FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) – Adam Fonrouge drove 32 hours from Maine, lay down on the hot sidewalk and continued his 35-hour wait for the ticket office to open.

And many of the Yankees’ best players won’t even be on the split squad that faces the Red Sox tonight, the first game between the rivals since the AL championship series.

“We’re idiots,” the 22-year-old Boston fan said, echoing Johnny Damon’s description of his Red Sox teammates who won the team’s first World Series championship in 86 years.

The spring training game comes 4 months after Boston beat New York in the ALCS, becoming the first major league team to overcome a 3-0 postseason deficit, and exactly one year after an exhibition game became an extravaganza when Alex Rodriguez wore a New York uniform for the first time against the Red Sox.

Repeat after the players: “It’s just an exhibition game. It’s just an exhibition game. It’s just an exhibition game.”

Brad Kearns, who accompanied Fonrouge from Bangor, Maine, had a different message: “It’s still the Yankees.”

Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Gary Sheffield and Jorge Posada won’t be taking the two-hour bus ride south on I-75 from Tampa. Neither will pitchers Randy Johnson, Mike Mussina, Carl Pavano, Jaret Wright and Kevin Brown.

If you want to see the double-play combo of Rey Sanchez and Tony Womack, get in line behind Fonrouge and Kearns for the few remaining seats.

Hideki Matsui, Ruben Sierra and Bubba Crosby were slated to make the trip. So was Bernie Williams, who would have rather faced Cleveland in Tampa because the Fort Myers squad will “get back home pretty late.”

At least the sellout crowd at City of Palms Park will get to see Jason Giambi, who was entangled in a steroids controversy in the offseason and looks forward to signing autographs for Boston’s fans.

“I want to go play. I’m not worried about it,” he said. “They’re not going to say anything I haven’t heard before or I haven’t said myself.”

The game will be the first between the teams since last Oct. 20, when Boston won 10-3 win for its first AL pennant since 1986. Then the Red Sox swept St. Louis in the World Series.

Their exhibition matchup last year was their first meeting since Oct. 16, 2003, when the Yankees won Game 7 of the AL championship series 6-5 on Aaron Boone’s homer off Tim Wakefield in the 11th inning. Commemorative pins costing $5.67 were sold for A-Rod’s debut against Boston.

“I thought it was ludicrous,” Damon said. “I mean, this is spring training.”

Tickets for Monday night’s game on eBay are selling for much less than the $500 sought a year ago.

Maybe fans just don’t care to see a bunch of minor leaguers.

“You see the starting lineups. They look real nice out there on paper,” Boston’s Kevin Youkilis said. “You see all the guys that are the true stars and, by the fifth inning, you don’t know what kind of game you’re getting because you have all the guys coming out.”

Red Sox manager Terry Francona didn’t release a starting lineup but announced his starting pitcher, Abe Alvarez, who has pitched just five major league innings.

He’ll face Chien-Ming Wang. And it doesn’t get much better after the starters leave with Juan Cedeno, John Halama and Luis Mendoza following Alvarez and Alex Graman following Wang.

That’s hardly the Curt Schilling-Randy Johnson matchup that could take place in the regular-season opener on April 3 at Yankee Stadium.

But Alvarez, 22, is excited.

“It’s actually huge because I’m actually starting a spring training game and playing against the Yankees,” he said. “Spring training’s a little different, but it’s going to be a blast being out there.”

It won’t mean anything in the regular season where the rivalry really heats up. Boston plays its home opener against New York on April 11. The Yankees also close the season with a three-game series at Fenway Park.

“It’s only an appetizer in spring training,” Jeter said. “You might as well wait for the regular season and see it all at once.”

One fan in line Sunday didn’t care that she won’t see many of the Yankees’ 18 All-Stars.

“We’re going to get all the Sox. We’re going to get half of the Yankees,” said Deborah Kellogg-Vanlorden of West Springfield, Mass. “They’re going to pretend they don’t care so they feel better.”

Damon, the shaggy-haired symbol of the fun-loving Red Sox, knows anything is possible when the rivals meet.

“It’s the first showdown since the big series, the biggest series of the Red Sox career,” he said. “Hopefully, the streets are safe out there.”