Executives for the Double-A Trenton Thunder, where injured Yankees SS Derek Jeter will likely play two games this weekend as part of his rehabilitation, said Thursday afternoon that games for Saturday and Sunday are nearly sold out. The club is down to standing-room tickets for Saturday's game, while about 200 seats are still available for Sunday. The holiday weekend contests likely would have sold out anyway, but would have required large walk-up sales the day of each game. Thunder GM & COO Will Smith on Thursday said, "In this case, since they were talking about what Jeter's schedule might be last night on the Yankees' telecast, the website and the phones here have been very busy all day today, and we'll probably be completely sold out by the end of the day." Jeter, recovering from a calf strain in Tampa, earlier Thursday morning declared himself ready to head to Trenton for the weekend games. Jeter played three home games in Trenton in '03 during a prior rehab stint, the last time he played in a minor league uniform. Each of those games drew in excess of 8,300 and remain among the largest attendance figures in franchise history (Eric Fisher, SportsBusiness Journal). Smith said, "I’ve worked for two other teams for a total of eight years before I came to the Trenton Thunder. The biggest rehabilitation appearance we had was Austin Kearns." In New Jersey, Anthony Coleman reports Smith is "ready to bring in extra security and manpower with the assistance from sister franchise, the Lakewood BlueClaws of the South Atlantic League." Lakewood "helped out last season" when Yankees P Andy Pettitte rehabbed in town. Smith said that there are "about 1,500 $6 standing-room only tickets remaining for both games." As of Thursday night, StubHub "had a pair of tickets for Saturday going for $50 each while SRO tickets were going for $35 Saturday and $22.50 Sunday" (TIMES OF TRENTON, 7/1).
