TAMPA, Fla. -- A day with the Yankees at their spring training camp ...
At 9 a.m. Friday, 100 fans are already in line. There will be 500 by the time the gates open at 11. They aren't waiting to watch an exhibition game, just practice, but it's a chance to see their heroes close up on a glorious afternoon.
On the plaza in front of aptly named Legends Field are signs surrounded by palm trees honoring 16 Yankees greats who have had their numbers retired.
"I want to thank the good Lord for making me a Yankee," it says next to Joe DiMaggio's sign.
One of the legends, Yogi Berra, is coming this week, but his golf clubs beat him here and are in manager Joe Torre's office.
The Legends Room, the Yankees' version of the Mariners team store, is selling Yankees merchandise galore. One of the items is a $30 checkers game with Yankees caps on one side, Red Sox caps on the other.
At 9:45, the doors open to the clubhouse, and a bunch of really non-legendary guys carrying notepads and microphones stream in. One of us is lost, unfamiliar with legendary protocol. I'm not sure if you can talk to the legends without permission from God, but I'm assured you can.
There are inspirational signs in the hallway leading to the clubhouse. One says: "Do ever in all things our darndest and never, never give up." Another says: "God willing and given the chance, let me carve my name on something bigger than a locker-room bench."
It's motivational mumbo-jumbo. What they're really saying is: "God willing, let us beat the hell out of the Red Sox."
Next to a laundry basket, I wait in a small line to talk to legend Derek Jeter. I have no idea what I am going to ask him. His locker is in the same row but eight cubicles removed from Alex Rodriguez, the legend he doesn't socialize with anymore.
When it's my turn, I decide I'll ask him if he also bet on Michigan, his favorite team, in the Rose Bowl like I so stupidly did; if he remembers much about his first major league hit in Seattle off Tim Belcher; if he ever gets tired of dating celebrity hotties; and, of course, if he has a dog.
But then ...
"I've got to go to the training room," Jeter said. "I'll be right back."
Ah, but Plan B, good ol' Plan B is sitting nearby. I look at the nameplate above the locker and look at the player sorting through his mail. It says that his name is Jim Beam. I will soon find out that the Yankees prospect's real name is T.J. Beam, a 6-foot-7 reliever, but some prankster thought it would be funny to call him Jim Beam.
"Where's Jack Daniels?" I ask him.
"Around the corner," Jim Beam says.
It's early, but at this point I could use a Jack Daniel's or a Johnnie Walker, and for that matter, his brothers Blackie and Red. I am served a Ben Davis instead.
Remember him? The ex-Mariner was supposed to be the heir apparent to Dan Wilson but couldn't hit. A good guy, Davis is trying to make it in New York, New York.
"Coming in here is like being in Disney World every day," said Davis, who can't believe his locker is framed by All-Stars such as Johnny Damon and Jorge Posada. "The other thing that's shocking, they're all great people."
Closer Mariano Rivera's locker is kitty-cornered from Davis'. Next to Rivera's locker are two boxes stuffed with fan mail in all shapes, colors and sizes.
I approach Rodriguez and feel the clouds parting and the angels humming. He is looking at text messages before being interrupted.
"Seattle P-I? What brings you all the way down here?" Rodriguez asked.
He wonders what's up with Ichiro and says that Raul Ibanez is the greatest guy in the world. Right when the interview is about to start ...
"Jim, Jason Zillo of the Yankees, the clubhouse is closed," Jason Zillo of the Yankees says.
I walk out and notice Jeter coming in, right at a time when I can't talk to him anymore.
Once practice starts, fans sit six and seven rows deep behind the Yankees dugout, taking pictures, cheering everything Yankees, from catches of pop-ups to long fly balls launched at batting practice.
The Yankees hold a short meeting on the field and, after they break, fans cheered that, too.
Following batting practice, Jeter gives one of his black bats to a bespectacled little girl, and she holds it close, beaming as she calls one of her friends to tell her about it.
"That's why he's the captain!" a fan shouts.
A mini-major league park designed with similar dimensions to Yankee Stadium, Legends Field seats about 10,000 and is sold out for every game. The first two rows behind home plate are loge seats that go for $190 each, to watch games that don't count.
There are also suites, one of which is frequently occupied by George Steinbrenner. The 76-year-old Yankees owner is not here this day. He typically signs autographs after games.
It's very corporate-looking here, urban and much newer than the Red Sox complex in Fort Myers, which sprawls out of nowhere at the end of a dead-end street in a tattered neighborhood. Legends Field sits directly across Dale Mabry Boulevard from Raymond James Stadium, home of the Buccaneers.
When practice ends, Rodriguez and his teammates come back to the clubhouse. He's in a hurry to go to lunch and a book signing but has five minutes for a Seattle reporter.
Close up, A-Rod appears bigger and better-looking, minus the cap, than he does on TV in his uniform. Wearing a green Miami Hurricanes sweat suit, he is about to go out and greet two people who are waiting for him: his wife, Cynthia, and their 2-year-old daughter Natasha.
"She's definitely the greatest gift God has ever given me," he says of his little girl.
His wife and daughter are part of his "intimate circle," a handful of people he cares about most. The others, the ones outside the circle who criticize his postseason failures and wonder about his fractured relationship with Jeter -- he doesn't care what they think.
"I'm very proud of who I am. You can't believe what you read in the tabloids," Rodriguez said. "If I let things like that bother me, I'd be in a coffin somewhere."
Now 31, he will reach 500 career home runs if he hits 36 this season. Undeniably a great player, A-Rod still gets more attention for what he's not doing than what he is, his 10-year, $252 million contract being the reason for that.
He still has three years and $81 million left on the deal. Rodriguez can opt out of the contract at the end of this season and test the open market, but he has said he wants to remain a Yankee, as if he'd get more money anywhere else.
This season alone, A-Rod will earn $27 million, or $2.25 million a month. Factored over 12 months, that works out to $73,973 a day, $3,082 an hour, $51.40 a minute, and nearly a dollar a second.
That deal with the Rangers is the reason why he left the Mariners after the 2000 season. When he came back the first time, fans razzed, booed and jeered him for taking the same deal they would have taken had it been offered to them. Most memorably, one guy brought a fishing rod with a dollar bill at the end of his line and dangled it in front of A-Rod in the on-deck circle. It was a strange night.
So much time has passed. Can he admit now that it hurt his feelings?
"No, I just choose to remember the great times there. I have nothing to say but great things about Seattle," he said. "They're booing you because you're good. You had an impact on them. If you stink, they're not going to boo you."
With everything that has happened since, I wondered if he ever wishes he'd just stayed in Seattle and had his Hall of Fame run in a smaller, less-hostile place.
"No," he said. "I would do it again. You have to remember I got a three-year offer (from the Mariners). Thank God I have no regrets. But those days in Seattle were some of the fondest of my career. My wife and I talk about it all the time."
During his Mariners years, he lived on Mercer Island and downtown, calling them "the two prettiest places on Earth."
He enjoys coming back and typically visits his favorite Seattle restaurant, Flying Fish in Belltown. People who see him on the streets treat him warmly.
"I still remember my greatest day in Seattle," he said. On July 24, 1996, he turned 21, hit a home run, and Ken Griffey Jr. did, too, plus he signed his first million-dollar contract.
Asked what kind of reaction he thinks Griffey will get when he returns to Safeco Field this summer, Rodriguez said: "He'll get the standing ovation he deserves. Junior was the foundation, along with Lou Piniella and Edgar. He's why the stadium was built and why it's one of the great franchises in baseball today."
He looked more than ready to go, so I thanked him while someone else moved in and asked him for two minutes, really, two minutes, that's all he would need, just $104 of his time.
With that, it all came to an end -- a day with the Yankees and a weeklong tour of spring training camps in Florida.
