1. As promised yesterday when I did the Met payroll, here is a look at the Yankee season-opening payroll for 2009:

Alex Rodriguez — 33,000,000

Derek Jeter — 21,600,000

Mark Teixeira — 20,600,000

A.J. Burnett — 16,500,000

CC Sabathia — 15,285,714

Mariano Rivera — 15,000,000

Jorge Posada — 13,100,000

Johnny Damon — 13,000,000

Hideki Matsui — 13,000,000

Xavier Nady — 6,550,000

Robinson Cano — 6,000,000

Andy Pettitte — 5,500,000

Nick Swisher — 5,400,000

Chien-Ming Wang — 5,000,000

Kei Igawa — 4,000,000

Damaso Marte — 3,750,000

Jose Molina — 2,125,000

Melky Cabrera — 1,400,000

Brian Bruney — 1,250,000

Andrew Brackman — 1,137,500

Angel Berroa — 800,000

Juan Miranda — 500,000

Cody Ransom — 455,100

Jose Veras — 432,975

Joba Chamberlain — 432,575

Edwar Ramirez — 422,500

Brett Gardner — 414,000

Phil Coke — 403,300

Jonathan Albaladejo — 403,075

TOTAL — 207,461,739

–OK, same ground rules as yesterday with the Mets: This is just a snapshot of a payroll to give fans a general feel where the Yanks are residing to begin the 2009 campaign. No one should take this as biblical for a variety of reasons, including that different institutions within the game figure out payrolls in different ways. For the purposes here, I used players’ base salary for 2009 plus their pro-rated signing bonuses.

–There are 29 players listed here rather than 25. Alex Rodriguez will begin the season on the DL. Kei Igawa is not on the roster, but he signed a major league contract so he still counts toward the payroll; though the $26 million the Yanks paid to win Igawa’s posting is not included because it is not taxable. But, in reality, with the posting pro-rated, you could look at Igawa’s true pay as $9.2 million a year. Both Andrew Brackman and Juan Miranda were given major league contracts to sign them as amateurs, so they also count toward the payroll.

–As of this writing, the Yanks had not announced whether Ramiro Pena or Angel Berroa would be their utility infielder. I just guessed on Berroa, though it is possible the Yanks will go with Pena because he costs half as much as Berroa’s $800,000 contract.

–The Yankees have nine players making eight-figure salaries, three more than any other team. In fact, they have nine players making $13 million or more. Those nine players, by this calculation, are making $161,085,714, which would be the highest payroll in the majors all by itself.

2. I wrote a column in today’s paper about being no fan of the new Yankee Stadium, mainly because it feels so grotesque to be opening such a palace to excess at a time in this county’s and city’s history when so many are hurting economically. Obviously, the Yanks could not know this was how matters would transpire when they began the project 2 1-2 years ago. But these are the Yankees and as their payroll expenditures show, their knee-jerk reaction is always excess, excess, excess.

I found many items very interesting while in the new Stadium for the first time on Thursday. One thing that caught my eye was that there are five TVs in the main clubhouse and all five were tuned to YES, making me wonder if there are even remotes or is there simply policy that the only channel allowed on in the clubhouse is the organization’s propaganda-laden house organ?

Also, from what I could see there were no overt clocks in the clubhouse, which is strange in a sport as regimented as baseball. I could see a lot of exchanges like this in 2009: “What time is stretch.” “4:15” “Is it 4:15 yet?” “I have no idea.”

The absence of clocks reminded me of Vegas, and made me wonder if the atmospheric that the organization is going for is “Whatever happens in this clubhouse, stays in this clubhouse.”

3. A long time ago when I was the Yankee beat writer for this paper and a Yankee official and I were discussing having difficult personalities on a roster. And the Yankee official said, “You can have a jerk on the team, but it better be Barry Bonds, not Mel Hall.” Yes, it is more tolerable to accept bad acts from great players. So I am confused why any team is considering this version of Gary Sheffield, even if the cost is just the major league minimum of $400,000. It is one thing to put up with the bellyaching from, say, the 2003 Sheffield. But why put up with what will surely soon be complaints about playing time and more for this past-prime version of Sheffield?

And yet the Mets definitely have held some in-depth discussions on if they should sign the guy. I don’t know if the Mets will get him over the Phillies or Reds, but I do believe he is on their radar.