Yankees have no one but themselves to blame for empty seats in AL Wild Card series

The New York Yankees are set to play what's easily the highest anticipated Wild Card Series against their arch-rivals, the Boston Red Sox, with all three games set to be played at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees-Red Sox rivalry is known to be one of the best in all of sports, and it only kicks up a notch when they meet in October.

Given that, it'd be fair to expect Yankee Stadium to be packed well before first pitch and for ticket prices to be astronomical. Well, that isn't exactly the case on either front, and the Yankees are entirely to blame for that.

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Yankees are to blame for empty seats in Wild Card Series opener

You read that right. The Yankees limited ticket sales to residents of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut or Pennsylvania for Game 1 of this series. The intention behind this is quite clear - they'd like for the crowd to consist of only Yankees fans.

We've seen teams in several sports do this, but never have we seen the Yankees, arguably the most popular sports team on the planet, restrict ticket sales. The Yankees should enjoy every bit of their home-field advantage, but is it not incredibly lame to restrict ticket buyers to individuals who don't live in Massachusetts?

I'm not going to say all of those empty seats would've been filled by Red Sox fans, and I'm not saying Yankees fans should want Red Sox fans to fill those seats, but again, empty seats? In this game? That's a bad look, no matter how you slice it.

Yankees plan is demonstrated with cheap ticket prices

I'm not going to act like a get-in price of $92 is dirt cheap, but for the first postseason game at Yankee Stadium against the Red Sox with Max Fried and Garrett Crochet on the mound, $92 to get in doesn't feel that crazy, especially when the get-in price for the Chicago Cubs game, which took place in the early afternoon at Wrigley Field, was even more expensive for a seat.

This, probably, has a lot to do with the Yankees limiting who can buy tickets to this game. Having prices be that low and still not being able to even come close to filling the place up before introductions is not ideal. The seats will almost certainly fill most of the way up as the game progresses, but a game of this magnitude not being sold out from the jump is just shocking.