(Tampa, FL)-- The sun wasn't shining and the birds weren't singing when I arrived at Legends Field. But I can hardly complain. I left Massachusetts after yet another 5 inches of snow fell, then turned to frozen slush on my sidewalk. So 79 degrees, threatening skies and a few drops of drizzle on my windshield counts as relatively good weather in the larger scheme of things. I pulled into the Legends Field parking lot in my cobalt blue Chevy Impala (a rental, of course) and found the scalpers swarming. Each one had a fat handful of tickets and each one was offering them at below face value. Several season ticket holders and regular fans were mixed in among the professionals, forlornly holding up their extras. The fact that the weather was threatening to rain, and it was a mid-week day game, and that it was a game added to the schedule at the last minute, conspired to make this game the opposite of a hot ticket.

I was all set for tickets myself, as I would be sitting with my father in his season tickets, behind home plate. Okay, I know what you think when you think "behind home plate," but we're not that close and cushy with the scouts. No, we sit further up, just under the press box, in the shade. The view of the field is more panoramic from there, and at Legends Field, let's face it, we're still closer to the field than in the main grandstand at Yankee Stadium.

I climbed up the stairs to the pedestrian bridge to take me across Dale Mabry Avenue and onto the Legends Field grounds, and discovered as I walked over the bridge that my heart was beating hard and I was sweating. My first thought was: gee, riding that exercise bike every morning really hasn't helped my cardio... but then I realized it was excitement. Even though I spent almost every day of the spring at Legends last year, in the press corps no less, the anticipation of seeing the Yankees, the pre-game buzz of faithful fans, can still get to me.

It being my first visit of the year, I spent a few minutes walking around outside, looking at the retired number plaques and chatting with some fans trying to unload their tickets. One guy sold one of the two he had for ten bucks (a $15 ticket), just as a policeman approached us. "We're reverse scalping here," he explained to the cop. The policeman just smiled and continued walking past with a wave of his hand.

Not much has changed outside of Legends -- or if it has, I didn't notice it. I went inside and little has changed there, other than a new, improved DiamondVision screen in centerfield. Do you realize this is the tenth year that Legends Field has been home to the Yankees in the spring? That is no comparison to Yankee Stadium, and yet it is long enough for attending games there to feel like a tradition. I recogize faces in the crowd. Some of them I see in New York, and even in Boston when the Yankees are there. Others, only in Tampa.

Others, only *look* familiar. Their voices sound familiar. Their New York accents are comforting to me, like hearing folk songs from the Old Country. But of course, here in the colony of the Grapefruit League, we have carried our homeland traditions with us. We had Robert Merrill (on tape, of course) for the National Anthem, the YMCA dance while dragging the field, that sort of thing.

For this game against the Marlins, Joe Torre played almost all his regular players. Only Tino Martinez was given the day off. Now that Tino is back as a Yankee--after stays in St. Louis and Tampa Bay--the scoreboard operations crew has been able to resurrect his old highlight packages and play them, unchanged; so Tino fans got to enjoy footage, at least. Meanwhile, Derek, Alex, Sheff, Gi, Matsui, Bernie, Jorge, and Tony Womack all playing in the lineup where they might, potentially be, on Opening Day. In Tino's place Andy Phillips played.

Phillips is a Yankee farmhand who was drafted in 1999 and has made a steady and unspectacular climb up the minor league ladder, capped with five fill-in appearances with the big club last season. The Yankees being as well-stocked as they are with veterans, though, you know as a Yankee fan that if he does anything to distinguish himself, it'll only make him trade bait. You root for the young guys to make it, but at the same time you know if they are going to succeed.... it will be with some other major league team. So you try not to get too attached.

But then there are some players who you can't help but like. Last spring Bubba Crosby opened a lot of eyes with his hard-nosed no-holds-barred style of play. This is one of those guys who dives, crashes into walls, runs all out whether he is in the field or on the basepaths. He ended up in 55 games for the Yankees, while Bernie Williams was rehabbing, but there are no guarantees that Bubba will make the club as the back-up outfielder. The Yankees have invited Doug Glanville and a host of other veteran back-up types to camp. The fans are behind Bubba, though. He reminds me of Chuck Knoblauch: a small guy who hustles. Bubba isn't that small, but he's certainly shorter than the media guide lists him (5' 11"). Me and the fans would love to see him stick around, but the better he plays, the higher his trade value becomes.

At the moment, however, there is not a lot for Brian Cashman to be shopping for. The only roster spot up for grabs this spring is that back-up outfielder slot. The rotation is set: Randy Johnson, Mike Mussina, Carl Pavano, Kevin Brown, and Jaret Wright. Then we have Tanyon Sturtze, who under the influence of Mel Stottlemyre and Mariano Rivera, has harnessed his stuff and learned to trust that 94 mph fastball that has kept him in the big leagues. Sturtze is the spot starter/long man the Yankees have needed. Flash Gordon and Mariano Rivera have the eighth and ninth innings sewn up. Mike Stanton is back in Yankee camp, as is Steve Karsay who may or may not be back from his long, long rehab. Oh yeah, Paul Quantrill is back, hopefully this year with a completely healthy knee (he was hampered a bit last year by an injury he received during the Opening Series in Japan when he collided with Alex Rodriguez). Felix Rodriguez, anyone?

So, Mike Mussina had something close to the regular squad behind him when he took the mound to face the Marlins. Now, the Marlins, as you might recall, defeated the Yankees in the 2003 World Series, and the Marlins are from Florida. So you might expect that they would have a fair number of fans at the game. You'd be wrong, though. What they had was a few, scattered, vocal fans, whose outburts of "Come on Luisito!" and "Let's Go Fish!" caused titters and chuckles among the rest of the quiet crowd.

Yes, spring training games are quieter than they are in the regular season. The crowds are smaller, and more laid back. The veteran spring crowd knows better than to get hyped up, since the games are not played to be won. Instead, we sit back and spectate and speculate, appreciating good play when we see it, and speculating on the names of the fill-in players whose names and numbers don't appear on the printed roster sheets. The crowd came to life and cheered at certain appropriate moments--like when Jason Giambi came to the plate. I'd read in the newspaper that fans in Tampa and in some other areas had been giving Gi some extra love, but it was nice to hear it for myself.

Moose got touched for two runs early--one unearned when Jeter was slow to get a ball out of his glove and then threw wide of first, allowing some guy named Joe Dylan to reach. The Fish scratched a couple more hits and had two runs for their efforts. He gave up another run the following inning on a few more hits, one a line drive to left off the bat of Miguel Cabrera. Remember that World Series I mentioned a little while ago? That was the World Series where Cabrera hit a game-winner off Jeff Weaver. For all the attention Cabrera drew from Yankees fans -- i.e none -- he might as well have been one of those guys who name and number didn't appear in the printed roster. The Fish may have one a World Series, but they have left little to no mark on the psyche of Yankees fans.

The Yankees picked Moose up in the fourth. Jorge Posada had worked out a walk in his first at bat against the Marlin's pitcher -- who was number 36, but did I mention there were players whose names didn't appear in the printed roster? In his second time around, he went to a full count, and then banged a long double when he got a pitch to hit. #36 didn't want to walk him, I guess, and got a little too much of plate. Andy Phillips followed with a single, and then Tony Womack, hitting in the nine hole, tripled. That brought Jeter to the plate, and a change of pitcher. Bye, bye, number 36, whoever you were. A guy named Riedling followed. Jeter wasted no time punching a hit to right to score Womack.

The rest of the lineup pummelled Rielding the next inning, four runs, three hits -- Jeter again coming through with a hit that brought in two. And in the seventh, the Yankees piled on more runs, this time on old pal Jim Mecir, the screwball pitcher with the club foot who was once a Yankee, and then a longtime Oakland A. Four more runs, four more hits, this time a Jeter double, giving him a 3-for-5 day with 4 RBI, and a nice ovation from the crowd as he was removed for a pinch runner. The Fish did get two more runs, on solo homers off minor league pitching prospects Jorge DePaula and Colter Bean.

As the prospects took over the field and fewer and fewer players we recognized were left, the sky darkened, and some drizzle began to fall. We moved up a few rows, as by this time there were plenty of empty seats, to where the wetness couldn't get to us. Shortly after that, the game came to an end, the Yankees had won it, and we headed for our cars. Just as I reached the car, the rain began to fall in earnest.

As I got my door open, and slid into the drivers seat, the rain began to pour. But did I care? Not at all. I was dry, the game was over, and it was time to head to Fort Myers with the warm and happy feeling that only spring training baseball can give.