The AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees are enduring home-field renovations this year, and they are temporarily dubbed the Empire State Yankees. Many of their "home" games are being played in Rochester. Does anyone know details on how this is being handled? In the current series against the Red Wings, nominally a home game for the Yankees, are the fans who attend let in on the "joke" before the National Anthem, and then cheer as the announcer says "and now, YOUR Empire State YANKEES" and the defense takes the field, for instance?

The Wings beat writer for the Rochester newspaper is Jim Mandelaro and he's done a decent job of covering the rather unique situation with the Yankees affiliate playing a lot of games in Frontier Field. For example, Andy Pettitte is scheduled to pitch tomorrow and the Wings made some scheduling adjustments to accommodate this unique opportunity for Rochester's baseball fans to see it. Good move, too, because they sold out the stadium for the game in a very short amount of time once it was announced.

 

You should check out Jim's blog at http://blogs.democratandchronicle.com/extrabases/