digital archive between 1993 and 2009, go to Morgue Part 2

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