March 10, 2012, Orlando, Fla. – Despite the threatening clouds that dominated the skyline Saturday morning, gorgeous Champion Field was open and ready for business early. The Braves were hard at batting practice pregame, then the Yankees, both cooking, as would the 10,000-plus fans in attendance at game time, under a glaring sun only intermittently interrupted by big puffy clouds.

Arriving early, we were surprised by the huge crowds already filling the ESPN sports complex at Disney, but the constant sight of large groups of young girls in heavy makeup and cute cheerleading outfits during our stroll to the ballpark confirmed that baseball was not the only activity dominating the scene. Perhaps this preponderance of competing youth foretold what we were about to see, because veteran Braves right-hander Jair Jurrjens, continuing a comeback from injury and arm surgery, would struggle mightily with his control at the game’s outset, while Yankee second-year man Michael Pineda, the newest jewel in the pinstriped pantheon, managed to impress despite a rocky start.

Jurrjens would allow six walks and five hits into the third as the visitors tallied twice in the first and once more in the second, the latter frame highlighted by big and small hits: a dazzling Brett Gardner supposed-to-be-sacrifice bunt down first and an Alex Rodriguez rope to the right center field wall.

The lone tally against Pineda, on the other hand, came on back-to-back hits from Michael Bourn and Martin Prado leading off the home first. Yankee right fielder Raul Ibanez stumbled and fell to the warning track at the wall pursuing Bourn’s full-count double, and when Prado’s first-pitch shot caromed off the mound and into center, the Yankee two-run lead was immediately halved. Gardner ran down Brian McCann’s follow-up liner to center, and Pineda struck out Dan Uggla on three pitches on the way to escaping further trouble. The young hurler then got some help from his catcher in a four-batter second inning, as Francisco Cervelli’s perfect peg nailed speedy Jose Constanza trying to steal after a two-out single.

But although it wasn’t a perfect outing from Pineda, he did show he has the tools, with a fastball that topped out at 94 mph, combined with an effective slider and an occasional change, a pitch that continues to be a work in progress. His line wasn’t great, as he was replaced after 57 pitches by lefty Cesar Cabral two outs into a one-hit, two-walk third inning, but no Brave had an easy at bat once their two-hit opening rally had passed. The Yankees, by the way, haven’t headed North with what’s known as a LOOGY, a southpaw on staff with the defined role to retire one lefty batter at a key moment, for some time, but Cabral is making the case to be that guy in 2012.

Coming off being shut out on five hits in Tampa on Friday, the Braves offense followed by struggling to mount any attack against a series of young Yankee arms until they strung together two runs on a couple of hits and two walks in the home eighth. By this time, unfortunately, they were down 7-1 as the Yanks added to their margin on Justin Maxwell’s fifth-inning rbi single and three runs on five hits and a sac fly in an eighth-inning onslaught by players who replaced the Yankee starters. Worthy of note in this explosion were two hard singles from young Yankee catching prospect Gary Sanchez, and an rbi single from first baseman Jose Gil, who is listed as a catcher on the Yankee roster, and who drilled line drives all over the field in pregame batting practice.

But the home team’s loss and dispirited play notwithstanding, the large crowd thrilled to an enjoyable game. The Braves have a feature where a ring of fans are allowed to hang out behind the backstop and watch batting practice on the field of play. Also on hand, Hall of Famer Don Sutton, one of the team’s broadcasters, was generous in signing autographs before his game duties commenced, and the Braves also make five or six players available to sign for fans in the second level pregame, although oddly, they allow no one to photograph the players while this is going on.

Before the game the crowd was entertained by a quartet of saxophonists in baseball gear. Specializing in bandshell-like old-time favorites, these four returned to lead the crowd in “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the seventh-inning stretch. One day ago, the world witnessed the 1,944th anniversary of the death of the Roman Emperor Nero who, along with being famous for having behaved in an overbearing and unjust manner while ruling over his subjects, is also known, to some reports inaccurately, for having “fiddled while Rome burned.”

With the visiting Yankees and their fans in full assault mode, this saxophone foursome provided the background music, while

… Orlando Burned

BTW,TYW
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!