"It's great to be young and a Yankee."

Happy Birthday to #19 in our playbooks, #1 in our hearts...

2012-01-19T03:38:00.002-05:00

“All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.” –Abe Lincoln

“All mothers are slightly insane.” –J.D. Salinger

Yeah, I know Salinger and Lincoln generally aren’t used in the same breath, but I think the above 2 quotes have some applicable tautology here.

I think tautologies were roughly about the time in math class that I stopped understanding what was going on. It’s not too surprising, too, since that was the last time that math was devoid of numbers. I do better with letters.

Anyways, so if p, then q, etc. And if all mothers are slightly insane, and all that I hope to be, I owe my mother…then I can thank my mother for being insane.

Among many, many other things.

Today, January 19th, is my best friend’s birthday. And in honor of that, I present to you a list—by no means exhaustive, of course—of 19 reasons that I love my mom beyond the telling of it.

19. She remembers EVERYTHING I tell her. If I told her in June about a presentation I have to give in November, it’s like she has some internal Outlook program in her mind that prompts her to call the morning of to remind me to “wear something nice” and then immediately after, wanting to know EVERY detail.

18. She buys the most bizarre brick-a-brack from TJ Maxx. (A few weeks ago, in the middle of the Giants/Cowboys game, she announced “Does anyone have an interest in a pink whale that opens bottles?”)

17. She does nothing, NOTHING, in moderation. The West End Beautification Association is perhaps the greatest evidence of this. What started as a volunteer group that cleans up the weeds on Long Beach streets…has now reached non-profit status, complete with legal proceedings and everything.

16. Everything is dramatic to her. Everything. If I told her I ran out of toilet paper, her overwhelming gasps would be soon followed by NY Times articles emailed to me, about how toilet paper deficiency has been shown to impact job prospects.

15. I can’t imagine that she has any remote interest in half of the things I talk to her about, but I’ll never know, since if it matters to me, it matters to her. (My sister does this, too. For the longest time, I had no idea she hated football. She just did her best every week to try to feign interest in the Giants. Contrastly, phone conversations with my dad are more like, “What’d you do this weekend?” “Well, I went over to Strange’s place, and—“ “Ok, I get the gist of it. I’m gonna take a nap now.”)

14. She coined the maxim, ‘Life’s too short to do the things you don’t want to do, if you don’t have to do them.”

13. Her emails sometimes read like something off this website, but yet somehow when I see something like this from Mom, I think it’s wildly endearing more than anything.

12. She’s only other person in the family who shares my complete illiteracy when it comes to math. She’s also the only other person who understands what it’s like to have bad hearing. We’re quite a pair at restaurants. (“THIS CHICKEN IS DELICIOUS!” “I KNOW! IT’S AMAZING WHAT THEY CAN DO WITH A WINE SAUCE!” “WHAT?” “YOU NEED A HAIRCUT.”)

11. Her and my dad will be awesome for the rest of their lives. Like, no matter what age they are, they never let any grass grow under their feet. (My Christmas card from them was a picture of my mom riding a camel in Egypt, and in the inside my mom provided her own holiday caption: “It was actually 3 wise guys and a lost woman looking for TJ Maxx.” I have no idea what this means, but I know it was hysterical.)

10. Face Time. I don’t think there are a lot of things that bring me more joy than both us marveling at how we can see each other when we're so far away.

9. I don’t care how old I get, NOTHING in the world makes me feel better after a rough day at work (and I’ve had upwards of 300 of them in the past year and a half) then venting it all out to my mom. She always knows how to make it all better.

8. She’s the most beautiful woman in the whole world, and I really don’t think she knows it.

7. She has ZERO reverence for rules. Which is a foreign concept to someone like me with a palpable fear of authority. She really should have gone into advertising, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who has actually strayed so far from the proverbial “box,” that she’d need a GPS system to even try to think inside it.

6. She was nominated for Long Beach’s Person of the Year because she hasn’t stopped working for the town’s beautification at any point in the last year.

5. Every conversation with her is like that game “Two Truths and a Lie.” There’s always one slightly fabricated detail in every story, but not a deliberate one. (“So-and-so went out with her boyfriend’s best friend, and it turns out he’s actually an astronaut!” “Wait, what? He’s an astronaut?” “Oh. Ok, maybe I made that part up, I don’t remember what he does for a living, actually.”)

4. I don’t know HOW she does everything she does all day and still cooks dinner. I know, it sounds like a cliché, but whenever I go home for the weekend and see an actual meal on the table, I’m thinking, “that would take me at least 4 days to make, and my parents do this every night.” I don’t understand it. It’s like my mom has discovered the secrets of time management.

3. She’s put up with me for 30 years. That can’t be easy. Like, not even a little bit.

2. She’s completely nuts, and I don’t think she knows and/or cares.

1. She’s also completely perfect. She’s brilliant, funny, generous, exciting, patient, and wonderful. I don’t know how I got so lucky, but my mom is more amazing than she’ll ever know. I aspire to one day be even half the woman she is.

Maybe this quotes really captures it best:

“A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.” –Washington Irving

Happy Birthday, Mom! May you, as always, stay forever young….

Warming up the blogging muscles...

2012-01-13T16:24:00.000-05:00

Hello, Yankee fans! God, it’s been so long. I usually wait until pitchers and catchers day to resume the CYC site updates, but my blogging muscles are starting to atrophy.

Admittedly, I’m not a big hot stove/rumors-follower in the off-season. I’m more of a bottom line type of person, so instead of getting agitated amidst the constant browser refreshing, I’d rather just hear the final verdict.

So instead of boning up on baseball, I’ve been mired in launching Xalkori and converting oxygen to carbon dioxide.

I was gonna make a list of “notable off-season” happenings, but then I realized I can basically only remember as far back as the last 2 weeks. I can tell you who was pitching in a game 5 years ago, but I can’t remember what I did in the last 5 months.

Except for these:

I found the best thing on the internet ever. As in, game over, this wins. The search for the holy grail of funny has culminated in this monument to awesome.

I haven’t thrown out my Christmas tree yet, and now I’m starting to worry that it’s like not asking someone what his name is after you’ve been working together for a while. It’s so far gone that at this point, calling my doorman and telling him my tree is ready to be picked up, may just be ridiculous. Additionally, my tree looks too much like a corpse for this to be a normal interaction.

I’ve been helping my good friend and fantasy guru/consultant on his application to the MLB Fan Cave. (I highly recommend you all follow him @realtimeball, he’s honestly probably one of the most knowledgeable sports fan I’ve ever met ever. Also, he’s easily more nuts than me. I’m not kidding. It’s mind-blowing the depths of his insanity.)

I tried to get into Words With Friends, and I’ve not only learned that I suck at it, but I’ve learned that in terms of the English language, I probably only know about 30% of the words.

I quit my job. Well, I “tendered my resignation” and will be starting a new job on the 23rd. I don’t think I have to remind anyone the effect this job has had on my relationship with baseball, specifically the time it afforded me to actually enjoy said sport…

I saw Moneyball.

So in an effort to get back into the swing of blogging, I’m going to warm up with a review of this movie.

Not that I’m so arrogant that I think anyone cares about my opinion on a movie (the whole concept of reviews impacting the popularity of something is sad to me), but I just keep going back and forth on the movie, and usually I can figure shit out if I just start putting the proverbial pen to paper (finger to key).

Here’s where I’m at though (in classic bulleted list style…and maybe a little compliment sandwich style):

I don’t think the movie could have been done any better than it was. I’m thrilled they didn’t try to shoehorn in some kind of nonexistent love story, as has been done in pretty much every other based-on-book movie ever.

(Love and Other Drugs? Based on the story of Viagra marketing. The movie made it out to be a shocking tale of a lothario who falls for the girl who’s not into him. OMG! The Blind Side—f’n incredible book, Michael Lewis is such a good writer it makes me sick—but the movie made it out to be some desperate housewives charity project.)

I digress (as always). Anyways, point being, I thought the movie was extremely well done, the acting was immaculate, perfectly cast, funny when it warranted it, etc. PLUS, I NEVER like movies longer than 1:45. I think anything longer than that is self-indulgent and superfluous.

But this was good, never felt like it was dragging.

There were a couple of parts I didn’t know where they were going, though. Between being an English and Theater major, the whole Chekhov’s gun thing was practically laser-printed on my brain, so I get a little uppity when things don’t pay off in movies.

Not in the “being worth it” sense, but in the “will this come into play later?” sense.

1.) The relationship between Billy and his ex-wife. It was friendly, but I kind of got the feeling it was working too hard at convincing us they have a perfectly healthy ex-marriage.

2.) The 20-game win streak. When he goes to watch the game, they start giving up an 11-run lead. So he goes back into the clubhouse and then they manage to pull off the W. Was he supposed to be framed as bad luck? Jinxing it? He didn’t watch the games all year, so that would suggest he’s an uninvolved jerk, but then he starts to watch and leaves when they start doing poorly, which would suggest he’s a Red Sox fan (oh! Rim shot!)

Which brings me to my next point. Brad Pitt does not play an asshole well, if that’s what he was trying to do. He’s too adorable. And people have mixed feelings on Beane, I’m sure he’s an asshole to some extent, but there’s 2 kinds of assholes: the ones whose assholery is a point of pride (suggested by condescending, self-important behavior) and there are the ones whose assholery is a necessary evil to the job. Pitt was coming across as both, which was confusing.

As far as I could tell, almost everyone in the movie used their real names. I love when that happens. Because I hate suspension of disbelief. And I feel like the real name usage almost puts more pressure on the producers to not default to the whole, what it’s fiction now, we can say whatever the hell we want about what happened.” HOWEVAH, Mr. Best Supporting Actor Nominee’s character, the alleged crux of the whole thing, used the weirdly fake name Peter Brand.

I have to assume this is less for legal issues, and more because he appreciates the fact his insights were made out to be genius in the movie…whereas the real Peter Brand is Paul DePosdesto. And the brilliance purported in the movie might be somewhat diluted by the fact that he is currently one of the head guys of player development and scouting for the wildly successful New York Mets.

That catchy song that his daughter sings. I’m an idiot and had no idea that was even a real song, I was like “Wow! They should actually record that, it’s good!” So I looked it up and saw it actually WAS recorded, in 2008. So even then, actually, I thought Billy Beane’s daughter was the original lyricist, because otherwise how would she be singing a song that wasn’t released until 6 years after the movie took place?

And here’s my number 1 issue with the entire story as a whole: they lost.

The movie began with them losing to the Yankees (what what) in the ALDS, the league leader in payroll dominating the poor small market A’s ($33,810,750 for the entire team, where the Yanks averaged over $3 million per player.) So success MUST be a function of payroll! How can the A’s compete?

So sets up the story. The A’s patch together a team by acquiring people who get on base rather than hired guns and sluggers.

The movie ends with the A’s in the exact same position. Losing in the ALDS. The only difference was in 2001, they had won an extra game, losing 3-2 to the Yanks vs losing 3-1 to the Twins in 2002.

Yeah, the Twins. A team whose salary was a paltry $545,754 higher, while both teams were nestled in the bottom 5 of the league.

The 2001 World Series champions had the 8th highest payroll. The 2001 World Champions had the 15th. What’s the significance? The significance is there is none. There’s no rhyme or reason to it. The lack of pattern is what’s notable.

In other words, I think this movie demonstrates exactly the opposite of what it may be attempting to highlight: it doesn’t matter how much money your team has or doesn’t has. Baseball success is not governed by money, and payroll is not a factor when predicting results.

Billy Beane and his constituents spent a year flapping their arms and crying “Visionary!” only to reach the exact. Same. Endpoint.

And in 2002, they couldn’t blame it on an ability to compete with the flush bank of the Yanks.

I guess you could say that they managed to still reach the playoffs despite being in the uncomfortable financial situation. Ok, good for them for not getting evicted from their homes, but does that warrant commendation? The Twins did it, too. And no one is making movies about them, unless you count Little Big Leauge.

It’s like in that movie where Freddy Prinze, Jr., after being dumped by his smokeshow girlfriend, makes a bet that he can take a huge loser and transform her into a prom queen. So the perennially homely Rachel Leigh “I’m naturally pretty because I have brown hair and brown eyes” Cook loses her glasses and ponytail and awkwardly hangs with the cool crowd…only for her to lose to the smokeshow in the end.

You’re right back where you started, only this time you’ve spent the last year struggling with mascara and the tribulations of cliques.

So, no, I’m not on board with lionizing the A’s for being the feel good Cinderella team. A lot of this has to do with the fact that I hate the term Cinderella team, to begin with. Cinderella has the aid of a magic godfairy who made her a sweet dress and transported her to the ball in a mobile pumpkin. How is she at a disadvantage when everyone else at the ball is without the aid of a super powers??

But the weird thing is, there’s a chance I could have gotten past all these grievances with the Moneyball story. There’s a chance I could have just been happy to watch Brad Pitt for 2 hours and more importantly, elated I got to watch baseball for 2 hours. (I loved the real-life clips interspersed throughout.)

I could have just done what my sister has been begging me to do since probably the dawn of time, which is not nitpick. To not scrutinize every detail of a movie and question the validity of everything. To just be entertained without stipulation.
Maybe I could have done that. But then the epilogue happened.

Blah, blah, blah, stuff about his daughter, stayed in Oakland, turned down the Boston job, even though it would have made him the richest GM in the history of life, blah blah. Then:

"Two years later, the Red Sox won their first World Series since 1918 embracing the philosophy championed in Oakland."

Whoa. Really? To say nothing of the egregiously absent comma after "1918," I don’t doubt that the Red Sox SAID they used the Moneyball approach. But unfortunately, real detectives have to worry about a little thing called evidence.

Whatever, you know and I know that the Red Sox f’n suck. I don’t want to talk about 2004, and my going away party is in an hour, so I can’t beat the horse to death anyway. Let’s just leave it at, in 2004, the Red Sox paid more for their championship than any other team, including the Yanks, had ever done ever.

Thrifty, my ass. They loovvve referring to themselves as the small-market Sox. Like Abe Lincoln said, “If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg.”

Anyways, in the spirit of the aforementioned compliment sandwich, I’ll say I can’t be too critical of this movie because, like I said, it proved that payroll is immaterial. I got to watch baseball. And I was impressed by the ability to communicate the story set out in the original book. I disagree with what was said, but I’ll defend to the death the right to say it.

And, of course, Moneyball has now allowed me to sidestep the whole blogging muscles atrophy.

Which is a sentence I never thought I’d say.

Happy Friday the 13th! And happy 34-days-until-pitchers-and-catchers-report-to-camp day!

Some links because I'm too excited to sleep

2011-09-30T03:19:00.000-04:00

"Everyone in Boston is disgusting": http://www.theonion.com/articles/red-sox-sell-out-of-commemorative-collapse-2011-ha,26212/

This is what you get for joining Boston, Carl Crawford. I thought we had something special. You are an embarrassment. It's sad. I feel a high schooler who just realized she's been pining away for a total loser for so long, and he's not worthy of her adoration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0FoSmMUEL4

God, this is funny. And yet also so scary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QijpwREKwus

Say Hello and Wave Goodbye

2011-09-30T02:32:00.000-04:00

To be clear, the Yankees are saying hello to the Post Season. The Red Sox are saying goodbye to their remaining fibers of dignity, as well as the regular season of baseball. I hate the first day of the offseason. That must be so asphyxiatingly horrible for fans right now.

I would at least try to be sympathetic (maybe) if they didn't spend all their free time being like little bombs on a minesweeper game, that I invariably run into when I'm just trying to go about my day.

Days that already painful enough as is, so maybe I'm being extra irritable and insidiously gleeful about this collapse. For the last week, I've been "sleeping" in the office. I put that in quotes, because sometimes I didn't even get the luxury of curling up in the armchair and wrapping myself in the Yankees fleece blanket I got for free when I signed up for a credit card outside of Yankee Stadium one time.

HOWEVAH, there is NOTHING on God's green earth, no amount of work, NOTHING, that is going to prevent me from inking a post on last night, the night that everyone can point to one day as the Reason Baseball is America's Pasttime.

Where to begin?

Maybe this would be a good place to start. Let's go back to 2007. The following is an article I wrote after the Mets blew like a 9899 game lead, consequently ushering the Phillies into the playoffs.

“How did you go bankrupt?”
“Two ways: gradually, and then suddenly.”
-Ernest Hemmingway, The Sun Also Rises

Thank you, Queens.

Thank you for doing the impossible.

Thank you for flooding the headlines and monopolizing the morning news.

Thank you for securing your own special spot in history and diluting ours.

Thank for liberating us from the stigma that has been emblazoned on our psyches since October 21, 2004.

And mostly, thank you for finally disencumbering us from the toxic ownership of “the biggest collapse in Major League Baseball history.”

I know how you feel.

But I also know how Yankees fans felt for the past 159 days, subjected to all these hopped-up Mets fans spitting vitriol at the seemingly hapless Yankees. If I hadn’t had to listen to the unprovoked jeering and ribbing issued by cocky Mets fans for three-quarters of the season, I would let sleeping mutts lie. But the fact is, they poked at us with giant foam Number #1 hands, while we hoped against hope the whole “Just you wait til after the All-Star break!” battle cry wouldn’t be in vain.

So while my sympathy for the Mets and their fans is marginal at best, I still owe them gratitude for doing what I didn’t think would ever happen in my lifetime. They lifted the cross Yankees fans have been bearing since 2004. And while so many will still try to strap it back on us, insisting our choke was worse, it’s a moot point.

When it comes down to it, I’d take the disgrace of the 2004 ALCS Yankees collapse in a heartbeat over the 2007 Mets debacle. In a heartbeat.

Witnessing the Mets collapse unavoidably brought back flashes of 2004, and as painful as it’s been for the last 3 years to even think about that time, I couldn’t look away. On Sunday afternoon, the pull of the proverbial car wreck proved stronger than the need to stay on top of my football bets and fantasy players. From the second my mom called and spurted, “Turn off the Jets and put on the Mets ASAP. You gotta see this,” I was mesmerized.

I watched as New York Mets fans experienced the unbridled hell of not only saying goodbye to their season, but having to do so in the face of a cataclysmic choke. At home. After being in first place since May 15, for 75% of the regular season. While the Phillies, THE PHILLIES, celebrated their new division title less than 100 miles away.

By the 6th inning of the game, the announcers had launched into the unnerving and foreboding countdown no fan on the brink of season termination ever needs to hear: “They’re now __ strikes/outs away from the end.” By then, the camera men had completely lost interest in the game in favor of capturing the faces of utter devastation lining Shea. The lights-out, too-little-too-late, 13K, 1-run plugging job from the Mets’ bullpen meant nothing to a long-muted stadium.

As I stayed glued to the TV and continued to ignore the Yankees last regular season game and the flurry of football action, I had to wonder how this could really be the end to the Mets’ dominant season. I had to wonder if the baffling brawl on the previous night hadn’t happened, if the Mets would have been playing a less incensed Marlins team. And I had to wonder if this really could, in fact, usurp the title as Worst Choke Ever. Did the Mets really have it in them?

Turns out they did.

Yankee-haters will purport til they’re blue in the face that the Bronx Bombers still retain the rights to this dubious distinction, but as far as I’m concerned, the curse has been lifted. Not just because I want an excuse to escape the harrowing monkey on our backs, but because, after weighing all the evidence, I realized a few things:

1.) The Mets were the favorite.

The Yankees headed into the ALCS as the underdog. We were never the favorite to win, unlike the heavily favored Mets. This is why, among many other reasons, that the Mets will never be “New York’s Team.” They just don’t know how to reign because they’re too uncomfortable at the top.

It’s like in “Teen Wolf” when nobody-high-schooler Scott Howard becomes a supernova with his werewolf alter-ego. He’s flying high on life and leaving his old second-tier buddies in the dust, until he gets too uneasy in his sovereign role. So he opts to shed it all at once, losing the hot blond cheerleader, the lead in the play, and all the other special perks that come with the ability to grow a pelt and fangs at will.

Like the teen wolf, the Mets don’t seem to feel at home at the top. They just don’t know how to be a juggernaut (unless their roster is built of juvie hall alums, a la 1986.) Their very nature can’t accommodate dominance and power, so they revert to the anemic, torpid National Leaguers who are as threatening as an acorn.

2.) The odds were staggering.

The odds of the Yankees losing with a 3-0 lead on the Sox were roughly 19 to 1. Which, by my count, is less than the 500 to 1 odds of the Mets blowing a 7 game lead with 17 games left to play. We lost 4 games in a 7-game set playing one team. The Mets played 4 different clubs during their collapse, some of which were barely hanging off the bottom of the standings. The Sox had the same chance of a 4-game comeback as I have buying a scratch-off card and winning a buck on it. The Mets had the same chance of disintegrating as there is of an asteroid attacking the earth within the next 25 years.

3.) They relinquished the title–no one stole it.

If I dated a guy who cheated on me and ultimately left me for another woman, I’d be hurt and angry and embarrassed. But if I found out years later that he ended up marrying this woman, I’d realize that, hey, it obviously was meant to be. The Sox killed us and then finally got their damn WS ring. It was their year, and 2004 was more a testament to their talent and resilience, from the ALCS comeback to the MACH3-speed World Series set. The Yankees were just a casualty along the way.

The Phillies weren’t surging ahead or going on 8-game winning streaks. While I give the Phils credit for seeing an opening and jumping at it, they didn’t win the division as much as the Mets lost it. In their final 17 days, the Mets were outscored 115-98, left 141 runners on base (an average of 8.3 per game), and made 21 errors, with the “best shortstop in NY” sporting a hefty .187 BA. These gems are egregiously more glaring then the stats streaming from Utley, Rollins, and Howard.

The Mets have no one to blame but themselves.

4.) Both the fans and the team took the arrogance too far.

The Yankees themselves aren’t arrogant, and if they are, they’re smart about hiding it. They don’t run their mouths off. They don’t showboat. Yankee fans, yes. But as Stinger tells Maverick in Top Gun, “Son, your ego’s writing checks your body can’t cash.” Yankee checks don’t bounce because we got 26 rings in the bank.

The Mets were cocky jackasses all season. Delgado even said, “We have so much talent on the team, sometimes it gets boring to play.” (What does this even mean? Why would it be boring to play with a skilled club?) I’m thinking now that his aforementioned boredom is nothing compared to having your October schedule prematurely cleared for you.

Their fans were just as bad, if not worse. All year I had to listen to those manic imbeciles clucking about the messy state of the Yankees. Every kind of fan has had their turn in telling me the Yanks suck, but it NEVER bothers me as much as when it comes from a Met fan. If for no other reason, the fact they’re in the freaking National League! It’d be like Squints Palledorous giving A-rod batting tips. Know your role, Mutts.

5.) The Yankees made the playoffs.

I got to see the Yanks clinch the division on the final home game of the season with a Bernie Williams walk-off in a comeback win. I watched them come back from getting shut down by Santana in Game 1 to win the next 3 games in the ALDS. I watched them take down the Sox in 3 consecutive games, and then watched 3 more amazing ball games before the gut-wrenching Game 7.

Unless your team finishes with a World Series Championship, the end of the season is devastating, whether it ends in a dramatic implosion or an anticlimactic fizzle. There are few things I hate more than the prevailing emptiness that defines Day 1 of the offseason. I remember going to Game 7 of the NLCS last year and being crazy jealous of all the Mets fans: they were watching their team chase a championship. Yankee fans were watching the new Fox fall lineup.

See, the only thing worse than the season ending is having to watch other teams still play on. Baseball season only lasted 4 days beyond our collapse. Mets fans have to suffer through another month of this. It’s like trying to pull off some inane Senior Prank, getting caught, being put on probation for the rest of the year, and then having to watch all your friends go to prom and graduation and engage in all the other Dazed and Confused-esque end-of-year hijinx, while you rot away in solitary confinement/detention.

6.) They fell from 159 days of superiority.

Our fall was much shorter. There was one day when we thought we were a lock for the World Series. ONE. DAY. The time from the 19-8 rout in ALCS Game 3, to the final moments of the 12-inning, 4+ hours-long Game 4, when a walk-off from Ortiz started extinguishing our spirits while igniting theirs.

The Mets had an entire season of slicing through the NL. No one could come close to catching them, in the standings or on the basepaths. They were flying through the season like Super Mario with star-induced invincibility. Months of hope and excitement and delirious anticipation—killed. Shut down like a weapon-less little Mario in Bowser’s castle.

Similarly, the Yanks’ decline itself only lasted 3 days. It was brutal but swift. We barely saw it coming, and when we did, it was too late. Mets fans had to suffer through an entire month of watching them unravel, of marinating in the fear that they very well may blow the season. Why didn’t Willie Randolph do anything sooner? (My sister’s boyfriend’s theory, “I think he just looked at Torre and thought, `Ok, Torre just sits there and does nothing–seems to work for him! I’m gonna try it.’”)

Those final weeks were slow and agonizing and disturbing. If 2004 was like the bird that flew into Randy Johnson’s fastball during Spring Training, then 2007 is like the squirrel my parents’ 108lb cat drags into the house, renders semi-dead, and then just bats around til the squirrel has been completely stripped of its physical faculties, dignity, and will to survive before ultimately flatlining. Not unlike Glavine, I guess.

**

And it’s for all these reasons that the 2004 Yankees have passed the scorch of a broken season onto a new generation of chokers. There is, however, one aspect of 2004 that edges out 2007.

Outside of the Bronx, everyone hates the Yankees. The reason that collapse was so powerful and monumental and profoundly tragic was because it was like Bastille Day all over the country. When the Mets lost, a melting pot of emotions emerged, running from amazement to sympathy to vindictive bemusement. There wasn’t quite the same celebratory backlash as there was in 2004:

–2007–
Ambiguous MLB fan #1: Geez, how bout those Mets, huh?
Ambiguous MLB fan #2: Yeah, I wonder how Long Island Joey is taking it. We should call him!
AMLB1: Nah, I don’t want to rub it in.
AMLB2: Yeah, wait a week. Poor dude.

–2004–
AMLB1: HOLY CRAP.
AMLB2: I KNOW! Let’s call CYC. Now. And sing “Sweet Caroline” and chant 1918 and “Yankees Suck” in a symphonic medley of hate.
AMLB1: I already did, dude.
AMLB2: Ok, then let’s call again!
AMLB1: I tried. Her mailbox is full.
AMLB2: Oh.
AMLB1: Wanna try again anyway?
AMLB2: Yes.

When I woke up this past Monday morning, I thought about Mets fans. I thought back to Friday, October 21, 2004, the morning after I had to leave Yankee Stadium for the last time that year, with the deafening Boston cheers underscoring the Bronx’s misery.

I knew what Mets fans were feeling as they oscillated between calling in sick and pulling themselves together for work. (And even though I had tried to be responsible, my boss had ultimately waved me away after 2 hours in the office: “I don’t know anything about baseball, but I know something bad happened to the Yankees last night. You look like you got hit by a bus, and you look like hell. Just go home.”)

“Just go home.” Those same words have now ushered the Mets out of playoff contention and into the unforgiving and stale offseason. Gradually, and then suddenly.

I know how you feel.

So thank you, Queens, for outdoing yourselves. For throwing the trump card on the year the Evil Empire struck out. You did it, and you should take comfort in the fact that this historic choke gave you something you’ve always wanted:

The Mets finally beat the Yankees.

And now? In 2011...the Red Sox have the dubious distinction of doing something worse than the Mets. I mean, it doesn't get much worse than that. (Sorry, Mets fans.) It's like in the end of "Can't Buy Me Love" when Ronald loses his popularity status, and instead of going back to baseline (dork), he's completely alone. Worse than dork. He's in the company of no one, and the next closest tier is pretty bad.

Damn, bro. He's in Siberia. I know, man. The mutants over there won't even go near him. He went from, like, totally chic to totally geek.He's been banished!

So, yeah, and in the words of Al Pacino at the end of "Scent of a Woman"...

OH, I'M JUST GETTING WARMED UP.

To sum up what went down last night in the most simplest of terms, I'm going to defer to ESPN, who is either giddy over this rosetta stone of ridiculous story lines...or catatonic over the collapse of their Red Sux mascots. I don't really care either way, but here's what Buster Olney had to say in recapping terms:

The Yankees hadn't lost a 7-0 lead in the eighth inning or later since 1953, and that's what happened. The Red Sox were undefeated this year when holding leads after the eighth inning, yet they lost. There were four games involving the wild-card races Wednesday, and in three of those, a team came to within one out of victory, and lost. At 11:40 p.m., the Atlanta Braves matched the greatest September collapse in history, and 25 minutes later, the Red Sox set a new standard for September collapses. And Evan Longoria's game-winning homer was merely the second in history that propelled a team into the playoffs, on the last day of the season; the other belongs to Bobby Thomson. Somebody will write a book on baseball's greatest day ever.

I mean, it was head-spinning. I've been feeling pretty ill all day and I can't decide if it's the lack of sleep, the lack of eat, the metaphorical baseball hangover from last night, or the preliminary nausea that takes residence in my gut the very moment the playoffs start (and doesn't check out until the second the playoffs end). I don't know, one of those reasons is contributing to my malaise, but I guess I can't really complain because the bottom line(s) is/are that:

Boston is the proud owner of the worst collapse in baseball history.

Even better, they CANNOT point to the collapse in 2004, because the last team to blow a 3-0 lead in the playoffs...was the Boston Bruins.

And even if they instinctively jump to that "Whatever, we have Tom Brady and you don't. All hail football season!" lame rationalizing, they still have the bitter taste of blowing a game to the Bills last week. A game in which Brady threw 4 INTs.

YEAHHHH, BUDDY!

So, here's some great stuff from the NYTimes. (And that's the last time I'll ever, ever say that sentence again.)

The Red Sox had just a 0.3 percent chance of failing to make the playoffs on Sept. 3
The Rays had just a 0.3 percent chance of coming back after trailing 7-0 with two innings to play
The Red Sox had only about a 2 percent chance of losing their game against Baltimore, when the Orioles were down to their last strike
The Rays had about a 2 percent chance of winning in the bottom of the 9th, with Johnson also down to his last strike

I just can't get over it. I mean, they were ONE OUT AWAY. I remember saying to my sisters, "Let's just watch the last inning, Papelbon's coming in so this oughtta be good." And I also remember a time when psychos at ESPN were actually using Papelbon's name in the same breath as Mariano Rivera. I remember when the Yanks couldn't buy a win from the Sux all season (not unlike 2009) and I remember how much Sux fans jeered us (also not unlike 2009).

I remember the Boston Herald and all the yahoos from Red Sux Nation yelping about how the 2011 team was going to actually trump the 1927 Yankees. (Say one thing about Boston, when they make comparisons, they aim high. I mean, it's really a little indicative of some kind of manic personality disorder.) And I remember this morning, when I came into work to see a slew of emails from coworkers all passing around the cover of the latest Boston Herald.

And I remember just 2 days ago, seeing the new cover of ESPN Magazine. Just like Sports Illustrated has jinxed every cover-future-star, ESPN may be responsible for their precious Beantown Bitches' collapse. Go more overboard, publishers. Good God.

I told Amanda this morning, "Now we have to deal with all the Boston dumbasses saying the Yankees threw the game."

Amanda replies, "Um, we could probably say the same thing about their team."

I'm not saying I thrilled about the playoff situation facing us in about 16 hours. Verlander vs Tubbo.com is exciting at best, and utterly terrifying at worst. So I'm not thinking past the ALDS, as I also remember all too vividly the 2006 ALDS when I was soooo happy the Yanks got the Tiggers instead of the Twinks. Phew! And yeah, then Kenny Rogers almost throws a perfect game to knock us out in 4 games.

So did it matter if the Sux made the playoffs or not? Why were all of us kinda a little bit hoping the Yanks would roll over for the Rays? For me, it was because I hate Boston and I am happy their fans are miserable right now. Not all of them. Evan, Nate, Lee, and a handful of others (if that many) are actually cool people, and not in a "cool for a Sox fan" way, but cool by any standards. So I wasn't happy about that part.

But for the scores of assclowns in NY who walk around with Boston hats and make a big show of being all "What, my team is awesome, f*&# you Skankees"... you know the type... for those dipshits, I feel nothing but smugness. And more importantly, how refreshing is it to know that on Friday night we can watch Game 1 of the playoffs and not have to keep 1 eye on the Red Sox score?

And even better, we don't have to worry about dealing with Boston fans at the bars we watch the game at. Because Boston fans don't have a leg to stand on right now. They make one utterance of a cheer for Detroit, they so much as make one clap against the Yankees...well, it's basically like a fat chick starting a fight with you. They can't get too aggressive and in your face...because at the end of the day, it just takes "You're the biggest chokers in history" or "You're the biggest chick in history" to send them home.

As for the Braves...whatever, I don't care about the National League right now.

In fact, I care about very little right now beyond the playoffs.

I'm starting to get that stomach thing again. It's both wonderful and miserable at the same time.

We live for this--these heartstopping moments we feel most alive.

Welcome to the postseason.

Do work, Yanks. Never save anything for the swim back.

Our Saving Grace: A Mariano Rivera Tribute

2011-09-21T06:57:00.002-04:00

Like I was gonna let a little thing like unruly work hours get in the way of paying homage to my all time favorite Yankee ever. I feel like one of those dudes who has to steal away from shoe shopping with his gf/job interview/his own wedding..to run off and check the status of his fantasy team or something.

Yeah, I want to be able to say that at some point I’ll be able to leave the office on time, and that if I keep plugging away for a few more years, I’ll hit that career nirvana. But every time I think I’m in the clear and I got all the time in the world to reclaim my life and actually follow a game live (or even better, at the game!), the whole NYC cliché of corporate rat racing etc comes into play. (You know that old saying, “No one ever put ‘I wish I spent more time in the office’ on his tombstone”? It’s hard for me to envy that guy BECAUSE HE’S NOT IN THE OFFICE, HE’S ASLEEP.)

Anyways, the point of that delirious rant was more to offer testament to how nothing is going to keep me from putting down a word or two about Mariano Rivera, and then Wednesday afternoon... (Ok, I feel like there should just be a universal rule that "tomorrow" starts when you wake up, not at 12am. I hate when it's like 2am and someone says ok I'll see you tomorrow, and then we have to go through the whole hahaha how hilarious, it IS tomorrow!) Ok so tomorrow I will toss in a few cents about the Red Sux, Tampa, and how I love this time of year. A lot.

So here we go. It’s 4am, which gives me exactly 1.5 hours to cover things. I think I’ve gotten worse under pressure, though. I haven’t hit the last cup in Beirut since like the Reagan administration basically. I'm not entirely sure what the exact number would be, but I'd say pretty galactically high, in terms of the amount of money I'd pay to play a best out of 3 beirut series with Mo. And every time someone was like, "Nah man I'm like the Mariano Rivera of the last cup," he'd get all flustered and have to backpedal and change it to something like "I mean, uh, sorry man. I meant I'm like the uh closing ceremonies emcee of the last cup?"

(You know what I just realized? Another amazing thing about Mo is that he’s sooo iconic that you can use him as the barometer of greatness. Like I love it when someone’s trying to explain something to me—whether it’s politics or cars or healthcare—and the second he or she senses I’m confused, I get “Ok, you know what it’s like? INVANZ is the Mariano Rivera of anti-infectives. Because it’s the most reliable and you use it in life-threatening situations where you need the most powerful gun you got.” How many people in the world can ever say that they’ve been used as the quintessence of awesome? “Oh yeah, she’s like the Crazy Yankee Chick of_____” What? Crazy? Actually, I'm ok with that. Score.)

Mo gets his record breaking save at home, #602, and everyone in the stands are up on their feet, snapping pictures, getting goosebumps (I’d imagine, because I was just watching it on my computer monitor and I STILL was getting all light-headed and choked up just seeing it.) Mo is all smiles after he strikes out the last batter in the bottom of the 9th, on 3 strikes. How fitting!

You know what else is amazing about Mo? NO ONE, no fan of any team, of any sport, no matter what, can ever say one disparaging word about him. He’s perfect.

And not in a polished-Jeter way.

And not in a bland-personality-but-ok-he-was-a-cancer-survivor-and-hasn’t-really-done-anything-outspoken-so-he’s-ok Jon Lester way.

But in a “See him? Yeah that’s the way I want you kids to play on the field” pep talk to your sons when they’re old enough to start Little League, kind of way.

There’s the Terrell Owens-Jonathan Papelbon ilk of athletes, who may be talented, but who play like Sidney Dean, not Billy Hoyle.

Then there’s the Mariano Riveras. Quiet grace, unmatched talent, unerring consistency, and most importantly, he’s competitive because he wants to win.

Yeah in theory, people are competitive because they want to win, by design. But his sense of competition is so focused, so unaffected, so organic and unprocessed, that people rarely if ever see him demonstrate even the slightest hint of fervor over this game we all live and die for. My buddy Ollie told me last year “Unless you’re a Yankee fan, you hate your closer. Every bad loss that sticks out in your memory usually is attributed to a tight game blown in the end, and the closer’s the guy attached to it.”

Interesting point. We take #42 for granted so much, not just that he’ll come in and pitch twenty 91 mph cutters and wipe his hands of the game as we all swim in the sweet sound of Frank Sinatra’s NY, NY echoing through the stadium halls.

We take it for granted that when other closers are showboating or throwing chairs or screaming or bad-mouthing anyone he thinks will torpedo him into the “He Must Be Cool Because He Irreverantly Bashed. __________.” Other closers lose their tempers. Mo’s blood pressure seems so low that sometimes you wonder whether or not he’s cognizant of what planet he’s on.

I love because there’s only 1 time I can think of that he didn’t demonstrate his usual responsibility and culpability in a post-loss interview. It was 2005, and he had blown what felt like 4000 saves (read:3) and 2 of which were against the Sux. After the 2nd one, he said “I’m only human, I’m not a machine.”

Which bothered me because, well, a.) he’s not human, he’s like John Coffey in the Green Mile or something. And b.) Mo never postures as a superstar, he just plays like one. I got sad when I heard him say “I’m not a machine” because I like to think that Mo is like one of those hot guys who was a dork growing up and hence doesn’t exactly see how adorably good looking he is now.

Of course, any residual disappointment about this un-Mo-ness, was immediately erased in the next game against the Sux, who all started giving Rivera a standing O . Because it’s Boston, we know it wasn’t out of fundamental respect for of Major League Baseball, but because it was “Fenway Faithfuls"' cute way of being condescending.

That’s right. The BOSTON RED SUX were laughing at the greatest of all time, a guy they saw to be beneath them. Anyways, in response to THIS game, when asked “How did it feel to hear all of Fenway cheering for you? His response was outstanding beyond the telling of it.

BOSTON -- It was just a few minutes after the World Series championship banner had been raised in center field, but the Red Sox fans were ready to welcome the Yankees to Fenway Park.

One by one, the Bronx Bombers were introduced to the sellout crowd, and one by one, each player with "New York" across his chest was being booed.

Jaret Wright? Boo. Randy Johnson? Boooo. Heck, even Andy Phillips got booed.

Then came the most bizarre moment of the day. Mariano Rivera's name was called, and as the closer stepped out of the dugout, the crowd broke into a standing ovation.

Rivera, who blew two saves against the Red Sox in last October's ALCS, then blew two more last week at Yankee Stadium, laughed at the applause, tipping his hat to the crowd.

"It surprised me. I didn't know they loved me so much here," said a grinning Rivera. "It was nice. I enjoyed it. I had to laugh."

"I thought he was a good sport about it," said manager Joe Torre, the only other Yankee to receive some applause. "We all know Mariano. He understands this game. When you do well and they jeer you, you handle that. When they mockingly cheer you, you handle that. When people take time to recognize you, it's a credit to who you are and what you are."

Rivera has had an aura of invincibility for most of his brilliant career, but there have been questions raised over the past week whether he has lost something off of his trademark cutter, or whether the Red Sox are simply in his head.

Whatever the problem may or may not be, the right-hander has clearly struggled against the Sox more than any other opponent, suffering nine of his 23 regular-season blown saves since 2001 against Boston.

"That was classic," said Alex Rodriguez, who received the loudest boos of any Yankees player. "I never thought I'd see the people of Boston cheering for Mariano Rivera. That was a first -- and hopefully it will be the last time."

"You probably won't hear that too much anymore," said Derek Jeter. "It was funny. He enjoyed it."

Some players may not have taken the "cheers" quite as well as Rivera did, but the laid-back Panamanian simply took it in stride.

"I felt honored," Rivera said. "What was I going to do? Get upset and start throwing baseballs at people? You just roll with it."

Yes, Mo. I would in fact like you get up and start throwing baseballs at people. And so would they. Seriously. Maybe then they’ll cease and desist from cheering every time one of their pitchers drills Arod in the head.

I love Mo because his smile makes everything awesome, but not as awesome as his cutter does. I love him because he’s the embodiment of icy intimidation—it’s like how, if someone is infuriating me, I’d rather let him talk himself into a hole while I look on with a blank stare. Nothing is disarming than your opponent’s calmness in the face of your terror.

And if we’re gonna do that whole number thing that I know sports fans are allegedly all hot on:

Mo was born in 1969, the year the “save” became a legit stat. When he tied Trevor at 601, it was his 42nd save of the year. Then there’s—wait for it—actual stats. Like real people stats. As if 602 wasn’t the only number you needed to hear to KNOW that, like Joe D’s record, our favorite Panamanian is going to hold the record for eternity.

(Which is somewhat more impressive than the 200 Ws from Wakefield, that coincided on Mo’s 600, forcing the question of what was more impressive. HOW IS THIS A QUESTION? Geez, I’m like continually astounded by how obsolete logic has become (and this is coming from the consummate irrational chick herself).

You know what’s a good litmus test for IMPRESSIVE? HAS ANYONE ELSE EVER DONE IT?

Mo: Nope. He’s at the top by himself.

Wakefield: In the company of 110 other pitchers.

It doesn’t matter that Mo only pitches a few innings a week. We’re not comparing what’s more difficult between the 2, we’re comparing what’s more impressive. And for my money, I’m going with the Chart Topper every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

BUT, if you DO need some additional proof of his ridiculousness EVEN IN the grand scheme of ALL pitchers:

Given up the 6th least hits per nine innings
26th best strikeout rate
4th best strikeouts to walks ratio
5th highest WPA (Win Probability Affected, which means how much the one player influenced the outcome of the game. I love the fact there’s a stat for this.) Mo is in the top 5 of ALL pitchers ever.
And lastly, he has the highest ERA+ of all time (which obviously is not ERA since that wouldn’t even make any sense. It’s like ERA only it’s measured against league averages and factors in ballparks. The Mendoza line so to speak with this stat is that anything over 100 is better than average, below 100 is subpar.

Mo’s ERA+ is 206.

The next highest in history is Pedro Martinez. At 154.

The thing about those last few stats is that they don’t favor relievers, unlike ERA and WHIP. They’re stats that rely on aggregation of numbers, ie volume of situations.

Despite this, Mo never falters. He says he’s only human, but if he is, then he’s the most human immortal I know. And Yankee fans are so damn lucky for him. Our Saving Grave.

Thank you, Mo. And congratulations on making official what Yankee fans have known for years. You’re the best around. And one day I’ll get to tell my kids “I used to see him play all the time!”

(That’s probably when my dad will bound into the room with an urn of my cat’s ashes: “Yep! And here is good old Mariano Rivera right here!”)

Ok, yeah, CONGRATULATIONS! Probably just should’ve ended tribute on that note.

And this is why the Red Sux can't have nice things... Yanks win 5-2, Super Mario is frontin', GGBG's got balls

2011-08-31T03:31:00.007-04:00

So, yeah, I guess I haven’t exactly been so much on top of shit in terms of the blogging but it was actually for a good cause. I fell off the radar because I literally did not have more than 3 hours a day that weren’t already consumed by the launch of XALKORI, indicated for the treatment of ALK-positive non-small cell lung cancer.

The FDA approved it on Friday which means that for about another 5 days I have my life back. I’m sure DDMAC will time it so I lose it again right around when the playoffs start, not unlike what they did last year with the launch of ARICEPT 23 mg.

But I digress. The point is, I returned from the 7th circle of drug launch hell just in time to watch Fatso do work, and just in time to see the Yanks follow Cervelli’s lead in his deliberate march to insanity at the expense of the Red Sux.

Where to begin?

Alright, I’m a little rusty so I gotta ween back into this. Let’s go old school bullet style. ‘Sides, it’ll be a refreshing change of pace to write a bulleted list that doesn’t have to be supported with published studies.

The game starts and there’s approximately zero people in the viewing world who are thinking to themselves, “Yeah, I got a feeling this is a gonna be a quick one. Boston…Yanks….what could possibly go wrong?”

Just to confirm that this sentiment is about as rational as Gus Johnson, the game begins with Granderson getting hit by a pitch (of course), but instead of taking a base, he gets EXAMINED BY THE HOME PLATE UMP FOR BRUISES. And not in a motherly kind of way. In a teacher who doubts you were really out with the flu and hence demands to see a note from the doctor kind of way. No sufficient enough bruise was procured and Grandy ends up striking out.

Tubbo.com retaliates by drilling Ellsbury but OF COURSE no one checks to make sure his spinal cord is misaligned enough to grant his admission to first base. Biased officials….cough….biased officials. Whatever. Fatso’s f’n awesome. But wait for it, because he gets even awesomer in innings to come.

I reallllly hate the fact Pedroia is batting clean up. He’s good, I’ll concede that. But there’s just so much I don’t like about him, and I think I don’t need to explain myself really, given my audience. And if—among this audience---there’s the contrarian, then just imagine how you’d feel if Jeter was batting clean up. Irrationally pissed. However, I’d like to point out one (of many) glaring differences between Jeter and Pedroia. As far as I know, none of Jeter’s relatives have been convicted of sodomy.

(THAT KILLS ME, btw. The fact that bringing up this story is like “taking it too far” but Arod allegedly plays poker maybe, and you’d think he was caught with child porn.) Man I missed ranting about the maddening collection of Sux Double Standards. (Don’t judge me, but I just definitely spent about 20 seconds trying to figure out how to put a T-word into that phrase, so that I could make some reference to the Sux having STDS.)

The Yanks put up 1 early, with Round Boy doing work. Chavez drives in a run because Pedroia sucks and missed a “seeing eye grounder” as Kay excitedly put it. Cano brings in another because Cano has effectlvely turned into the unassailable fortress of awesome that’s defined by how consistently he exudes confidence.

>When I was little and playing softball, my dad used to say that fielding was easy as long as I just didn’t let the ball get past me. He said, “It doesn’t matter how hard they hit it or how good the batter is. All you have to do is stay in front of it.”

(To be clear, I can’t throw farther than 5 feet and when it comes to batting, I couldn’t hit water if I fell off a boat, but fielding…I’m ok with that.) And Cano walks onto the field like his dad told him the same thing. Because he plays like he knows how good he is.

And even more importantly, he plays like it’s easy to him.

Chavez comes back 2 innings later to make it 3-0. Yes this game makes total sense. Chavez pulling a Kobe-esque “ok whatever y’all Ima just go ahead and win this shit MYSELF.”

Carl Crawford who I still can’t believe betrayed me after all I’ve done for him, puts the Sux on the board with a solo bomb. Saltamacchia [sic and I don’t care] scores on Scutaro’s double, and just like that it’s the 4th inning and I feel like this game has already gone on for about 29 hours and it’s 3-2. Shockingly, however, no warnings have been issued. I didn’t know this was possible.

I thought it was like when I had a radio show in college and we had these ridiculously strict station format rules like playing 3 songs from 3 different pre-determined playlists an hour, no more than 5 songs in a row without a PSA, station ID every 15 minutes, etc. And similarly, I assumed issuing a warning was practically a station requirement within the 1st hour. I’m chalking this up to the ump who thinks he a bruise-diagnosing-doctor (and cheers to the YES booth for being merciless in making fun of him for that.)

Shit gets real interesting real fast when Cervelli goes long for the 2nd time in his career. (That stat is important.) He runs around the bases a la Super Mario with flower-induced invincibility (I swear on everything that’s holy if I knew one iota about making youtube stuff/manipulating videos, I’d 100% be making some kind of Nintendo tribute/mix to this game’s highlights.)

He concludes his trot around the bases with a move that’s on par with—nay, trumps—the relentless Manny freeze-frame-immediately-after-going-deep moves. Our little Ital stomps down on home plate with the same fervor as I did in puddles during this past weekend’s hurricane. Except I wasn’t compounding that with an aggressively smug hand clap while squaring up to the catcher.

Yeah he got beaned at his next at bat.

So Super Mario gets beaned and stares down Lackey like he’s freaking Gary Sheffield or something and not Gary Coleman. Honestly, for a second I thought he was just going to take the bat, turn around, and club Saltawhatever over the head with it. As it turns out, I wasn’t too far, given Cervelli’s take on this in the post-game interview:

“At the time, I forgot English. I not a problematic guy.”

Yeah, because had he had a better command of English he could have more reasonably explained to Lackey his disappointment in getting hit by a pitch. Instead, his lack of language mastery manifested itself in an uncharacteristic shift to “problematic.” Well, for what it’s worth Cervelli, I’m 100% comfortable with your problematicness. Seriously.

Another thing I have zero problem with is Lard’s uncharacteristic shift to playing the “I’m a 300 pound badass and will stare menacingly to underscore this point” card. You don’t see him do that a lot, and I can only assume he trotted out in this game out of anger over being made to get up for a stupid brawl.

Still, no warning. Whatever. All that means is we’re spared the hackneyed analysis on what issuing a warning “really means” and how this “really will impact the outcome of the game.” Oh, and the whole “well that takes the bullet out of the Yankees chamber now!” commentary.

It’s a tough call, but I think what GGBG did next was even more f’n hardcore than Super Mario’s thwomping on the koopa troopers right in front of Salty. GGBG gets up, Lackey tries his pathetic hardest to pitch inside and hit him, but all he does is get him to a 3-0 count (all the while, Super Mario’s hustling to 2nd). And then, THEN, in the ultimate “you wanna play it like that? I’ll play it like that, I’ll play it like Lionel Richie, baby, all night long” move, GGBG lays down a perfect bunt on 3-0.

I think Jed Lowrie, who never seems to be all quite there to begin with, could not have been more confused at 3B when he sees #11 zipping over to first (safe) while Super Mario’s moving to 3rd (safe), all after Lackey thrice attempted to brush our boy off. 3-0 bunt. Yeah, that’s about as awesome as it comes. I’m really not even kidding.

I think a lot of what the Yanks were doing was just confusing the Sux a lot, actually. Like when Grandy played a ball off the Green Monster, when everyone KNOWS the only people who know how to do that are Red Sux and that’s why Fenway is such a home field advantage, etc etc, knuckleball, Adrian Gonzalez, etc etc. Vomit. Vom dot com.

Jeter makes it 5-2 with a double-play ground out. That’s the Jeter way of looking at things. The I-know-he-hit-3000-but-I’m-sorry-I-just-cant-continue-the-lionizing-in-good-conscience group of us are looking the other side of the coin which is that he grounded out no less than 5 times.

Mo comes in to save the game, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous when I saw who he’d be pitching to the 9th. Ortiz, Lowrie, Crawford. In a 3-run game. Blech. But Mo does work. All of our pitchers did, actually. It was so inspiring to see. Like they all knew how important this was and none of ‘em wanted to let anyone else down.

Fatso let up 2 runs and whiffed 10 and threw 128 pitches. Boone Logan looked very D-Rob up there, (so much so that he was a Player of the Game—I think Boone’s mom must know someone in the clubhouse because I sort of get that nepotism vibe from him), and Mo came through for us too, earning his 35th save of the season.

It was a little terrifying though for a minute. Ortiz doubles. Fantastic. Lowrie strikes out and was so articulate in his annunciation of the slew of curses, that I’m surprised it didn’t show up on my closed captioning. [“That was fucking bullshit. Not even fucking close."]

Crawford quells our fears by popping out to short, and this was hilarious because the second the ball leaves the bat, Mo throws his arm up as if to say “yeah that’s you, someone back there get it.” Or as my sister so perfectly compared it to: “It’s like when the phone rings at home and Dad is lying on the couch watching war movies and he just shoots his arm up in the air and yells “PHONE!” Yep, it was exactly, exactly like that.

So the last of the terror moments comes when Saltafuckthis SWINGS INTO A PITCH AND HITS HIS HAND AND GETS TO TAKE A BASE, making it 2 on, 2 out, and the tying run at the plate. Girardi has a shit fit and gets thrown out, prompting my sister to muse that there really should be some kind of manager brainstorming meeting about varying the “I’m-pissed-off-and-i-want-the-world-to-know-it-but-without-touching-the-ump-because-that’s-wrong” moves that managers make when they’re fighting calls.

There’s throwing down the hat in disgust, the ticking off the fingers, the flapping arms, the frantic circle-drawing with arms, the who-can-tilt-their-head-to-the-side more contest, etc. All are overused. There’s gotta be a new move somewhere between the hat throwdown and the base-stealing.

And… that’s pretty much where we’re at. The YES network pretty much exploded into giddy smugness the second the game ended, which was such an amazingly wonderful departure from the usual FOX/ESPN crap of “well the Yanks win, but you gotta ask yourself if winning means anything when you’re completely devoid of a soul. Next up, we’re talking to Dice-K on the status of his gyroball.”

See you tomorrow, Yankee fans. And it's time to start welcoming in September baseball. Bring it on.

The most bizarrely reoccurring story to date in 2011 season

2011-07-22T10:38:00.002-04:00

So back in March, I was applying for the MLB Dream Job thing, and part of the application process was an essay on What The Biggest Story of 2011 Will Be. (Or Who Will Be MVP).

I had no clue what to write about. None. I mean, part of me wanted to write about how the biggest story is going to be Matt Kemp's discovery of his ability to fly. Or The Sizemore Scandal, where Grady turns out to have a twin who plays for him every other week. You get the idea. No one knows what's gonna go down, and like Sterling likes to remind us, "baseball's a funny game."

(I choked at last minute and wrote about instant replay.)

HOWEVAH, I think it's a safe bet that not one of the 5,000+ applicants wrote about what REALLY has been the most prominent theme this year:

THE GALACTICALLY HIGH PREMIUM PLACED ON THE CAUGHT FOUL BALL.

I'm not kidding. A few weeks ago, there's that gut-wrenching, heart-breaking story of the poor father/fireman who died trying to catch a ball for his son. I can't even think about it without getting a lump in my throat. (Fathers will do absolutely anything for their children. It's one of the most warming truths in existence.)

After this happened, you'd think there'd be a whole "put-things-in-perspective" element surrounding the hoops one is willing to jump through in order to obtain a ball from the game.

Instead, here's what has happened since the tragic incident at Rangers Ballpark:

1. Fan almost does exact same thing, on the very day of the Rangers fan memorial service.

2. Giants fan brat has his embarrassing pouting rewarded

3. Disgusting Diamondbacks loser throws his weight around

4. Disgusting unbranded woman takes candy from a baby

And amid all this nonsense and appalling rejection of normal social conduct, there's this:

What an amazing little boy. That was my first thought. Then I remembered... IT'S A FOUL BALL! I see it the same way I see dating. If one comes your way, cool! That's exciting! But assigning so much importance to it that you end up shedding your morals/standards or that you let the lack of one ruin your enjoyment of the game...that's..well, really? I mean, people are nuts.

Good on little Ian for shutting up the crying baby. He was either the most selfless 9-year old ever to take in a ballgame...or he was the most rational. Either way, that's good stock right there.

Maybe one day he can get together with the Phillies fan from last year, who also seemed to understand the insignificance of the foul ball cache.

You know, when there's the inevitable "How My Obsession with Snagging a Game Ball Has Changed My Life" summit.

You know, the same one that Mr. Bartman's predictably absent from each year.

So there you have it. At the halfway point in the 2011 season, the biggest story line this year has been the distortion of human pathos when it comes to grabbing that elusive ball at the stadium. Shannon Stone was being a diligent father. The rest of them (save Ian) were being diligent lunatics. And as someone with the word "crazy" in her moniker, I don't feel like I'm out of line in distinguishing the good wackos from the bad ones.

Any time you forget you're at a baseball game TO WATCH BASEBALL...that's bad crazy.

I'll take the good crazies--the ones who never stop screaming at the opposing team for 9 straight innings--every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

And as for the stadiums..just make your guard rails higher or something! Or make a rule all foul balls must be handed to the nearest kid or face ejection. I don't know. Whatever, this story line beats the steroid stuff, anyway.

It's his birthday and he'll cry if he wants to

2011-07-22T04:22:00.002-04:00

Poor Fatso. Couldn't get the 15th win. And on his birthday and everything. Ugh, that sucks. For some reason, I always feel so terrible for players who have 0-fer games on their bday, or get shelled, or just have a game that's less than amazing.

I guess it doesn't matter since men, at least according to men, don't like bdays. It's a chick thing. I think they probably only notice when it's a crappy bday.

To be clear, Round Boy wasn't crappy by any stretch of the imagination. The Yanks just couldn't hit. Sigh. Again.

Well, neither could Tampa Bay. Longoria hit for like the first time in ever. It was a homerun though so that part sucked. Then Fuld hits a TRIPLE to score the game winning run. Yanks rallied a baby mouse in the end, with Cano's roped shot into right, that plated Jeter who had his 3010th hit (double).

It was the kind of game that played out "without incident." I mean, Bday Boy obviously looked amazing (or his pitches did, anyway. He looked like a giant inflatable landmark type of thing you see on the side of the highway to let all interested parties know that the zoo is going up on the right in 23 miles. Or something.)

Yeah, so he only made 2 mistakes. And he didn't seem to be too worried about them, as he shouldn't be because a.) it's her birthday, and b.) 2 mistakes in a game is a gem. The lumber was useless tonight, and I guess if we want to be optimistic, we can think about how there ain't a whole lot of fuel for the hater fire, when the Yanks have shed their "long-ball-game" reliance (albeit not voluntarily). The team is now such a very odd hybrid of talent.

How are we winning games? It's not like I'm saying the team has holes. I'm saying the opposite, sort of. Inverse, maybe? I don't know. But holes suggest major problem areas that are resulting in losses. I'm asking about the "bumps," maybe? The talent areas that result in wins. Where and what are they?

(Besides Tubbo.com.)

Arod's doing the whole surgery thing. I should've seen this coming. I grabbed him with my first pick (4th) and it was too easy. I guess all the energy haters are saving with the long-ball game being somewhat muted, they can now use on the immaterially paper-thin theory that Arod's doing steroids.

To that I'll say, "The guy may be less than sharp when it comes to basic social conduct, but we know he was off steroids in 2009. He had the best year of his life. What kind of idiot would think, 'hey, let's go back to see what it was like when I was streaky and clutchless. Just for kicks.'"

The only people who do that sort of thing are people at the optometrist's office getting new glasses prescriptions.

So the Yanks are now 2 behind the Sux. Maddon continues to annoy the shit outta me, because he connnnstantly talks down to everyone, and he acts like any win/favorable media talking point/etc can be directly attributed to not just his managerial skills, but--worse--his UNCONVENTIONAL code-rupturing managerial skills.

ESPN.com:

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Joe Maddon perused the box score and wondered aloud how the latest stellar pitching performance by James Shields only improved the Tampa Bay All-Star's record to one game over .500.

"How's that possible?" Maddon asked after the 29-year-old right-hander won for the first time in nearly a month, outpitching CC Sabathia and beating the New York Yankees 2-1 on Thursday night. "You see Sabathia is 14-5. That's what Shields' record should look like."

Ugh. I know, I know. It was innocuous, I suppose. But to me it still sounds like Maddon is trying to demonstrate that he always KNEW Shields was a winner, even when stats say otherwise.

And because he thinks like that, that's proof enough right there that he's not as smart as he thinks he is.
'
You're only as good as your numbers.

And right now, the numbers the Yanks have to worry about is 4. As in 4 bases. As in the things that are kryptonite to our once flush lineup of OBP.

Now? GGBG is our leading stats batter (BA: .291; OBP: .372)

The Yanks are winning games somehow, but I'll be damned if I know how.

Lastly...Kyle Farnsworth. Just...no.

The Yankees are gonna win the World Series.

2011-07-19T03:35:00.006-04:00

"Are we winning?"

I left work at around 10:15. "Is it still 4-2?"

"Last I checked."

"I'm gonna head home and catch the comeback."

I think I only said that because that's the beauty of optimism: you're gonna be right eventually. No such thing as false hope. All hope is true.

And it's Tampa, a team that brings to mind a bevy of things (maybe not quite a bevy, but whatever): "the largest sting ray tank" claim to fame, the fact no fan of theirs is established or jaded enough to really feel strongly one way or the other about the whole "devil" abolition, and--most importantly--the fact the Yanks have a way of rallying against them in the 8th inning.

People are nuts, the Yanks go on what my youngest sister would term "a baby mouse bite" of a losing streak, and everyone, even my DAD, has thrown their hat into the ring for the "how many different ways are there to say the Yanks are done?" showdown.

(I don't know, maybe my Dad doesn't really think that. I was leaving for the beach on Saturday, and as I'm rushing out the door, already an hour late to meet my buddy, he says, "Hey, so Kris, how many games back are the Yanks now?"

"What? Uh..2."

"2? Hm. Not doing so hot, yeah?"

"No, no, I don't know. They're doing fine."

"Maybe you should start blogging more, maybe that would help."

"Yeah, maybe. Right now?"

So, it's possible my dad doesn't think they're done, that he was either just trying to get him to stay at home and keep him company amidst the rest of the female Pollina clan...or he was trying to gently remind me that I need to start restructuring my time to fit in blogging. Either way, he's right. As usual.)

Moving on, so the latest entry into the "New analysis of Yanks from a hater's perspective in Bristol" might be this one.

Yeah. The Yanks are too old to catch the Sux. How old are the freaking Sux? Now all of a sudden they're the spring chickens of the league?

To that point, the game was won today off the bat of GGBG. Who's not exactly tipping the age scales.

GGBG knocks in run 3 in the 8th to cut the 4-2 deficit down to 1. Then, JUST as importantly, he slides with all the G & G he can muster in that 100 pound frame of his, to break up the double play, allowing Swish to score and tie the game.

Excitement!

And here come the Yankees!

People forget about that, sometimes. The fact it's the Yankees. It's because of 2009, I think. When on average the Yankees came from behind or celebrated a walk-off, roughly 9 times a week. And now when they don't collect these dramatic moshpits at homeplate every week, the baseball-loving world freaking treats them like they're the Mets or something, who have a chemical dependence on blowing leads.

So, yeah, this is the Yankees.

And they came back, for the 3rd this year after trailing in the 7th, and we knew they would because they're not just the Yankees, but they're the Rays. And not only THAT, but it was Kyle F' n Farnsworth.

And if NOTHING else, Yankee fans can have unwavering faith in his ability to blow games.

Or, as I used to tell my sisters whenever someone would hit a long fly ball to the warning track off KF: "That jerk just robbed poor Farnsworth of another blown game."

(Not to fear, Farnsworth would just throw the ball about 10 mph harder to the next batter, about about 10,000% more down the pipe, in the strike zone, always ensuring a follow-up f-up.)

What a weird night for drama. You got our resident loony on the mound (5 IP, 8H, 4R, 6BBs), whose post-game sound bites do little other than pile on the mounting evidence in his case for degeneracy:

After exchanging words with some fans behind the Yankee dugout:
"I forgot it as soon as it happened. I couldn't tell you what he said or I said."

(See, I actually believe that. I really believe that AJ probably just blacked out. Or forgot. Or doesn't know it happened. Our #2 starter, ladies and gentleman. It gets better, btw...)

Regarding the 18 minute blackout caused by nearby lightening that knocked out the power right in the middle of Cano's AB:
"I was actually better after the lights went out. Maybe they should do it more often.'' ... (That's what she said? Sorry. Just like KF, that was just a meatball being lobbed up..)

(To be clear, Cano firmly asserted he would NOT want to bat in the dark. That's good to know. It's also hysterical to me that Girardi was given an OPTION of whether he wanted to play in the dark or not. Like it's the sandlot or something.)

Is this like a policy? You get a choice now when faced with less than favorable playing condition? Because I can think of at least one game in recent memory of a lot more consequence, in which I'm quite sure the Yanks were never asked whether or not they were comfortable playing and/or doing dramatic reenactments of scenes from Stephen King's "The Mist."

The Yanks end up winning on Russell Martin's walk off BB. Excellently done, too. 3-2 count on a tie game bases loaded with 1 out? I'm swinging at anything, before it even leaves the pitcher's hand.

Fortunately, Martin was more prudent. And game over.

(I wonder how insulted he was that 2 batters were walked before him, albeit only Swisher was intentional. Jones was unintentional. Nice work, Maddon. Stop trying so hard to be erudite and crafty. Or continue doing it, I don't care. It's just sooo affected and makes my skin crawl to watch. Thanks, asshole.)

So tonight the Allergy is going to go up against the more than a little decent Hellickson.

I got a good feeling about this game. And this team. Per my post title, I think the Yankees are going to win the World Series. And it's going to be hilarious because they're going to do it just how they won last night. Through ugly wins and small ball and GG and some luck.

And no one will know how to handle it. The Yanks will be too busy gracelessly swatting away the Sux, that the unrelenting "Yanks Suck!" chants just won't cut it anymore. What does the world of baseball fanatics do when the Yanks are the below-the-radar scrapters?

(I assume the answer to this question is something along the lines of overspending for a pitcher who would have been worth his wait in gold, circa 2006...cough..Ubaldo...cough).

Whatever, I just love this team. And they're going to do it again this year. Despite all the stuff I keep seeing about how "THE YANKEES ARE DONE!" I know they've only just begun.

Bring it on, AL East. Never forget who's Boss.

2011 HR Derby: PRIDE, power, and pinstripes...

2011-07-12T11:22:00.007-04:00

I'm not saying I'm a complete stone, but I'm not big on emotional stuff. However, there are a few things that can make me cry (outside of funerals):

The scene in Father of the Bride when they're playing basketball
The scene in the Wonder Years when "We've Got Tonight" is playing
The scene in "A League of Their Own" when Marla Hooch's dad says goodbye to his daughter
The last episode of the Wonder Years
The end of the "For Love of the Game"

The lowest hanging fruit may be fathers...or sports. I don't know. I hate those things in like Highlights Magazine (or the SATs, I guess, which would be a more appropriate analogy?) that say "Which one doesn't belong?" You can make an argument for ANY of them not belonging. It's so dumb.

I digress. As usual. My point is that last night was like the blitzkrieg on my emotions. Robinson Cano makes history by knocking out the most long balls ever in the 2nd round of the HR derby. Not only that, but he does so by trampling on the Red Sux. Not only THAT, but he does it off his father's pitches.

And then, of course, throw in the fact that these weren't just long balls. They were spacecraft launches. It was like that Prince Fielder commercial where he hits a ball that sails around the world.

472 feet?? Seriously? Off a meatball? I mean, it wasn't like you had Farnsworth up there throwing heaters down the pipe. It was Jose Cano.

(Jose Cano, btw is only 49 years old. It's the theory of relativity in action right there. I see him pitching to Robbie and he looks like a father. Meaning, he looks like a somewhat oldish man, a little lost, a lot proud. But he's only 49. I mean, he could theoretically be playing pro ball right now, taking in 4pm early bird specials with Wakefield et al.)

It wasn't just the father-son relationship that had lumps forming in my throat. It was the Yankee family relationship, too. Russell Martin and Grandy acting like Peyton Manning at Super Bowl 42, like proud older brothers bursting at the seams, not knowing what to do first, where to jump, where to yell.

It's amazing, that feeling of pride. It can't be manufactured.

Like when my sister got promoted, or when my other sister graduated magna cum laude, or when my Mom was in the paper for spearheading Long Beach's beautification initiative, or when my Dad came in 2nd in the Borgata poker tournament.

When Strange passed the bar, or when Pete became a Marine, or when my cousin won the Hummerdinger award.

When Jack gets a part in a play, or when Krista wrote a novel, or when Chase gets promoted. When Jelsen was clerking, when Annee got a new job, when Allison met Amos, when Megan had Reagan.

Pride. It's one of the last few remaining vestiges of goodness in the world, because it's completely selfless. You stand nothing to gain, it's involuntary, and uncontainable. It reminds us that there are parts of society that aren't governed by a self-serving impetus.

I never liked the All Star Break until last night. Until last night, I thought it was a pointless exhibition endeavor. I hated the ambiguous sense of flat competition it's based on. Last night, it was baseball stripped of its self-aggrandizing pride, and drenched in that inimitable feeling of being proud.

There's a difference.

And, like Robert Frost said, 'THAT has made all the difference.'

Congrats, Canos. And thank you.

RECAPPING THE BIG ONES

2011-07-11T18:01:00.004-04:00

This may have been the best weekend of my summer so far. It should probably tell me something that I spent all of about 15 minutes of it in NYC, the rest of it outside NY. This, of course, left me devoid of internet access though. Maybe that had something to do with it, too. We can deduce from this tautology that, indeed, the internet is evil.

We can also deduce from what the Yankees did this weekend that the New York Yankees are so f%^*ing awesome.

I went out to Long Beach on Saturday, and me and Amanda are about to go to the beach, and we're looking for Mom. "I think she's in the bathroom."

"She's been in there for a while."

"I don't know, maybe she's sick."

"Did you knock?"

"No, if she's sick, I don't want to bother her."

So we go across the street to my aunt's place, and it's a good thing we didn't wait for her to come out of the bathroom since had been across the street the whole time. (I cannot tell you how many times this happens to me. I swear I am like the perennial line-holder-upper at bars. All because I don't want to knock and disturb whoever's in there. And it almost ALWAYS turns out that I am holding up the line for an empty bathroom.)

Anyways, the point of this story is that had I not thought someone was in the bathroom in my own place and hence went across the street, I would have missed the greatest hit Jeter has ever had in his career.

My mom, aunt, uncle, et al are all crowded around the TV watching with baited breath.

And he did it.

It was unreal.

I think my uncle's eyes may have even welled up a little. And he's a Mets fan!

How does Jeter do it. How. It's not human.

The guy has hit 2 HRs all year, and come 3000, when it's a 1-0 game, he ties the game and makes history in one swing.

Of course, he doesn't stop there.

He goes 5-for-5 on the day, singles in the winning run, and it was just one of those days you look at other teams and think, "God, I'm so lucky I'm a Yankee fan."

"It would have been really, really awkward to be out there doing interviews and waving to the crowd after the game if we had lost. So that was going through my head in my last at-bat today," Jeter said.

Good old, Jeter. Just trying to avoid things being awkward. It's like Pfizer being all, "Well, we went ahead and developed a treatment for the most life-threatening form of lung cancer known to mankind. Because, I mean, we don't want to put out other drugs for lesser diseases and not have a cure for the worst one of all. That'd be kind of awkward."

So...thank you, Mr. Jeter. For keeping things socially acceptable, aka hitting the game-winning single so we could all relish in your day in good conscience.

(Ha, you know what was REALLY awkward? After Jeter hit the single that passed Gehrig in all time hits...after all the fanfare dies down...the first thing that happened? Chris Tillman--completely unironically--tries to pick him off first. Seriously.)

Speaking of good conscience, how about the dude who CAUGHT the 3000th hit? Who basically asked for a ham sandwich and a glass of milk as payment? Ok, I'm gonna be honest here. I love the Yankees. And if it was, say, Mo's 3000th save--(yeah, I know)--even with Mo being my favorite player and all, I STILL think I'd try to get a little something out of it.

I'm sorry, I would. I mean, I wouldn't try to put dibs on their grandchildren's inheritance or something. I talked about it with my coworker Gabe, I decided that I probably would have asked for 5 g's, playoff tickets, and an autographed bat. Because, come on, that's like a bajillion dollar ball right there!

Anyways, good for Christian Lopez. He has over $100,000 in student loans, and that ball was probably gonna go for $250,000 in an auction. If I had a family, there's no way I would have sold it for less than $250,000. How fitting that the classiest guy in the stadium caught the ball of the classiest guy on the field.

(Another thing to note: you know how I am about number coincidences. #2 hit his 2nd hit of the game exactly at 2pm. He's also the 28th guy to do in history. 28...why does that number ring important for some reason...)

If Saturday's game was one for the offensive books, then Sunday's was one for the books of the defensive persuasion.

Tubbo.com--you may know him as THE GUY WHO WASN'T ON THE ORIGINAL ALL-STAR ROSTER--(or as the guy who ate the lion's share of Eastern Europe)--pitched a complete game shut out. In, like, 2934 degree heat.

The most ridiculous part of the whole game?

The last pitch.

The one that struck out Elliot Johnson.

The last one he threw.

98 miles an hour.

Good God.

Fatso wrapped up in the game in 2 hours and 11 minutes. (More 2's!)

That's insane. The Yankees played this weekend like Baseball All Stars team that has the "what is a wren" cheat code programmed in.

We still trail Boston by 1 game, but who doesn't like what they're seeing right now??

And to make matters even more terrifying for our opponents... the Yanks aren't even a 1st half team.

Which is to say that, you think this is tough? You don't KNOW tough.

The Yanks haven't even begun to play.

We're just getting warmed up.

(Oh, nbd, but Round Boy got a pie in the face. Yep. Odds that he ate it off himself? 100%.)

So that's where the Yanks are at heading into the All-Star break. It's a good thing Jeter got 3000 outta the way. And that Tubbo.com really stuck it to the voters. And that the Yanks are playing like possessed bulls on parade to the 'ship.

Because, if nothing else, it's sort of taking the attention away from our boy Arod. Who's going into surgery. Again. And who hasn't been going yard. Still. But who will of course return with a vengeance.

Because that's what they do.

And that's why the Yankees can have nice things.

Out of the interleague, back to the office. The Yanks are "doing work," too.

2011-07-06T03:05:00.004-04:00

So the Subway Series comes and goes, and the Mutts actually manage to squeeze one out of us, in a dramatic (uh..er...) walk off win in Game 3. Aw, good for them. This is the biggest series of the year for them, and that must have felt good.

You know what else feels good? Not being tangled up in interleague play anymore.

The Yanks actually probably aren't as happy as me about this, since they've won every series during this AL v. NL run. Which is shocking to me. Really. Not because I hold the NL in such high regard (the opposite), but because the Yanks are generally powerless against teams they dont see much of.

In 2009, the only 2 teams they had losing records against were the 2 worst teams in the entire league.

In 2011, though it's clearly not the same team as we were enamored with 2 years ago, our boys are just doing it the Yankee-blue-collared way. Chipping away at things. One game at a time. Taking care of business.

(For the record, my dad swears on everything that is holy that he was the first person to ever use that expression. Ever. According to Wikipedia, the origins are from some DJ named Daryl B, but I believe my dad. As always. And who listens to Wikipedia, anyway? Hobos.)

The Yanks are doing what Michelle Pfeifer's class of hoodrats did in "Dangerous Minds": keeping their A.

"Anyone can earn an A at least once. It's much harder to keep one."

And that's just what our own pinstriped boys have been doing. Keeping their A. And by "A" I mean their supremacy.

They've gone 8-2 in their last 10 and are 1.5 games up on the out-of-control-and-not-in-a-good-way Sux.

And today the Yanks just further entrenched themselves in the confidence of their fans with another gem of an outing from Who But CC Sabathia. (That may or may not have been the first time I've called him anything other than Fatso, Tubbo.com, or Round Boy...save my ridiculous CC rap anthem post.)

So, on Sunday, I'm lying around at Strange's place with Bud Heavies, Tostitos, and the Cubs-Sox series/Subway series on an alternating flip. And up until the Yanks blew it against the Mutts, the only energy either of us could really muster was when it came to talking about Paul Konerko and Tubbo.com--2 of the most egregious ASG snubs.

I honestly had to assume that it was some kind of preference on Fatso's end. Like, he had dinner plans that night to eat Spain or something, so he was going to respectfully decline his bid.

But no. He was actually snubbed. The best pitcher in the AL. Now with 12 wins.

This is just like reason #2394 why I hate the ASG. If the game is going to count for something, if there's a coveted prize at stake (home field advantage in the WS), then the roster should be determined by stats and performance. If it's an exhibition game, then let the masses do the yearbook superlative thing.

Whatever. Onto today's game:

Jeter's now 4 hits away from 3000. How exciting!!! No errors were made at SS, and in the words of the sometimes merciless Kay: "And for anyone who doesn't really know how valuable Jeter is to this team, it's game like [the loss to Mutts] that make you remember who you want at SS."

Girardi hinted at probably benching Jeter "to give him his rest" (cough...bullshit...cough), and that his "concern is winning ballgames and him being healthy." (cough...partial bullshit...cough)

Call it what it is, Joe. You're gonna bench Jeter so he can get 3000 at home. I'm onto you. Hey, when I don't feel like going out to a bar on the west side, I use the whole "umm...I'm kinda feeling under the weather right now. But call me if you end up on the upper east side!"

Something Sort of Grandish went something sort of yard, twice. At least 8 players had 2 hits, for a grand total of 17. Another fun double digit number: 11, which is both the number of Ks for Round Boy, and the number of runners LOB. Soooo...ok only the former was fun. But in the interest of the compliment sandwich (courtesy Elias):

With his two HR on Tuesday, Grandy has joined Tex as Yankees teammates with 25 HR this season. Only one other time in Yankees history has a pair of teammates had at least 25 HR before the All-Star break. In 1961, Roger Maris had 33 and Mickey Mantle had 29 at the All-Stark break.

Great news!

The Indians have been on my shitlist for a while, really, ever since they pummeled the Yanks 7 years ago, end of August. 22-0. Then the whole midge thing.

(That word in it of itself irritates the hell outta me. It's like Ty Wigginton's last name. I just feel like this compulsive need for there to be a "g" in there, the same way I feel a compulsive need for a "t" at the end of midge. Yeahhh...so that's where my life's at.)

Lance Pendleton, whose name my sister adores, but that I feel sounds too much like he should be doing sorcery stuff with in Hogwash or whatever the land of Harry Potter is called, looked ridiculous on the mound tonight.

He has a 9-0 lead, loads the bases, 0 outs, and it's the type of situation where a manager's gotta think, "Ok do I let him just abuse this comfy 9-run cushion for the sake of giving him some game time...or do I not risk it because it can be a slippery slope?"

I personally would have kept him in for a LITTLE longer..but not by much, because while, yeah you don't want to embarrass the guy, there's also the likelihood that after he's realizing the strike zone has virtually become an unattainable dimension of reality for him, that he just wants to be put outta his misery.

Luckily, no harm, no foul, 2 runs. And the Yanks win 9-2 (I love that score!)

Keep it up, guys. Take care of business.¹

2 more things:

-Does ARod hit homeruns anymore? It's cool if he doesn't, but I was just curious if he's been unofficially or otherwise relegated to a clean up batter who gets base hits.

-I love the fact the html code for a superscript is ^{.

Reference: 1. Pollina TM. Data on file.}

Yanks @ Mutts (Subway Series begins!)

2011-07-02T13:51:00.006-04:00

So after a bit of a hiatus, I'm back in the blogosphere, a return fueled in part by the fact I'm finally away from the office, and in part fueled by the fact I couldn't NOT write about last night's game, it being a subway series and all. Plus, I was in attendance.

Special thanks to Paul P. for organizing the company outing, an amazing time was had by all, particularly by us Yank fans. Even the Mets fans were living it up. Which isn't hard to do when the office closes at 1 and before we can settle into the big Queens v. Bronx rivalry, we all entertain a more pressing competition--how to finish a bottle of Jager as quickly as possible.
(I don't know what the rush was, actually. It was 1:00 and we had a good 5 hours before we needed to head over to the field. I guess after years of hearing clients tell us they need things "2 days ago," not even drinking can be executed without a hot-deadline intensity?)

Moving on, here's what we got on the night:

Yesterday may have been the first time I ever made it to batting practice. I can't even get to the game in time for the free give-away, just lucky if I make it before the 3rd inning. Sooo I wasn't initially crazy about the idea of voluntarily getting to Citi hours before first pitch to join the throngs of crazy Mutts fans who stand like at the guardrails of the stadium, poised with their baseball mitts forming this disjointed perimeter of lunatics begging the outfielders to "toss it up here!!"

Well last night--save the mitt part--I joined those ranks. Didn't snag any balls though. Wasn't a bad idea to go. I wish I could be more incendiary and critical and abrasive about the Mets' home, but I just can't. It's so nice of a stadium. I can't decide how I feel about the center field apple though. The rest of the stadium is so sleek and well constructed, but the nuances are just...Mets-like. Kiss Cam, etc.

Mr. Met is cool.

So the game starts and the Yanks batter Niese early, it was a bit reminiscent of the Sons of Pitches softball game from Thursday where we got our asses handed to us by a 3 and 5 team. Base hit after base hit, roping them in where the fielders ain't. Look at that, Yanks doing the whole manufacturing runs thing! 3-0 after the 1st.

The Mets pretty much do the same exact thing when they go to bat, but we manage to keep the damage to 1-run. I like Nova. I don't why there are young guys who everyone is like tripping over themselves to elevate to deity status, but then there are other ones who people are just like, "Well hold on a minute, let's not get ahead of ourselves, let's just wait and see about him, hmm?"

I mean, our 2 superstars of hall of fame glory and excellent are both doing God knows what on the DL right now. One with a "dead arm" and one with a fat body. And probably some other legit injury I guess.

So while Nova is waiting to win that not-exactly-coveted role of "Exalted to the Point of Haters Pointing Fingers and Crying 'Overrated'" pitcher, Nunez earning his paycheck filling in for Jeter. Actually, everyone keeps saying he's doing just a good a job as our captain, but to be honest, I think he's doing better.

Ok to be CLEAR I'm not saying Nunez is better than Jeter. But I think if you looked at what he's done in his understudy tenure and compared it to what Jeter's been doing in any given 2 week span, Nunez has proved to be more consistent.

That said, however, Nunez is a bit accident prone with the arm. Meaning where he tosses the ball is anyone's guess. 10 errors to his credit this year. The team as a whole has 50. Kinda reminds me of when Giambi was on first and there'd be an infield grounder and I'd just basically have to cover my eyes and hope Giambi was somewhere in the vicinity of the base.

I am somewhat confused on how errors are decided. Maybe my vantage point was warping my view of things, but I could have sworn in the bottom of the 1st, there was a pretty errant throw to first (CYC-style, if you've ever seen me attempt to throw any distance more than 7 feet) and yet no error was recorded? I dont know how these things are decided in the same way I can't figure out how balks are determined.

So after this really exciting start to the game with all these base hits and what not, no one scores again until the 8th inning, when a single from our boy Nunez brings in Martin.

4-1 game, though most would argue that it should be different since the Mets kind of got robbed on a big play at 3B in the 7th. Speedy Reyes who I have beef with after he screwed over my fantasy team 2 years ago, tags up on a deep fly ball, racing over to 3rd only to be "tagged" out by A-Rod.

Replays showed there was no tag, so there goes that whole "tie goes to the runner" maxim, which been replaced--for quite some time now--"tie goes to the one who sells it better." Ahh, isn't that always the case.

Tough break, Reyes. But hey, at least you got A-Rod inexplicably offering up heaps of ass-kissing this morning. Ok the greatest player in the world? From A-Rod, no less. Maybe a 5 year old kid is allowed to be all "Reyes is better than everything else combined!"

(Or, actually, like my buddy Ollie pronouncing in all earnest last year that Oliver Perez is the best player in baseball.)

But the ACTUAL greatest player in the world saying this? Cmon.

More excitement, when Terry Collins runs out to protest the call, and I swear the Mets can't even execute an ejection seamlessly. It was like watching one of those Pictionary matches where the draw-er keeps circling and frantically pointing at the one object she's drawn, rather than accept the fact no one has any idea what it is, and draw it differently.

He finally gets thrown out, and I don't even know WHY he wanted so badly to get tossed because if there's one thing that never changes about the Mets, it's their ardent aversion to MOMENTUM. As soon as things start happening for them, they crack. See: Endy Chavez catch, 2006 NLCS.

ARod knocks another run in the 9th to make it 5-1, Girardi trots out Mo for some reason in the bottom of the inning, I guess in an effort to not make him feel left out after he quilted together a bridge to his closer that consisted of approxiately 2,102 different relievers. But..it worked. So, no complaints.

And that was how the Yanks took Game 1 of the Subway Series.

And this is why the Mets can't have nice things.

Roy White: Understated Class, Undisputed Talent

2011-06-22T04:29:00.007-04:00

On Tuesday night, I was lucky enough to attend a reception hosted by the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, an organization that holds a 5K run around Yankee Stadium every year to support their efforts. Last night welcomed Yankee great Roy White to the cause.

The former Yankees outfielder who says he hasn't run for distance since his days in the service, will serve as one of the official starters for the third annual Damon Runyon 5K Run at Yankee Stadium on Aug. 7.

(If you haven't registered and need more details on how you can RUN AROUND THE WARNING TRACK! and the bleachers, the stands, etc without having to worry about knocking into someone balancing a stadium beer cup--all while raising money for cancer--visit the Damon Runyon 5K site!)

Unfortunately, the Cincy game was canceled, it would have been pretty cool to have watched it with him, but the Q&A with him was just as rewarding. PLUS I got to hang out with Jason from the outstanding IIATMS blog. (Check out this recent post, which has been cited around the blogosphere as one of the greatest pieces ever written on the subject. I'm not even remotely exaggerating.)

Of course, I never got to see White play, so I deferred to my dad to give me some insights beyond what the more-than-impressive resume of records and stats could tell me.

"Oooh, you're meeting Roy White?? Yeah, he was a good one. Everyone loved him. He was just a real decent guy, just put his head down and did the work and didn't complain. Just a real good guy."

(And this coming from the guy who thinks Gandhi had ulterior motives.)

Like my dad, I love the Mariano Rivera's of the game. And in life, I suppose. The guys who go to work and just get it done, whose first priority is to do it well, and who don't place any sort of premium on resorting to the bells and whistles that ensure everyone KNOWS they're doing it well. No fist pumps, no brown nosing with the boss, no fluff.

Just...talent. And class.

When I arrived at Mickey Mantle's restaurant, White was sitting in the front of the room with Marty Appel and talking with MLB writer Marty Noble (whose take on the night is excellently captured here), and when he began the Q&A, I was struck by how genuine he was. My sister once told me that most people align themselves in a certain persona or identity or whatever. And then they end up liking things or responding to things in a way that may or may not be how they actually feel, but in a way that coincides with this persona they've chosen to project.

And I'd say that's pretty normal, and pretty accurate, but I didn't see that in White. He was genuine. He wasn't trying to be Johnny Modest or anything. He was proud of what he'd done with the Yankees, but also lightly self-deprecating at times.

It was unassailably awesome.

Some highlights from the endearing White:

On becoming a Yankee:

"When I was brought up, Bobby Richardson was the guy I wanted to pattern myself after. It was amazing. I had watched these guys all through little league, and I was just in awe being among them."

On his unbroken season sac fly record of 17:

"I wouldn't say sac flies are intentional. I wasn't exactly swinging as hard as I could, just enough to make contact. The thing was I always made sure to choke up on the bat. [The sac fly record] is one of the things I'm most proud of. I guess it's not that easy, only because it hasn't been broken yet. Managers talk a lot about small ball, and that was one of the little things I was good at."

On being a clean-up hitter who choked up on the bat:

"It doesn't really cut down on your power, you still have the bat speed. I remember the first time I actually choked up. 1970 Spring Training. I was 0 for 20, and we were playing the O's in Fort Lauderdale. Elston Howard was throwing batting practice. And all I of sudden I felt very relaxed in the box. Elston says, 'hey what are you doing over there?' I told him, 'Just trying something new.' The next thing I knew, I hit a line drive to right field, and I just kept my hands right there on the bat ever since. Right by the NY logo."

On GGBG:

"Yeahhh, he's a lot faster than I was. A lot."

On Billy Martin:

"I really liked him a lot. You just never knew what he was gonna do. Once in 1975, we were on a road trip to Oakland. I was on 2nd, there was a runner on first. No out. I moved to third. Lou [Piniella] first squares to bunt, but then gets a base hit to left and I score, and I see Billy Martin coming up. I'm thinking he's gonna give me a high five and instead he says, 'You know, you missed a hit and run.' I knew then that we were playing a different kind of ball."

And lastly, on whether the 233-base stealer could do the 5K:

"Ha, I doubt I could make it one mile!"

(You and me both, White.)

I talked a little with White about how high he'd be ranked in everyone's fantasy leagues if he was still playing. I told him how I hate having to find players with specific stat benefits just to appease certain categories, and why is it ok for a slugger to be absolved of any kind of defensive or base-stealing prowess?

"Yeah, it was a different game back then."

White hit home runs from both sides of the plate in the same game five times and also switch-hit triples in a game on September 8, 1970, which nobody has ever done more than once in a season.

He had speed, too, and stole 233 bases in his career. He was in double figures in steals every season except for his first and last years, and he stole a career-high 31 bases in 1976 at the age of 32.

His fielding was just as steady as his other talents, and in 1975 he fielded 1.000, the first Yankee ever to play an errorless season.

League-leading performances offensively came in 1972 (99 walks), 1973 (639 at-bats), and 1976 (104 runs).

In 1971 he set the American League record for sacrifice flies in a season with 17.

In the 1976 playoffs his six doubles tied the ALCS lifetime record. His best postseason came in 1978 despite just having come off the disabled list when he hit .313 in the LCS, with a game-winning sixth-inning home run in the clincher, and hit .333 with a home run and four RBI in the World Series.

Roy White was good at everything. And he didn't make a big deal about it. And he still doesn't. He may have tried to pattern himself after Bobby Richardson, but for my money, today's baseball players should be patterning themselves after the guy who played with the timeless dignity and guileless resolve that bolsters our Great American Pasttime.

Yankee Great Roy White to Start Damon Runyon 5K, support Cancer Research

2011-06-21T04:30:00.004-04:00

I mentioned in my last recap I'll be watching Tuesday's game with Roy White. Here's more information on the charity that he's supporting!

Official Press Release:

YANKEES GREAT ROY WHITE TO SERVE AS AN OFFICIAL STARTER FOR DAMON RUNYON 5K AT YANKEE STADIUM

When thousands of avid runners, passionate baseball fans, cancer survivors, and supporters from across the country gather at the Damon Runyon 5K starting line on August 7 to support the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, they will get the signal to run from New York Yankees great Roy White, one of the race’s official starters.

The only charitable run/walk that uses the legendary ballpark as its course, the third annual Damon Runyon 5K at Yankee Stadium will take place on Sunday, August 7, 2011.

Participants will run or walk the Stadium’s concourses, climb stairs between levels, appear on the video board, and follow in the footsteps of their favorite players by taking their own victory laps on the warning track that circles the field.

The event is on track to reach a three-year total of $1 million raised to fund groundbreaking cancer research by the nation’s most innovative young scientists.

White spent his entire 15 year career with the Yankees. As starting left fielder, he helped them to an American League pennant in 1976 and two World Series Championships in 1977 and 1978. He still ranks in the Yankees top ten in several categories, including games played, hits, at bats, stolen bases and walks. For his career, he batted .271 with 1803 hits, 160 homers and 233 stolen bases.

In addition to serving as an official starter for the race, White will be featured at a private reception for the Runyon 5K’s leading early fundraisers on June 21 at Mickey Mantle’s Restaurant in New York City. He will tell stories about his days with the Yankees, participate in a Q&A, sign autographs, be available for photos and watch the Yankees play the Cincinnati Reds in an interleague showdown.

This year marks the 35^th anniversary of the 1976 Yankees team that won their first American League pennant in 12 seasons before being swept by the Cincinnati Reds. The year was important in Yankees history as it marked their first pennant under late owner George Steinbrenner, who promised a swift return to the World Series when he bought the team in 1973.

The Foundation, established in 1946 and based in New York City, has a long history with the Yankees. Joe DiMaggio was on its Board of Directors. Damon Runyon himself was a New York writer who began his career as a baseball journalist, revolutionizing how the game was reported and often covering Yankees games.

Last year’s event raised more than $400,000 and drew a capacity crowd of 4,000 participants from 29 states. Click to see videos and photos of the 2010 Runyon 5K. In addition to the New York Yankees’ support, other event sponsors include the MetLife Foundation, White Rose, 24 Hour Fitness, the New York Daily News, SiriusXM Radio, and WNBC 4 New York.

Registration is still open for a fee of $40 and a minimum fundraising requirement of $60. After July 7 the registration fee will increase to $50. Family members and supporters will have the opportunity to view the event from the Delta SKY360° Suite overlooking home plate.

Super Nova shines in Yanks' 9th win in 11 games...

2011-06-21T03:31:00.004-04:00

That's how to do it Yanks. Just keep winning games. If I've said it once, I've said it a million times: I don't actually WANT the Yanks to win 14-5 routs as much as I want them to just win. That may sound obvious, but to clarify, I mean that I don't think it's physically possible to play 100% every game (don't even get me started on "110%"), because if you play 100% every game, you burn out. Play 80%. I don't care. Just play hard enough to win.

Which is what they've been doing.

Ivan Nova pitched a gem, (he actually let up LESS runs in 7 innings than Mo let up in 1 inning) and the Yanks cruised to a 5-3 win thanks to 4 runs of the manufactured persuasion in the 1st.

(That's right. In a ballpark notorious for long balls, our little rookie gave up no bombs. And in this same ballpark, our sneered at hired guns who haters perceive as a sort of Dirty Stay-Out ilk of players--cuz they're good for one thing and one thing only--managed to open up their stay in the Great American Ballpark by winning with singles. Go figure.)

There are a lot of excellent things about a game like this, but one of them is that the pace of the game affords me more of an opportunity to pay attention to things like Nova's pitches, and Swish's swing, and Grandy's plate presence. It was nice to see a game wrap up neatly under 3 hours, and the straightforward nature of it all was calming.

(Conversely, on the other side of NYC, Strange is watching the Chicago Showdown, and he texts me: "Great ozzie ejection tonight. He kicked the cubs catchers mask off the field.")

Re: Nova's pitches: the outs speak for themselves. (But in the interest of blogging, I will speak for them, anyway.)

It felt like nearly every single hit was a ground-out, and I'm suitably amazed that the kid actually managed to keep the ball down enough to prevent serious damage. What I've noticed about him in the last 3 starts (and last 3 Ws) is that he improves each problem area. Seriously, you really can't say enough about the ability of ANYONE, not just a ball player, to take direction.

(This is somewhat ironic coming from me, since the only person I take direction from is my dad. Even when it's in wild contravention to the instructions given an alternate authority figure. I remember playing softball in high school, and Tito Puente's granddaughter was the Varsity coach. She had all these crazy signals for everything...and unfortunately for her, so did my Dad. So I'd be about to step into the batter's box, with Puente frantically signing something, but she could never win my attention since I'd be looking over to my dad in the bleachers. His signals were less subtle, per se, ie "KRISTEN, do NOT bunt. Ya hear? SWING AWAY!")

Moving on.

Swish's swing is clearly improving, almost an inverse proportion to how Grandy's plate presence is deteriorating. I may be jumping the gun on this, but it's not just the fact that he's not in his crazy hot zone anymore. He just looks uncomfortable and frustrated. Like someone at the batting cages who knows he has 50 more pitches coming so he swings at everything.

He probably should just tweet more about it. Fans LOVE it when athletes tweet so much as once while they're even remotely mired in a slump. As if in the time it took to write that one tweet, he could have rehabilitated his entire set of weaknesses.

The only non-smooth things about the game really stemmed from Girardi's weirdo moves that should perhaps have their own segment on SNL at this point.

Andruw Jones does that annoying thing where he doesn't run out a grounder. I hate this. I don't care what anyone says, run it the eff out. He should have been reprimanded for this, no? Well it turns out Jones had rolled over his ankle or something so Joe wasn't mad about him failing to do his job on the basepath.

However, if this is true, why keep him in?

As a non-sequitor, you know who I love? Russell Martin. I don't care if he throws like a freebasing Chuck Knoblach sometimes. He's starting to remind me Rube from Major League II. He's fantastic.

Ok, that said, then there's these other confusing elements of the game:

Boone Logan came in for about a cup of coffee and the expression on his face when Girardi yanked him was priceless. He looked like someone had just told him this isn't a scrimmage and it's actually a real game. Like this emotional hybrid of mild sheepishness coupled with quizzical bemusement.

It started when Joe takes out Nova after 105 pitches (I'm okay with that decision) and puts in Ayala who apparently is now our new 8th-inning guy, on account of nothing more than Joe's say-so. Kind of like how teenagers are under the mistaken impression that asserting something in a facebook status cements its veracity.

In terms of facebook, it's basically like "Joe has tagged Luis Ayala in the album, 8th Inning Men." But then 4 pitches later, he untagged him, when Phillips singled and aahhhhh! all hell breaks loose!

No, not even. Not even a schrapnel of hell.

"Joe has checked into the 8th inning with Boone Logan."

I'm not sure I'm on board with this decision since he's the only lefty specialist I know of who patently is unable to get out lefties.

One pitch later, "Boone Logan and the 8th inning are no longer listed as in a relationship."

Yes, one pitch. Beans Votto in the back. In comes Mo.

Seriously, the game was cruising along at this breakneck pace, and then this nonsense.

Whatever, they won.

WAHOOOO!

OH, did you know Jeter was actually supposed to be a Red? Yeah, Gene Bennett was the only scout who wanted to draft him though, so he got overruled.

When draft day came around, the Reds had fifth pick. Bennett still believed Jeter was their guy right up until the announcer called their pick.

"They said, 'The Cincinnati Reds take Chad Mattola,' and I said, 'Yeah, the Cincinnati Reds just took Babe Ruth too,'" he said, sarcastically. "Then real quick I heard them say, 'New York Yankees take Derek Jeter,' and I said 'Holy cow!'"

Bennett complained to Reds General Manager Jim Bowden, but said it was too late.

"It didn't help anything. The Yankees took Derek Jeter," he said.

And, history has a weird way of..well, just being weird I guess. The last time the Yanks were in Cincy, Jeter was announced captain (2003). And now he's doing God knows what on the DL when he should be getting his 3000th hit.

Maybe the Yankees brass felt like we've already rubbed Jeter in their face enough.

It's nice to see them being gracious.

TOMORROW I will be watching the game with ROY WHITE.

Seriously. At Mickey Mantle's restaurant. And interviewing him, and blogging about it!

More on that soon...

Good night!

Swept away, yet again.

2011-06-10T11:15:00.005-04:00

What a nightmare of a day.

With the exception of my boy Chase rolling into NYC like an MVP, the day had all the earmarks of a disaster from the get go. I get in and all-star coworker Dawn calls to commiserate about the loss in Game 2. It's weird, but there are few people I LIKE sharing the misery of a loss with. You'd think I'd be more than comforted when people share your pain. But I was never a misery-loves-company type of person. However, my coworkers are actually across the board people who make me feel better after a loss. Cheers, LLNS.

That said, yesterday was pretty brutal. I wasn't in the best of moods to begin with, so maybe I put too much stock in the Yankee game. Like, depending on them to win to right the ship. (Ironically, this is my probably where my biggest aversion to relationships stems from. I hate how people assign too much importance to another person, all but allowing him or her to govern your emotions. You should be happy in your own rite.)

Soo, I guess it's ok for the Yankees to dictate my day, but not another human being. I'm okay with this line of thinking.

The game didn't start til 10:30, which sucked because I'm nothing if not a creature of habit and schedule, not quite to the annoying level that Mussina was, but pretty close to it.

'I congratulate the man who got 4,300 games, but sitting for 15 extra minutes before the game was supposed to start - that was worse,' said Mussina, whose second pitch of the game was hit over the centerfield fence by leadoff hitter Reed Johnson. 'When they say 2:15 and it's 2:25 and they're still on the field ... I don't want to take anything away from him. That's a tremendous accomplishment. But tell us 2:30 instead of 2:15. That's all.'

(This about a ceremony for a guy who died of cancer. I'd like to think I'm not THAT bad.)

But still. The bright side of the evening was meeting up with one of my oldest and closest friends in the world, Chase, whose obsession with "checking us in" via facebook to every. single. place. we so much as pass, would be annoying from any one else, but unerringly hysterical from him. We had just finished "checking into" the U.N. (only because I drew the line at checking us into Pfizer Headquarters) when it's announced the game is about to start.

And after a traipse around NYC, a fly by to 4L, and an bus back across town, I'm settled in and ready to watch the Yankees salvage this series. Right?

I didn't anticipate it playing out the way it did.

I mean, things were looking up! I got to drink with my coworkers! Hang out with Chase! There was even thunder and lightening coming into play, which I'm inexplicably obsessed with!

Me and Mo sidled up on the couch, and watched as the Yanks took an early 2-run lead when Granderson homered in the 1st with Jeter on. YEAH, TAKE THAT SUX! NOW YOU KNOW HOW WE FELT WITH THIS 1ST INNING BOMBS.

Sooo that was the 1st inning. 11:00. The day from hell was almost over, and the Yanks were on the board.

Oh, and just for good measure Beckett beaned Jeter and Arod within the first 15 minutes of the game. Schilling used to be my least favorite Suck. But I think it's safe to say that Beckett inspires an ire in me that I used to only reserve for the asshole that threw my mom's booksack in the train tracks when she was 7 years old.

The WORST part about it is that Beckett acts all confused etc like "What, what'd I do?" F'n prick. So, it's like that scene in that movie "Fear" with Mark Wahlberg, when the father of Reese Witherspoon goes and trashes Wahlberg's house to avenge the stalking of his daughter.

Which, in turn, invites Wahlberg's crew of hoodrats to retaliate.

"An eye for an eye, eh Mr. Walker sir? You f&%@ up our house, we're gonna F$%# UP YOURS! And a tooth for a f%^#ing tooth!"

Yeah, so that's what it was like when Ortiz gets plunked in the thigh in the 3rd.

Ok, plunked in the thigh < drilled in the knee cap.

So STFU, Ortiz. Good God. With all that steroid-built fat on your person, it was probably like the princess and the pea, with 2394 mattresses. And you're complaining? Go to hell.

"I'm still trying to figure out whether David got hit for something I did," Beckett said. You go to hell, too. In fact, why don't we just go ahead and get a group rate for Acela tickets for all of youse.

So the first 3/4 of the game was fun to watch.

The last 3 innings weren't so much.

The Sox scored 8 runs in the 7th, the first time anyone had scored since the 1st. And, well, that just took us a little by surprise.

Fatso pitched a good game, despite what the media is tripping over themselves to report as "yet another game where Beckett outdueled CC." One bad inning. Let's put things in perspective here. The game itself sucked, but I don't see this as being as hurtful as the other 2 where it just looked like the Yanks didn't even belong on the same field as the Sux.

This was just a disaster.

7 runs in the 7th inning, and to add insult to injury, the whole rally was bookended by one David Americo Arias. Who I see as Shrek's Iago basically. The evil version of a fun animated Disney character.

The Sux scored again in the 9th to make it 8-2, and the Yanks weakly responded with a run-scoring ground-out from Jeter. But no one cares about anything Jeter does these days, because now he's only 10 hits away from 3000.

Ok, you know what? I'm reallllly not gonna care about 3000 if it falls in the wake of this colossal collapse. (Collapsal?)

The Sux are now 2 games up on us. But hey, it's not even the ALL STAR BREAK and if I remember correctly, the Yanks are FAMOUS for their post-ASB rise from the ashes. Right? Come on, let's stay optimistic. I'm actually quite confused about why Joba's season-ending injury has us all scampering for cover.

It's JOBA. He's like the least reliable person in the world. Yes, he's been pitching well, but it's not like I'd ever in a million years hang the fate of the Yankees' season on him. If D-Rob got knocked out, then that's another story.

Listen, we're still in a situation where "there's a lot of baseball left to be played."

The Sux are 8-1 against us, but as Alec Baldwin so sagely tells us (or actually, tells John Krasinski):

Damn right.

Put it behind us. Time to take on the Indians.

We're Yankee fans. We know better. Let the Sux laugh now. We'll be laughing last.

Sux take over 1st, AJ disappoints me

2011-06-09T11:56:00.007-04:00

I once wrote a post about how terrifyingly sociopathic AJ Burnett is. Like how the expression on his face is just the epitome of "I may go insane, I may not. But what I'm NOT gonna do is tell you which one I'm leaning towards."

From August 12, 2009:

Cano got a whipped cream pie in the face. Seriously, AJ looks more and more intense and aggressive every time he rolls out this little ritual. And not in a Will Ferrell in Old School locker room kind of way. Like a Mama Fratelli chasing after the Goonies kind of way.

So when I see he's the one taking the mound, following a loss to our rivals that was basically a Boston exercise in "How far can we push this? How many buttons can we press til the Yanks snap?"..I'm really expecting someone to die. Or, at the very least, get carted off the field.

Not hoping, per se. Just...expecting.

What played out was far from this prediction.

Here's another way I think of it. In terms of music, I imagine AJ coming out to Rage Against the Machine's Fistful of Steel. And in fact, that's what I listened to up til when I walked over to O'Neill's with my sister to watch the first part of the game.

But last night, AJ was holding nothing but a fistful of pudding.

(Which reminds me of when I was younger and I had creme brulee at a restaurant for the first time. And it was delicious. So I asked my dad, "What IS this? It's SO GOOD!" And he said, "Um it's like vanilla pudding but they burned the top part."

So in my youthful resourcefulness, I decided to make creme brulee myself. My parents came home to find me standing above the kitchen stove with a giant serving spoon filled with SnackPack pudding.

Only to them, they saw their 11 year old daughter standing over an open flame with some white substance in a spoon. Only years later did I learn why exactly they were so worked up about it.)

So, yeah. Fistful of pudding. Not steel. The Yanks lost 11-6. And this time, they have none of the assholery theatrics from the night prior to point at and whine about.

Like Tuesday night, the game opens up 3-0 within a matter of seconds, thanks to a 2-run bomb from Ortiz (no bat flip this time) and a bunch of errors that maybe we can chalk up to the heat, but, I mean, I get hot in 60 degree weather and frankly I didn't think it was THAT asphyxiatingly hot out last night.

The game got away from the Yanks pretty f'n fast. It's 7-0 before I even leave O'Neill's, until Arod hits a moon shot to left and puts the Yanks on the board. You know, for all the crap he gets, he's pulling his weight just as much as anyone else on the team. Which brings me to someone who is NOT doing his share right now:

Derek Jeter.

Yeah, I love Jeter. Who doesn't? And like everyone else, I give him a ton of latitude because in reality the Yanks would not be the Yanks without him. No dynasty, no evil empire, none of it. But last night pissed me off big time.

With the bases loaded, and the fastest runner in the game on 3rd, Wakefield throws wild pitch #2910 of the day and instead of waving GGBG home like a human windmill, Jeter holds him up. I said to my sister, in uncharacteristic CYC-pessimism, "He's just holding him up so he has the golden opportunity to ground out into an inning-ending double play."

Which is exactly what he did. And then I hated myself for having said it out loud. Everyone loses.

In the 5th inning, the Yanks staged a bit of a rally, closing the gap to 7-4. Not bad, not bad. It had all the earmarks of a Yankees classic. And it's sad, remembering the 2009 boys who would eat deficits like this up for breakfast. (You eat deficits for breakfast? Eww.)

But the 2011 Yanks...eh, not as forthcoming with the comebacks, per se.

Some other thoughts on the game (I love how bulleted lists exempt me from cohesive thought and transitional phrases):

I'm confused about errors are being recorded here. First I see Cervelli throw a ridiculously errant throw that manages to slip by 23 fielders in some crazy Frogger like agility. Then he does the same thing again. Like, EXACTLY the same thing. So that would be 2 errors, yeah?

Then our 3B who is very much NOT Arod bobbles a ball and that would be the 3rd, no?

THEN, Youkilis does something at 3rd that is too contorted and inane to even be considered "bobbling." It was more like some bizarro contortionist, Cirque de Soleil kind of manuveuring that somehow escapes the E column.

By my count, there should have been at least 4 errors. Maybe 5 if you consider Cano's mishandling of the ball at 2nd that got the runner out at 1st but allowed the runner on 3rd to score. But no. Only 2 were recorded. So maybe the score keeper just got too hot to function. Like everyone else.

Something bizarre happened at 3rd that no one seemed to pick up on except for my sister. Ortiz makes it to third on one of said Cervelli faux paus, and it looks like he's winding up his arm about to ass-slap Eduardo Nunez. But then it was almost like, upon seeing the camera on him, he immediately retracts his arm. Wtf is going on?? Seriously, it's like Boston is just treating the Yanks like how I treated my poor youngest sister when we were growing up. Just teasing them and annoying them to the point where they have no other recourse but the whine, and then when they DO whine, everyone rolls their eyes. (Sorry, Amanda!!!)

Eduardo Nunez looks like this creepy bad guy in this Care Bears Movie I remember seeing when I was younger.

Compare that cucumber thing to Nunez. Uncanny, no?

Anyways, so there's that.

Moving on, GGBG made a gutsy play for first in the 4th, sliding headfirst into the bag, but Wakefield made the play. And I swear it almost looked like he kicked him in the head.

I wouldn't be surprised really.

They showed a stat that AJ and Wakefield lead the league in wild pitches, which explains why the camera man was obsessively fixated on showing the bucket of balls before the game started. Ahhh, I get it. So many wild pitches between the 2, need extra balls, etc. I said to Laur, "I mean, Wakefield's a knuckleballer. What's AJ's excuse?"

Her response: "Insanity."

That's cool. AJ pleads insanity.

Insanity or stupidity, not sure which, was the motivation behind intentionally walking Ortiz. I can't wrap my mind around this. If you're going to walk him anyway, WHY NOT F&^%ING DRILL HIM IN THE HEAD???

I know, I've clearly lost all of my usual, "Our first responsibility is to be a good person" niceties. Cost of war.

Jeter's now 11 shy of the 3000th hit, which is obviously clouding anything bad he does. Hmpf.

Speaking of clouding anything bad done, Super Mario hat 3 hits and 2 ribbies for the Yanks, but also gave the Sux a free pass to sour around the basepaths like a star-induced Luigi. I don't know if they even out, I'd rather he had played normal defense than freebasing defense.

Can someone explain to me why Noesi was sent to triple A?? After what he did on Tuesday, you'd think they'd give him a little more grace. Geez. Tough crowd in that clubhouse.

And here are some fun stats from ESPN on how our Red Sux killer has fare since being a Yank:

A.J. Burnett has now allowed 7+ ER to the Red Sox 4 times has a Yankee. That's the 2nd-most such starts by a Yankee vs the Red Sox in the Live Ball Era (since 1920). Only Red Ruffing, who had 5 such starts, has more. Ruffing made 51 career starts vs the Red Sox as a Yankee. Burnett has made 8.

A.J. Burnett is now 0-4 in 8 starts with a 8.71 ERA vs the Red Sox as a member of the Yankees. He was 5-0 with a 2.56 ERA in 8 starts vs Boston with the Blue Jays.

Ok, if you're going to be that ineffective, please be ineffective while inflicting some kind of damage. I don't necessarily mean physical damage, but you definitely can't dispute the effect a hit batter has on the dynamic of the team. It riles people up, etc. Girardi should have insisted on getting tossed, just to appease us rabid fans who are foaming at the mouth for some retaliation. A la Norman Dale-style.

The last Sux game I went to, I saw a dude wearing a shirt that said "I'm a Yankee fan. Fight me." And then I saw him disappear for a few innings and return all sweaty and disheveled. I like that guy. I want that guy on the field.

And I want to win tonight.

I may be realllly upping the stakes here, but there's a possibility me and my beer pong partner may venture into the lion's den (aka a Sux bar). I figure, even if the Yanks can't beat the Sux, I know at the very least, there aren't any Sux fans that can beat us at pong.

One last thought. The Yanks couldn't beat the Sux til August in 2009. And that worked out ok. That's what I'm gonna keep telling myself anyway. Tonight would be a great night to show Boston we're still in charge. Take back first place. And more importantly, take back our cajones.

LIVE BLOG: Sux @ Yanks, 6.7.11

2011-06-07T18:48:00.000-04:00

Game 1, Yanks/Sux series 6.7.11

Fat 1 and Fat 2 lead us outta the west...

2011-06-05T23:25:00.009-04:00

“They will pick up the slack, you will see something new,
Two extra large pitchers. I call them Fat One and Fat Two.
These Fats will not hurt us. They don’t give up runs.
And out on the field came Fat Two and Fat One!”

--Dr. Seuss, if he changed all the words to be more relevant to my blog post about fleshy starters

After losing that annoying little 3-2 blechfest on Friday, the weekend was a nice little celebration of blimp-like pitchers leading allowing us to salvage a west coast road trip that began with a near-sweep in Seattle (I hope I never have to utter/write that last phrase again), Tubbo.com and Allergy come in on Saturday and Sunday (respectively) to bring the series a BIG FAT W, AS WE BREAK FOR HOME AND GET THE HOUSE READY FOR OUR BOSTON GUESTS.

Fatso, being Fatso, almost went a complete game on Saturday, as the Yankees flip flopped the score and took Game 2. Cano and Arod went deep, as Cano and Arod are want to do. And that was all the Bombers needed to do in the Halos. Well, that, and Round Boy's increasingly devastating change-up.

It's funny, because I think it was sometime at the end of 2009 when I was talking to my favorite all-time lunatic Ollie about the importance of a change-up, and how every pitcher who's worth his salt, adds a lethal change-up to his arsenal.

And that's exactly what CC has done in the last few years. His fastball isn't of Daniel Bard caliber, or Kyle Farnsworth, or even Joba. But look at those 3 names and tell me just how indispensable they've been. Or, rather, haven't been.

The fastball is passe. The change-up is the equivalent of adding a major in Spanish to your accounting major (a combination that my dad swore left right and center would be the absolute smartest way to go in college. So, of course, I was an English and Theater major, which made it reallllly easy to get a job after graduation. Nope.)

In CC's words:

"It was huge for me tonight. The only reason I pitched eight innings tonight was because I was able to get some swings early, get some weak fly balls and some ground balls with that pitch. A couple of years ago, I probably would have been in trouble, not being able to command it if I didn't have it early."

Ha. "It was huge for me tonight." Hehe.

So that was Game 1. As for today, it was a glorious afternoon of winning.

There were 2 text messages from Tex tonight, according to Sterling. And a swishalicious bomb from Swisher, also according to Sterling. But that's where I'll cease and desist using Sterling as a reference for the recap, since there are about 912 other incidents that Sterling alleged occurred, but that we as viewers (and as viewers presumably of sound mind) that we know weren't real.*

*More specifically, I'm referring to the number of lazy pop-ups and in field ground outs that the aforementioned radio announcer deemed "high and far."

I digress. As usual. Back to bullets:

The Yankees' numbers were big in the right places and small in the right places. Like an aesthetically pleasing chick. With one exception, and it wasn't even that big a deal, I think, so in terms of this metaphor, it'd be like the equivalent of like a weird laugh. Something not really noticeable at first glance, but something that could potentially start to be problematic over the long term. And that annoying titter is: the number of pitches they saw.

I am a HUGE proponent of sitting on pitches. HUGE. I don't think I've ever in my entire life swung at the first pitch, which isn't even really a good idea statistically since it means I'm often down in the count AND end up having to swing at less than stellar pitches.

But my dad told me never ever to swing at the first pitch, and I guess if I had to pick between the Choice of College Major and Patience at Plate words of paternal advice, I probably should have picked the former to follow, rather than the latter. Semantics.

The Yanks took barely 13o pitches, the Halos nearly 170. Interestingly, though, the players who saw the LEAST amount of pitches were Tex (with 2 bombs on 9 pitches) and Posada (who went 2 for 4). I don't care. Economic appearances be damned. We're about to face the Sux and I feel like nothing quite dismantles them like shaking up their pitchers.

The best low number of the night: 5 LOB. 11 hits, only 5 men left on base. That's great! The Halos had 10 hits, with 10 LOB. ((Insert this here.)) Look at that, the whole annoying laugh thing coming full circle! I didn't even plan it that way.

The low number with the big significance: Jeter going 1 for 5. Which puts him 14 shy of 3000.

The big significance number with ridiculous significance: 28. Jeter would be the 28th player to hit 3000. That's big significance. In my warped mind, the 28 also happens to be the number of WS we're chasing right now. That's ridiculous significance.

D-Rob is either a breath of a fresh air or a coronary waiting to happen. I can't decide which. Maybe both though. He has the market cornered on being thrown in the game in the WORST possible times, and I think it may have started because Girardi was like "Ok, kid. Let's see what you got." And then he was sooo good at it, that they kept doing it.

And now I think it's just morphed into some kind of pushing the enveloped type of scenario. Like, there's some kind of over-under bet in the clubhouse like, "how many innings before the other cleat drops." Either that or he's being punished for something bad.

Regardless, he's just really good at it. The Allergy gets pulled, and D-Rob comes in, walks the bases loaded for good measure, and strikes out Maicer Izsturis to end the 6th. Joba K's Kendrick with 2 out to end the 7th, pitches a scoreless 8th and in effect becomes the bridge to Mo we always wanted him to be, and Mo subsequently gets the last 3 outs of the game. Yankees win!

Piniero, the starting pitcher for the Halos, whose name always conjures up some images of B-list Mafiosa dude, like the one in charge of knocking off real estate agents of something, had this to say about his performance:

"I thought I had good stuff. You limit the long ball and maybe you have a chance to win. But they're built off the long ball, and obviously they did that today. I guess (Teixeira) was seeing the ball well today. I thought the changeup was a good pitch, then he went and got the sinker."

I get the biggest kick out of when losing pitchers are all, "I mean, I thought I was doing pretty well! Guess not. Since we lost and all. Sigh."

It's SORT of like this weird, incongruous shot from ESPN today:

It's this article on how it's more important to pick hitters first in fantasy drafts, over pitchers, which a.) seems a little irrelevant now that drafts have been over and done with for about 3 months now, and b.) even if it was relevant, is that the best example to use? Mauer?

Mauer, who was my 3rd pick, hasn't played a game since April 12. He has been collecting dust on my roster for what feels like forever, and is now this year's Jose Reyes. The dude I picked up early, will never drop, even when there's only 2 games left of the season and he's still sporting a red DL tag next to his name.

So, ESPN, maybe that's the way YOU operate. But your choice of supporting imagery is something of cognitive dissonance.

So thank you, Fat 1 and Fat 2, for keeping us 1 game up on the Sux. There's something about watching 2 straight days of starters devoid of any metabolism-related that inspire you to get out of the house. (Which was maybe the same mentality behind FatBooth, the new app for the iPhone that shows you what you look like if you're fat. Sounds very...cheerful.)

(To this end, I decided to go rollerblading and it turns out you have to wear a helmet to rollerblade. Is this a real law? I don't own a rollerblade helmet. Does anyone? I own a Giants football helmet, which is what I later went home to retrieve upon being informed of this NYC rule, but seriously, is that what NY wants? Me skating around in a football helmet like some kind of G.U.T.S. contestant, rather than me skating around in youthful blitheness? Whatever.)

So there it is. The Yanks head out of the West Coast, and we can all go back to normal bedtimes. (I say this as I'm blogging away at 3am, but you know what I mean.) The week of 10pm starts and weird scheduling stuff has subsided in favor of a hellish homestand that will feature Boston, Cleveland (still mute), and Texas...before we head to Chi-town for the Cubbies.

Happy Monday everyone!

10pm starts = Yanks get tuckered out after 4 innings

2011-06-04T10:38:00.005-04:00

Earlier in the night I was at a bar in midtown with pennies covering the bar, and the owner tells us that if we guess the number of pennies within 10, we drink for free ALL YEAR.

So naturally I start counting.

The people actually sitting at the bar are not amused by this endeavor, as I’m sure I would probably be annoyed too if I was trying to enjoy Happy Hour but kept getting some Rain Man-esque weirdo poking their finger up and down the space I was trying to sit.

Additionally, thanks to the Yankees conservative avoidance of double digit numbers in any way shape or form (excepting men LOB), I don’t know if my mind has the capacity to count too high anymore.

The Angels beat the Yanks 3-2. Really frustrating having recap #12 of the season (or around thereof) that applauds the decent pitching performance of our starter but then dimly describes the loss. I need a Word Macro for “The Yankees’ starter was handed the L, despite his 4th consecutive impressive outing that was wasted when the offense failed to score with runners in scoring position.”

Ah, you know what? I’m sorry, that was kind of uncharacteristically pessimistic of me. It’s 6am, I’m teetering on delirious and have had to go back and erase on more than one occasion like 15 rows of uninterrupted g’s which is my subsconscience copywriting “I’d like to sleep now.”

Actually, I wasn’t really too pissed about this loss. Seriously. Maybe it’s because I was talking to someone about the 2009 World Series earlier in the day, and she said, “You know what my favorite part of the playoffs was?” (I guessed Game 6 of the World Series, but I was wrong.) “My favorite part was beating the Angels because they ALWAYS beat us.”

True. So with that still fresh in my mind, and considering we just swept a team, I’m not gonna dwell on this one.

Here’s how it went down:

Weaver gets the W, and now has the most wins in the AL at 7, which is kinda funny since the rest of the AL had over a month to catch up—his 6th win was April 25. He’s so freaking intense. Instead of just being like, Woohoo! he says, "I didn't face the Yankees last year, so I was really amped up for this one -- too amped up, as it turned out. I have to be more careful not to let my emotions get the best of me.”

Jeter is looking good, even if his stats aren’t overtly exciting. His control at the plate is discernibly improving though, he must have followed off 2031 pitches in the 1st inning. He has gone 43 consecutive plate appearances without striking out, his longest stretch of the season.

The Halos take a 2-0 lead early, and Nova isn’t looking AS sharp, but still I like this guy. Abreu (yeah he still plays baseball) doubles in the first run, with Callaspo’s groundout later plating him.

R-Mart puts us on the board in the 2nd with a single, and amidst all the other drama lining the Yankee media reels, I sincerely hope the supreme impact Martin’s had on the team does not go unnoticed. I’d go so far as to say he has been one of the sagest pickups in recent history. I’m not saying the BEST (cough…CC…cough…ARod….cough….Tex) but in terms of bang for buck and utility for the team’s needs, R-Mart has been nothing shy of indispensable.

That other catcher on our team breaks out of a 1-18 slump (sort of) by grounding out to bring in ARod in the 4th. Which spurs the hip hip Jorge cheers, and it’s funny how—as a rule—standards just always warp with the passage of time. Kind of like how when I was in college in the south, I melted when a guy came opened the door for me or helped me into my jacket. Now I consider cabdrivers chivalrous if I can cross the street without getting run over.

That hit, by the way, was the last the Yanks had in the game. And to remind you, this was in the 4th inning. I’m pretty sure the last game played had a similar situation, where the last 5 innings weren’t really needed, all the action happened in the first 4. Very un-Yankee-like. Usually they take a page from my book and will physically show up, but not actually mentally check into the game until the 6th inning. Sort of like my “creative process” at the office. Yeah, let’s call it that. A “creative process.”

The Angels’ game-winning run comes in the 4th (but of course we don’t know that at the time) when Bourjos’ single scores Branyan. Sooo Nova gets tagged with the L, but it's ok. I don't need players to be lights out every game. I just need them to be ENOUGH. (Unfortunately Nova wasn't "enough" for this game. But he usually is. Kinda like how Chad Gaudin inexplicably never lost a game for like the first month he spent with the Yanks.

Interesting history bit (from ESPN.com): The Yankees are playing their first series at Angel Stadium since April of last season, when Tex knocked out Wilson in a violent collision at home plate in the rookie's first major league start behind the plate. It left Wilson with a concussion and injured left ankle that sidelined him for 21 games. "As a catcher, that's what you sign up for. That's part of the job," Wilson said. "Even getting hit the way I did, I'm not going to back down from anything."

THANK YOU, WILSON. I’m so tired of hearing everyone act like Scott Cousins is the devil himself for what he “did” to poor Buster Posey. (Is it me, or is the fact the kid’s name is Buster Posey contributing to the tidal wave of sympathy? I doubt there’d be this much concern and knee-jerk (no pun intended) protectiveness if the kid’s name was Butch Giagundo or something.)

Yeah it sucks for Buster a lot, but technically he was in the wrong. He was blocking the plate without even having the ball. Cousins had little recourse.

We were all sooo happy for the scrappy little SF Giants last year when they won the WS in a match up that most people feigned interest in to justify their ardent rooting against the Yanks leading up to the series. (You can’t really hope against hope the Yanks get knocked out only to then become bored with baseball.)

Anyways, so yeah the Giants won last year and then the horrible attack happened to the fan, and I think that might have just cemented their role as The Official Human Interest Story. Because otherwise it makes no sense why a run of the mill collision at the plate has become cause for murmurings.
So there’s that. Some guy named Jordan Walden gets the save.

You know what? I think the Yanks are actually about to go on a 6 or 7 game win streak. Take the next 2 in LA. Sweep Boston, take the first 1 or 2 from Cleveland. I know, it’s a tall/f’n ginormous order. Schedule’s pretty rough for June. But the Yankees are nothing if not wildly unpredictable right now. Keeps us on our toes. But even in their losses you can see something good…

I don’t mind the inevitable slumps when they’re statistical slumps. In other words, if I’m hitting .011 but every single hit was roped into center and the like, I’m not going to start tapping a chicken leg up and down my bat or anything.

HOWEVAH, a batting average of .750 that was created by dinker infield singles…well, I’m not going to complain but to be honest I’d rather have the .011 with the solid hits drilled straight into the outfield’s glove.

I read that when a baseball player is going through a slump, he feels the complete opposite. If he hasn’t reached base since the Reagan administration but has been consistently lining out to left, he’s apparently even MORE discouraged, disheartened, and disgusted.

Because he sees it as the equivalent of walking outside when you’re having a hellish morning, only to discover it’s pouring rain out and it’s gonna be impossible to get a cab. No one likes this scenario, but to someone who’s had a crappy start to the day, the rain is that proverbial “just one more thing.” The “oh, of COURSE it’s raining. YEAH OF COURSE IT’D HAVE TO RAIN TODAY. NOTHING GOES RIGHT EVER” type of mindset.

Similarly, I feel like the Yankees are getting some tough f’n breaks lately. (I just reread that last sentence and realized that should a hater happened to meander over to this blog, I may as well align myself with the Prince John of Nottingham, stealing pennies and such from all the deprived citizens and plotting the demise of the brave Robin Hood.)

That’s what I’d imagine anti-fans read when they see someone make a claim that the Yankees can’t catch a break. Additionally, I think I’d be not as averse to these haters having this image in their head if it was the Disney version of Robin Hood. With all the animals.

On a side note, I never understood why some animals are like humans but some retain their normal animal role. Like there can be a bear who’s a friar and he does all sorts of clergyman functions. But then there’s other animals who only have partly evolved. Like they can talk..but they don’t wear clothes. Or they still live in mouse holes. And birds, forget about it. Birds can’t even talk, they just chirp and help princesses hang things on clotheslines usually.

I don’t really remember where I was going with this, or how in God’s name I ended up talking about Disney rodents, but it’s comforting actually, because I feel like the whole work slowing down thing has enabled me to regain my manic baseball incomprehensibility. Yeah, I set the bar REALLY high for myself.

The point I’m pretty sure I was trying to make before I got distracted by dust is that the Yanks record is misleading. They are the best in their league (which is great!) but they have some moderate-to-severe issues in the line-up.

And sometimes rotation. I don’t know. Can anyone really pinpoint where the weakness is? It’s like looking at a fantasy team who’s so streaky and when you try to figure out why, you realize that your players are all really good, but not really good together.

To be clear, I’m not saying the Yanks of 2011 aren’t GOOD together, per se. But I do think they need to get their shit together in the clubhouse. I kind of just want to go one week without hearing about Arod kicking it with his banned cousin, or Posada complaining about something, or Jeter’s inexplicable ascent into snarky. (My sister, to her credit, has pointed out this trend before…).

The countdown to Jeter's 3000th hit continues with predictable overdone-ness. As my sister said, "Have you noticed how in the last 2 years every time they interview Jeter there's an increasing edge to his voice? Like he used to be Mr. Media and all smiles, and it's progressed into this undertone of 'Ok, yeah, I'm just trying to win, this isn't rocket science.'"

I just think maybe everyone’s cranky from losing. Or the heat. Or maybe they’re just 100% sick and tired of being scrutinized for completely meaningless crap? Jeter is seriously like on the verge of snapping, as evidenced by his reaction to the “Most Overrated Poll.”

SubwaySquawkers.com had a great take on this:

Here's the scoop.Erik Boland of Newsday describes the scene in the clubhouse yesterday, with Joba, who "won" the title last year, teasing A-Rod about it:

"I lost," Chamberlain proclaimed for the rest of the clubhouse to hear. "I got beat out. No. 2, though...I guess I passed the torch on to Alex."

Upon seeing Rodriguez enter the clubhouse, Chamberlain, surrounded by reporters, yelled at the third baseman.

"You’re next Al, you’re next!"

Here's how A-Rod reacted:

Rodriguez smiled for almost the entirety of the time he spent talking about the anonymous poll.

"I’ve been on this list before," A-Rod said before pausing and taking note of 3/5 of the list comprising Yankees. "So it’s three Yankees? So I’ll see you guys next summer again."

Rodriguez also poked fun at his past reasons for making headlines.

Players vote?

"I’m sure I’ll be on it next summer so I’ll try to come up with some better material for you guys," he said. "But, I will say this. If this is the only thing we’re talking about, fellas, we’re doing good."

Here was Jeter's reaction, which wasn't quite so jovial:

Jeter was not close to being amused.

"We're doing this again?" he said. "I have no comment on anonymous polls. I've never understood those anonymous polls."

He added: "It's the same thing they do every year, right? I'm focused on more positive things. How about that? There's your quote."

Discussing his chase of 3,000 hits later on, Jeter amended that.

"Consistency is underrated," he said, putting emphasis on "underrated." "That's the quote."

Jeter usually has the right thing to say, as in saying nothing while saying something, but I thought he came off as really cranky here. This poll, voted on by 185 MLB players, is the quintessential example of the "you're just jealous" sentiment. Yankees win every year (Jeter was just as perturbed when he "won" the honor a few years back), because players are jealous of the attention and money they get.

Yeah, seriously. Relax, Jeter.

Oh, jealous Yankee haters! Your complete lack of self awareness and your guileless disregard for telegraphing your raw envy is actually quite remarkable.

The loony tune fan of the day, however, goes to some dude who made the ill-advised decision outside of a bar earlier in the night to poke the bear. And by “poke the bear,” I mean he came over, interrupted a conversation I was having with someone else to say, “Are you a Yankee fan?”

(WHY do people ask this? As a courtesy before they inform you the Yankees suck? "No, I just wear the hat to throw people off. I like turtles.”)

Then without skipping a beat he launches into…wait for it…the PAYROLL RANT!

He was a self proclaimed "die hard Rays fan for life" (DHRFFL) and kept listing all the people he knows or met or whatever, as valid substantiation of his payroll claims. I hate non-Yankee fans, I swear. They make my head hurt.

“Listen, trust me. You only win because your payroll is so high. I’ve met George Steinbrenner a lot. I have season tickets to the Rays.” And then, he saves the most compelling argument for last, to really drive home his case. He kept saying over and over again how he dated the daughter of what sounded like “Jon Knee-Gree.”

OH! You dated HER?? Well, next time lead with THAT! Oh, yeah, no you're right. That definitely does effectively put the "buy their team" debate to bed once and for all.

(Of course, nothing ever EVER will top this for Dumbest Argument Ever Made).

And at first I’m mildly angry at myself because I have no idea who Knee Gree is but he says it like it's a name I should be impressed with, and I can’t dispute the validity of it. But then I remember I'm talking to little more than an animated wax sculpture, and figure that Mr. Knee Gree could very well be the DHRFFL's name for the king of his snail colony or something.

So looney tunes' closing remarks to me: “You. NO PATIENCE!”

What does that even mean? Like if I had just waited a little longer, he was eventually going to say something semi-coherent?

The whole city is nuts.

See you later for Game 2 at 9:05 tonight!

We’re going streaking!*

*Since I know my mom reads this and gives me an itemized list of things she finds inappropriate, I will clarify this by saying, I am not inviting anyone to strip down to nothing and run the streets of NYC. Instead, I am making reference to an earlier comment about how the Yankees are gonna go on a 6 or 7 game winning streak.

Turns out sweeping teams is still en vogue!

2011-06-02T10:46:00.003-04:00

Ah yeah, so here we are again! Back in business. Up where we belong. You know it's a good morning when your biggest problem is trying to decide which Youtube video to embed that best captures the feeling of being awesome again.

Thanks to Strange and the Southsiders for their well-timed, much needed sweep on the BeanSox. And thanks to the A's for playing dead for us. And thanks to TB for phoning it in against the Rangers.

Thanks to Swisher for the game-winning bomb that helped AJ snap his 11-game losing streak. (Which really sounds a lot worse than it is. If you look at the losses lining that skid, they were a lot of games that he just got robbed.)

And thanks to the Yanks for playing like the Yanks.

So Swish thinks he's supposed to lay down a bunt in the fourth, when the Yanks are down by 1, with runners on 1st and 2nd, no outs.

This is completely incomprehensible to me, by the way. The idea of ever giving Swish the bunt signal is on par with the idea of asking Hannibal Lector to prepare Easter dinner. It's going no where good, and it's going to make everyone sick.

I honestly don't remember the last time I saw Swish put down a bunt that didn't pop up 6 feet in the air. So instead of bunting, he swings away and hits his 4th ding of the season and plates 3--all the Yanks needed to put the A's down for what feels like the first sweep in centuries for them.

I was following the game on my computer at work, and at around the 6th inning I'm packing up, getting ready to call it a day, and my sister asks about the game, and I say, "the Yanks got this one, it's 4-2 in the 6th." And I realized with dismay that this is a completely ridiculous thing to say and that the days of safe leads are over. Grr.

But the days of Mariano Rivera being awesome are NOT over, for the record. I don't care how many blown saves he has. He's Mo. So it goes without saying that he is absolved of any mishaps, and exempt from any disappointment.

(Speaking of the Onion, is it me, or are the real news and the onion news starting to become indistinguishable? For example:

Weinergate: Rep. Weiner unsure if he's the man in lewd photo sent on Twitter feed, makes dirty jokes

(That's real.)

Blackhawks Attempt To Find Out Why Shark On San Jose Logo Is Eating Hockey Stick

(That's fake. And yet a completely valid question, really.)

Anyways, so back to the game of the Yankees persuasion. The Yanks who also play on fantasy team "Las Crisis Nerviosas" put up some stellar numbers for me, which did some damage control after I blatantly forgot to unbench pretty much everyone for the last 3 days.

I challenge you to give me something more disheartening than the feeling of looking at your neglected roster and discovering that a benched player went 5-for-5 with 3 bombs or pitched 9 innings with 16Ks, etc. It's just unassailable misery of the highest order.

A-Rod's double in the 1st scored Jeter, who continues to ride on the momentum of the 3000th hit countdown. (16 away!) and our pitching relief came through to keep the game and the A's at bay.

Joba pitched a scoreless eighth, Mo got 14th save in 17 chances (which really sounds a LOT better than calling out the 3 blown ones in the mix). It was his 1002nd appearance, tying Goose for 14th place all-time.

The A's whine a lot, btw. They're not very good against the Yankees and they pout and bitch to a Joe Maddon-esque extent. I guess it's not unwarranted. Their starter Gio Gonzalez allowed four runs five hits and four walks in 6 1/3 innings in this game as the three starters fell to 1-10 with a 7.24 ERA in their careers against the Yankees. Ha. That's bad.

Anyways, so congrats Yankees on the sweep on regaining the reign of the AL East!

It's good to be back. And just for the hell of it:

The Yankees are making things difficult

2011-05-29T09:54:00.004-04:00

I haven't written in what feels like ages, but for ONCE, it's not because of the "grind." I've been in Jacksonville, FL all week for the Wedding of the Century. Well, in my world anyway, it's the WofC. My world being the Washington & Lee contingent. And right now, my world does not include a tv station that plays the games.

HOWEVAH, the fact they're on the west coast is actually a blessing since game times are falling squarely in the "post-wedding-activities" portion of the evening, so I'm never faced with the rude possibility of checking scores mid party. Maybe that's why they scheduled it for this weekend!

So last night I'm following the game on the blackberry and the ESPN sports ticker, and my old roommate's husband's tells me, "The Yanks are winning, relax." And they are. 1-0. Then 3-1. Sweet! But then I remember that, wait a second, this sounds verrry familiar.

Can we do some research on how many LEADS the Yanks have blown this year? Seriously. I mean, in 2009, it was like a 5-run deficit for the Yanks almost all but guaranteed that they'd make a dramatic comeback in the 9th.

Last year was a little different.

And this year, it's a LOT different.

It's like watching the NY Rangers take a 3-goal lead or something. It's the kiss of death. So I see the Yanks are winning 3-1, and I remember seeing them winning 3-0 the night PRIOR to the M's, and I'm mostly thinking, 'Ok no chance lance that the boys are gonna screw this up again. I mean, if for nothing else, they're gonna take this game just to avoid to inevitable panic and ensuing humiliation of doing this 2 nights in a row."

But I guess not everyone shares my same palpable fear of public scrutiny and disappointment.

After a rousing game of that shuffleboard/knock hockey-esque game, I look up at SportsCenter.

And the Yankees are losing, 4-3.

Are you kidding me? Seriously?

What in GOD'S NAME are you doing?

The only runs the Yanks had scored at that point came off bombs from Cano and Tex, which--not to be a Debbie Yanks Fan Downer--but is anyone else getting less enthused about the dings and more concerned about the fact the runners LOB number is climbing so high that it's gonna start to need it's own ticker in Union Square soon?

Ugh.

The M's make a comeback. Again. And they do that whole manufacturing runs thing in the 4th inning, with a double from Olivo scoring Gutierrez and Kennedy, followed by a ribbie single from Ryan that scores Olivo, and there it is, it's 4-3.

And that's when I retreated back to the hotel room and proceeded to follow the game under my covers from the light of my blackberry.

It's obviously not ideal, but whether I'm seeing Granderson rope a triple on a live broadcast, or whether I see my browser refresh to change the screen to "Granderson tripes, Jeter scores"...well, it's still pretty great.

Woohoo! 4-4!

And I stayed like that, under the covers, on the floor of the hotel room due to an irrational aversion to sleeping in the same bed as my friends who I've known for like 23943 years, with the blackberry 2 inches from my face, reveling in the tied game and "comeback."

Until I fell asleep.

I woke up to Annee prying the phone out from under my head: "HOW DO YOU SLEEP THROUGH THIS?" (My alarm had been blaring for 20 minutes straight into my ear, and I hadn't stirred a muscle.)

And apparently, the Yankees didn't stir another muscle either.

I looked down at the phone. The Yankees had lost.

5-4.

In the 12th inning.

Because Mariano Rivera blew a save, giving up a single to Kennedy, and the Mariner's embarrass the Yanks again. The Seattle Mariners have won 9 of their last 10 games. They're streaking.

The Yanks are streak-y. They're like the embodiment of Hideki Matsui right now. You never know exactly how solid he's going to be for how long. But you know he's awesome, you just never know how the awesome is going to manifest itself.

That's pretty much all I got to say on this dismal subject right now. Oh yeah, and 4 fans ran onto the field last night. One streaker.

Streaking.
Streaky.
Streaker.

At least there's a certain symmetry? Nope, still not mollifying this series. Not at all.

BACK IN BUSINESS! Yanks end skid.

2011-05-18T13:24:00.004-04:00

Ok, that's more like it.

Supernova comes to save the day, and even though it seemed like every time I looked at the tv, there were at least 2 TB men on, the Yanks pulled it off, with the help of 2 bombs in the Trop from Arod.

And even Posada decided to come through! It's funny when that happens. I mean, I think about it, and sometimes with kids (or sadly, adults) they reach a point of such discouragement and frustration that they don't care about righting the ship. They almost WANT that malcontent and discord because otherwise they have to admit to themselves that, hey no one was out to get me, I was just screwing up.

(Remember last year when the Yanks were playing Boston and Beckett was pitching? It was early May.)

He had walked something like 7 batters by the 4th inning and everyone was giving him carte blanche to systematically knock out our entire batting order and a comped pass to go head hunting...all because it was bases loaded. And EVERYONE fell for it, except Leiter. At first everyone's all, "Well you know Beckett is obviously not intentionally hitting the batters because who would ever do that with bases loaded when it's only a 3-run game? He's just having control problems is all."

But crafty little Leiter saw through it. "You know, what kind of pitcher throws at batters with bases loaded? It just shows Beckett's lack of respect for the game and for his team. I mean, c'mon kid, you let up 3 or 4 runs and all of a sudden you're all pouty? Get over it and grow up."

Yeah, and that's kind of like how Posada was acting. He was playing poorly, which isn't really shocking because he's hovering around 89 years old. And instead of just taking his lumps like a grown-up, and moving to the bottom of the order, he took himself out of the lineup.

When I was younger and a little hellion, my dad and I used to butt horns ALL the time. My poor father. I was a rebellious pain in the ass, and would constantly try to draw the line in the sand and do my damnedest to be independent, etc. However, my dad would basically tell me that if I continue that line of thinking, I'm going to lose. And he was right as parents are want to be.

Branches that don't bend with the win, break. It's that simple. The people who control your life to some degree, you don't always have to agree with them. And they'll do things that piss you off. But if Jerry Macguire taught us anything, it's that stubbornly adhering to principle in the face of your superiors, goes nowhere good.

You just gotta suck it up, and do what they want sometimes. Because they're going to win.

And look! Posada gets in the game, has 2 big hits. I'm imagining the Steinbrenners being all, "Now doesn't that feel better than fighting? Say yes."

Alright, enough Posada talk. I don't want that rant to overshadow the fact that WAHOOO the Yankees end the skid!!

D-Rob was amazing, which he has been for most of the year. I was listening to Sterling call the game a month ago, and I remember he said, "And D-Rob gets the job done. You know, Suzyn. I've been saying that alot. Every time he comes in, and it's bases loaded and no outs, that's what he does! He gets..the job..DONE."

I agree. (Of course now that I've said that, he will likely give up 17 runs today or something.)

After the Yanks failed to score in the 3rd with runners on, and after Johnson takes Nova deep to make it 1-0, you know we were all like, "And it begins..."

But wait! Arod goes wayyy deep (438 ft) to center in the 4th. Then again in the 6th. And look at that, the Yanks are up 2-1.

My sister was cooking me dinner last night (delicious, btw), and we're watching the game, and whoaaa the Yanks are up, 4-1 in the 7th, after Jeter's fielder choice moves GGBG to 3rd and then subsequently home on a wild throw.

"Ok good, I feel better now," says Lauren.

And as soon as she said, she realized, "What the hell am I saying? This is the kind of lead they love to blow now!"

How sad is that? And painfully true.

And I hate, HATE thinking like that.

But they didn't blow it. Johnson's bomb in the 2nd, and Zobrist's RBI double would be the only times the Rays crossed home.

And hopefully, the last week will be the only time Yankee pessimism crosses my mind.

Time to makes things better again, boys. Tonight the Allergy faces the Prodigy (Britton) in Camden. The Yanks are 2 behind TB in the standings, and a mere .5 up on the Sux. A verryyy uncomfortable position.

Let's just keep riding bikes, and get the hell outta there (in the moving-up sense).

In more WINNING baseball news...

2011-05-17T16:03:00.002-04:00

UNDEFEATED.

(So far...)