Some 15,000 Mets fans “have been offered one free seat” for Saturday or Sunday's game against the Braves “in exchange for every ticket they buy for today’s opener” at Citi Field, according to David Li of the N.Y. POST. Plenty of the 41,880 seats for this afternoon’s game against the Braves “were still available early today.” If the Mets “don’t sell out, it will be the first home opener since 1997 that didn’t fill their stadium.” The Mets sent “more e-mails yesterday, cutting ticket prices for today’s game by between $4 and $22, depending on the seat.” The Mets spun the two-for-one Opening Day offer “as a bid to get families out to Citi Field this weekend” (N.Y. POST, 4/5).
UNHAPPY CAMPERS: In N.Y., Bill Madden writes the Mets were “less-than-thrilled to be spending the final day of the Grapefruit League season in Tampa, barely 24 hours before they would be opening up the real season at Citi Field.” The Yankees and Mets “completed their mystifying home-and-home, end-of-spring series at Steinbrenner Field” yesterday, and Mets GM Sandy Alderson “apologized to the team for this spring-ending insanity.” Madden writes it was “a decision from above, all designed to replenish the Mets’ empty coffers with the proceeds from one last sold-out exhibition game at Digital Domain Park in Port St. Lucie Tuesday.” League sources said that when the Mets’ front office “learned the Yankees were scheduled to make a rare trip to the east coast of Florida at the end of spring training to open up the new Miami ballpark, they asked if they would consider extending their Sun Coast stay an extra day to play a game in Port St. Lucie” (N.Y. DAILY NEWS, 4/5). On Long Island, David Lennon writes yesterday's game “killed any chance of a workout day to help get comfortable at Citi Field” for the team. The ballpark's redesign “is going to affect the Mets in plenty of obvious ways, but also in some you might not expect.” Mets 1B Ike Davis: "For me, like with throws from the shortstop and stuff, there used to be a huge wall there and it used to be black. Now it's going to be not there and I'm not sure how I'm going to see the ball from the fielders when they throw it" (NEWSDAY, 4/5).
TOTAL OPPOSITES: In N.Y., John Harper writes the sense is that the gap between the Yankees and Mets “has never been wider.” It is “impossible to examine the disparity that exists between the local franchises and think the pecking order is likely to change dramatically in the foreseeable future.” Their unmatched revenues “allows the Yankees to erase their mistakes like no other team in baseball.” Harper: “And that’s really the heart of the matter between the Yankees and the Mets at the moment.” The perception is the Mets “have no money to spend, as they continue to recover from bad contracts to the likes of Ollie Perez and Luis Castillo, on top of the Bernie Madoff-related financial problems.” The current gap “may shrink,” but circumstances “all but guarantee it won’t disappear” (N.Y. DAILY NEWS, 4/5).
