CHANNELING THEIR ANGER

Bombers stay patient over ESPN schedule as team, commish work on solution

DETROIT — As the battle between the Yankees and ESPN wages on, a resolution has yet to come but Major League Baseball is now looking into the situation.

Yankees president Randy Levine told the Daily News on Monday, “We’ve been talking to the commissioner. He’s working hard to try to resolve this.”

The Yankees are upset that they’re going to have to play ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball game on July 8 in Toronto before playing a single-admission doubleheader in Baltimore on July 9. The July 8 game was originally slated for 1 p.m. before being moved to 8 p.m. for TV purposes.

David Robertson feels he and his teammates have been “mistreated a little bit” due to the changing of the schedule, which has caused concerns over player health.

“I’m not angry about it,” said Robertson, the team’s player representative who’d like to get the July 8 game moved back to 1 o’clock. “There’s a lot of time between now and then. I would like to see it changed.”

The league also released a statement saying the commissioner’s office is “involved and communicating with the parties that are impacted.”

According to a source, the Players Association has been actively involved in efforts to reach a resolution since last week, when players asked the MLBPA to intervene on their behalf.

The SNB game was announced after the doubleheader was agreed upon, which upset players as they never would have agreed with the scenario had they known about that in advance.

“I thought it was perfect that we had a 1 o’clock game and then we’d get to Baltimore at a decent hour and be ready to play two games the next day,” Robertson said. “And then the next day the ESPN game was put on us and that’s too tough a schedule for us.”

Aaron Boone continues to be vocal about his opposition to the schedule change. He has reached out to numerous people within baseball to try to resolve the situation.

“I know I’ve kind of said a couple of things about it, and I stand by that,” Boone said. “Hopefully it’s something that gets worked out, but I also know it’s something that’s way out of my hands. It’s time for me to move on and us to move on and focus on what’s in front of us.”

Boone has called the situation “ridiculous” — his players having to essentially play three games in 24 hours with little to no sleep due to late-night into earlymorning travel.

On YES Network during Tuesday’s broadcast, Yankees color commentator Ken Singleton said tired players can become injured players as a result.

The Daily News’ Bill Madden first reported that if nothing is changed, the Bombers will refuse to do any interviews with ESPN for the SNB game broadcast.

“I don’t think we’ve gotten that far,” Robertson said. “I think we’ve had some internal discussions about what we could do potentially but let’s hope it doesn’t get to that point. We’d like to see it get changed without a big ruckus getting started.”

One possible solution could be for the Yankees and Orioles to move their July 9 doubleheader to July 10.

Another possible solution could be for ESPN to go with the Angels-Dodgers game instead of the Yankees-Blue Jays game, but it appears things are locked in with regard to that.

“Well, then unlock it,” Boone said. “I’ve kind of said all I’m going to say on that.”

Yet another possible solution might be to play the July 8 game at 4 p.m. which would give the Yankees more time to get to Baltimore from Toronto, a trip made longer by the fact that the team has to go through customs.

Under the current schedule, the Bombers may not arrive in Baltimore until 4-5 a.m. and then have little time to sleep before going to the ballpark.

“We’ve had a tough schedule so far,” Robertson said. “A lot of rainouts and a lot of games that will be made up later on. Hopefully at some point maybe the game could be changed. That would probably be in our best benefit.”

The Yankees have already had seven games postponed due to inclement weather. — with Christian Red