BALTIMORE — It appears miscommunication between the Yankees players and union lawyer David Prouty Friday night played a part in the Yankees losing Sept. 8 as an off day.
Instead, the Yankees will be at Camden Yards for a 1:05 makeup game that day, rescheduled after Saturday’s rainout.
“We don’t want to do it. You need both teams to play it,” Yankees player rep Curtis Granderson said before the Orioles announced the rescheduled date and time.
“It’s the best case scenario, and we have to play it,” Granderson said.
According to a Yankees source, Prouty asked the team Friday about playing split doubleheaders yesterday and today. When he was told that wasn’t going to pass, Prouty assumed that meant the Yankees were agreeable to Sept. 8.
He took that information down the hall to the Orioles players who agreed and it was sent to Major League Baseball.
When it was reported the Yankees agreed to Sept. 8, several members of the front office were angered. When the players learned about it midway through Friday night’s 12-5 loss to the O’s, they were livid.
“A little bit,” Granderson said of miscommunication playing a part. “Between the players, [Joe] Girardi, the Orioles [organization] and Prouty. He said something about [Sept. 8] at 5 o’clock and then at 6:30 Derek [Jeter] said, ‘We can’t play on the eighth.’ Then it was announced during the game.”
The Yankees were upset with the Orioles that they didn’t get ahead of Hurricane Irene and play two games Friday.
Orioles spokesman Greg Bader wanted the issue to go away.
“We’ve had a hurricane that has caused millions of people to lose power, tens of millions of dollars in property damage and several individuals who unfortunately have lost their lives,” Bader said in an e-mail to The Post. “Yet we are still discussing this make-up game two days later. The game will be played on Sept. 8 and will be at a time the Orioles select. It’s time to move on to more pressing matters.”
In an interview with MLB.com, Orioles manager Buck Showalter accused the Yankees of also being insensitive regarding the passing of former O’s pitcher Mike Flanagan, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound last week.
“I’m sure if [the Yankees] stopped and thought about it, if the same thing happened to one of their greats, they probably would have given a lot of consideration to how they were going to handle that day,” Showalter said.
Yankees manager Joe Girardi, who was very critical of the O’s not agreeing to play two games Friday, stepped back from the issue.
“I’m going to let the powers that be handle that,” he said. “I have to worry about these two games.”
Another option was for the Orioles to play a split doubleheader when in The Bronx (Sept. 5-7). If that happened, the Yankees would have had to compensate the Orioles for giving up a home game. According to a club source, the Yankees were willing to split one of the game’s gates with the O’s.
To Girardi, the idea of playing two games yesterday and two today before opening a three-game series in Boston Tuesday wasn’t an option.
“How do you do that, it’s physically impossible,” Girardi said of four games in two consecutive days. It’s not fair to the product.”