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

These are 2 pieces about Andy Pettitte that I wrote when I covering the playoffs for the Village Voice. One of my all time favorite readers/Yankee fans is also one of Andy's all time greatest advocates, so these are for her. Cheers, Charmian!


From The Village Voice, October 19, 2009:

When you live by yourself, you can go hours without speaking. You don't realize it, but then sometimes you wake up on a Sunday after a baseball game and call your parents at noon only to discover you lost your voice.

Actually, "lost" isn't the right word. I know exactly where I left it...somewhere in the left field second tier of Yankee Stadium.

Game 3 of the ALCS is Monday at 4:13, so I'm figuring that it's a blessing in disguise that my voice is taking a personal day or 2. Because a day game means following the action at work. A day game means screaming and otherwise strident activity is prohibited.

(Unless I want to remove any lingering doubts about my emotional stability in the fall...)

After taking the first 2 of a 7-game series, the Yankees head out to Anaheim to face the Angels (who, for the record, are NOT in a must-win situation. Yet.) Saturday night's circus match-up left both teams exhausted, drained, and sluggish (which I think may have had something to do with the obscene number of errors put up.)

But it was the Yankees whose resource-depletion wasn't all for naught. Between both teams, 13 pitchers were used and 432 pitches thrown. I don't want to think about what would have happened if the game had to go another inning or two thus necessitating the need call upon our absolute final bullpen option, Chad Gaudin.

Let's hope the day and half of rest is enough for them to back up Andy Pettitte (14-8, 4.16) when he goes up against Jered Weaver (16-8, 3.75). I can't preview an Andy start without dedicating it to "WTCYC"...and of course, without mentioning that a win would set a record for pitcher with most postseason wins (16).

Andy P.

It was many and many a year ago,
In a borough by NYC,
There lived a pitcher who you may know,
By the name of Andy P.
And this pitcher he lived with no other thought,
Than to play for the team the Yankees.

He was a child and I was a child,
In this borough by NYC,
But he pitched with a fire that was hard to ignore,
The Yankees and Andy P.
With a spark that the bitter AL contenders,
Coveted our Andy P.

And this was the reason that long ago,
In this borough by NYC,
The Houston Astros stole him from us,
Our beautiful Andy P.
So that his southern kinsmen came,
And bore him away from me.
To shut him up in a NL club,
Far from the borough by NYC.

The agents, not half so happy with Yankees,
Went envying his pulchritude,
Yes! That was the reason (as all fans know,
In this borough by NYC),
That the Houston Astros came out of the south,
Wheeling and dealing our Andy P.

But our bond, it was stronger by far than the bond,
Of one on Houston's team,
Of one with Clemens' team.
And neither the roots in Texas's earth,
Or the pull of free agent trade,
Could ever dissever our boy from the Bronx,
Our beautiful Andy P.

For Frank never sings, without reminding us of rings,
Of the beautiful Andy P.
And his dynasty days, are coming back into play,
Our beautiful Andy P.
All his postseason nights, he continues to fight,
Our starter--Yanks' starter--an ace and our light.
In the home by NYC,
In the stadium near NYC...


Somewhere, Poe is rolling over in his grave right now. The ultimate indignity--a Boston native having his art spliced up into a Yankee ode. (Although, this guy probably has it worse...)

Hopefully our boy can continue the Yanks' postseason run on Monday. If nothing else, the weather conditions should a be a bit more comfortable. (I wonder if they would rather play in perfect weather on the road or freezing torrential downpour at home? I'm guessing the latter, but if someone asked me the same question, I'd rather watch the game from the bad guys' house. But then again, this could be the voiceless-achy-sore-quasi-sick-thanks-to-freezing-rain-for-3-innings part of me talking.)

The Yanks have a good chance to go up 3-0 depending on how well their pitching holds up. If Pettitte can go deep into the game, Girardi can take advantage of the fact Joba and Hughes were only lightly applied to Saturday's game. By the same token, the Yanks need to continue their erosion of Anaheim's starters, chasing them early so they can feast on their pen.

Weaver is hit or miss on the mound, but it almost seems like he's lately developed this aggressive assurance that makes him think he can attack batters with his 4-seamer. I'd love to see him "attack" the Yanks' 0-9-line with his innocuous low 90's heat.

The Angels' line-up is only batting .158 in the ALCS to New York's .288. Neither team has been particularly overpowering on offense, so this game may be the one where everyone resumes their true identity and bannishes these multi-error/hitless impostors. There's no rain to blame it on.

But never underestimate Joe Buck and Tim McCarver. As far as they're concerned, every ump call has been "blown," with each one altering the outcome of the game. Also, the World According to T-Mac contends that:

"Something doesn't look right with Mariano Rivera."
"The threat of a steal is worse than the steal itself."

Or my personal favorite, from Friday night's play at first:

"Torii Hunter had the best view of it, and he was sure he was safe!"

I think T-Mac would be better served to point fingers at Vladimir "King of the Menacing Stare Down" Guerrero, who is 2-for-11 in the series, having left 10 runners on base in the two games, while striking out four times.

Or, you know, I guess we could stick with his airtight logic. We could also have high school students score their own SAT exams.

Time to go up 3-0, Yanks. A-Rod did his part to exile the choker broken record. Now would be a good opportunity to do the same for the 2004 ALCS headache.

BEAT L.A.

And from the October 24, 2009 Village Voice:

Ahhh, it feels good to be back in the Bronx. (I say that as if I was the one traveling across the country to play in Anaheim, but it's more like sympathy jetlag. It feels so good for the Yankees to be back.)

I may or may not have this same sunny disposition when I'm sitting in the left field bleachers in 3 hours, soaked to the bone, freezing, and packed like sardines in a hi-tech tin can, as we wait for the inevitable rain delay to run its course.

But patience isn't one of my strong suits, so given the choice of sitting through monsoon and getting the game in today, or postponing Game 6 of the ALCS til lovely Sunday afternoon...well, I'd just like to finish off the Angels as soon as possible. Do your worst, nature.

UPDATE, 6:54PM: GAME CALLED, RESCHEDULED FOR SUNDAY NIGHT AT 8:20PM.

Well, uh, you got me this time, Nature. But I'll be back, I'll get you in the next round, Gadget!

Ok, well, a look at what's going down tomorrow night:

After losing 2 of 3 in Anaheim, the Yankees return to the Bronx where they need to win 1 of 2 in order to advance to the final showdown with the Phillies, who have been patiently waiting for their AL competition to be determined.

And after getting all decked out in my rain-resistant best, hopped up on adrenaline et al, I find out the game's cancelled.

Is there anything worse than sitting through rain delays? ("Stepping in dog shit," deadpans my dad. Uh, touche.) Last Saturday, my buddy asserted that he'd be ok with sitting through a storm as long as he knew it was going to end in a walk-off win. Well, yeah, I'd be ok with sitting through the director's cut of Sex and the City, a ballet, war, and 108 degree heat while wearing a wool turtleneck...if I knew it was going to end in a win.

Is is for the best? Probably. I mean, I have to now do laundry tonight, since I consider an article of clothing dirty the second it leaves the drawer, and I have to wear the same Good Luck Outfit tomorrow. The trials and tribulations of being an OCD freak during the playoffs.

Well here's what the game was going to look like tonight (as it will tomorrow, only sans the miserable buckets pouring down on the field)...

The Yanks send postseason vet Andy Pettitte (14-8, 4.16) up to face Joe Saunders (16-7, 4.60). Once again, we're all mired in do-or-die pitching tautologies. "If goes to Game 7, then Lackey pitches against CC, but if we win Game 7 then we're CC-less for Wednesday..." etc etc.

These are immaterial and perhaps made sense in Games 1 and 2, but in the tail end of the second most important series of the year, we're playing every game like there's no tomorrow. (Actually, from the looks of the sky right now, there actually may not be a tomorrow. To quote from my mom, "Tsk..some poor girl is getting married today..." And some poor fiance is missing the game.)

I'll be back tomorrow with more game insights before I head to the stadium, but for now, here's a little Andy Pettitte music to soften the cruel blow of a baseball-less evening:

I remember all my life
Rainin' down as cold as ice
Shadows of the ghosts,
An ace on a mound
Pitchin' in the night
The night goes into

Extras, just another game
Other Yank fans feel the same,
Lookin' in their eyes
I see a memory
We feel it coming
How happy you made me, oh Andy!

Well, you came and you pitched without walkin'
And you gave us the win, Oh Andy!
Well, you deal and you whiff without balking,
And I need you today. Oh, Andy!

I'm standing on the edge of clinch,
One more win, you're gold in a pinch,
Caught up in a world of pennant chasing,
The title in our grasp
And nothin' is rhyming, oh Andy!

Well, you pitched and you blanked all the batters,
When we gave you the nod, oh Andy!
And the postseason win record shattered,
And I need you today, oh Andy!

Last game's all done,
We face the Game 6,
Cheering the close out,
The World Series is calling, oh Andy!

Well, you pitched and you came through as always,
And we knew you'd do so, oh Andy,
Well you pitched without ceasing to amaze,
And I need you today, oh Andy!

If it weren't for Facebook, I wouldn't know any current events whatsoever. Not that I know anything about them NOW, but at least with Facebook, I know they exist. Like something called Kony. Prop 8. Sopa. I still have no idea what these things are, but I know they incense pretty much everyone. (Which is why I don't bother learning what they are. Who wants to be mad?)

Whitney Houston. Amy Whinehouse. Michael Jackson. Farrah Fawcett.
Kris (7:28:53 PM): michael jackson died??

Laur (7:29:28 PM): yes. and farrah fawcet :(

Kris (7:30:19 PM): whos that

Laur (7:31:15 PM): the former sec of defense

Kris (7:32:41 PM): ha i was way off i thought she was woody allens daughter

Kris (7:59:01 PM): thats not true

Yeah, so when Andy Pettite anounced he was coming back, it was a race to see who could break the news first. But since Yankees.com send me emails pretty much 12 times a day, they get the nod for being the first to let me know that our boy #46 is back in the fray.

And when I went out last night everywhere I looked there was someone primed to assert his feelings on the subject. Probably my favorite part about having lived in the same neighborhood in the upper east side for so many years is the fact I can walk into a bar and know most of the people there and as such our fervor about the Yankees--good or bad--becomes a pooled body of fever pitch.

It is difficult, however, to share some of their enthusiasm about this. 7 starters seems a bit excessive. And from what I understand and from what I've read on the subject, this decision was brought on by the wistful envy of watching the team play in Tampa. He misses playing.

Understandable. Who wouldn't? Who goes to alumni weekend in college and thinks, "Thank God I'm done with THIS part of my life"? No one. (Or you wouldn't have gone back to visit in the first place.) Who looks at 5 year olds playing in the sandbox and thinks, "Life is so much easier now that I don't have to worry about getting sand in my bellybutton."

No one.

It's normal, but it doesn't mean you should necessarily entertain these whims. I mean, there's a reason the bouncer shot me down after I waited on line for a good 15 minutes at a street fair's giant inflatable castle thing last year. I'm too old to be jumping in that thing, and I could hurt myself or hurt one of the kids.

I hope Andy doesn't hurt anything, but unless we win the World Series this year, he's not going to have the beautiful swan song of leaving after the '09 championship.

I will concede that this is nothing like Posada leaving, who was clearly held together by paper and string by the time he took himself out of the mix. He left not a moment too soon, and in terms of the bittersweetness of it, I'd parse it at 15% bitter, 85% sweet.

Andy, however, was not showing those same signs of rackety age. He was brilliant in the World Series--not in a young fireball kind of way, but in a seasoned aplomb with classic talent kind of way.

Maybe I don't know enough about the whole story, but you tell me Andy's returning to the rotation, and unless he's returning with a mechanical arm and with the benefit of that Death Becomes Her treatment, my first reaction is that you're gonna have to leave the table at some point. And it's better to do so when you haven't lost your distinctive graces.

Which is why I'm going to reprint an article I wrote after the Phillies won the World Series a few years back, when Moyer was wrestling with whether to retire or not.  You know how many times I hear in the girls' bathroom of a bar "I don't know, do you think I should text him?" Like, a million times. And the answer is always the same: "No."

Just as their dismissal of this advice is always the same. Like Oscar Wilde said, "The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it." But if you have to ask if you should text him, and if you have to question your return from retirement, maybe it's not the best idea to move ahead with it.

The Bleacher Report article from October 31, 2008:

If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.”—Orson Welles

My dad tells this story of his friend’s big night at the craps table in Vegas. It was one of those scenes that generally doesn’t exist in reality—the casino’s population all concentrated around this one table, my dad’s friend spurred on by the rallying cries of everyone around him.

He was holding court, throwing more and more colored chips on every space of felt left on the table, which at that point looked like the streets of New Orleans at the height of Mardi Gras. The story is legendary, as the entire table was up thousands of dollars.

The thing with craps that I never understood is the feverish disappointment when the hero tossing dice inevitably rolls a seven and everyone craps out. What did everyone think was going to happen? What if he leaves the table when he was still hot and setting the world afire? Would we nod understandably or reproach his cowardice?

An athlete like Jamie Moyer, for example, can either watch his team record the final out to capture their first World Series title in 28 years, get all his teammates to write down their email addresses so he can stay in touch, and drop off his 2008 World Series Champion uniform at the dry cleaners before heading home to watch “The Shield” on DVR.

Or he could parlay the glory of capturing a title into next season, and maybe for as many seasons as it takes him to rack up another 54 W’s. Maybe October 29, 2008 handed Moyer the ideal opportunity to cash out his chips. But it also could have reinforced everything he loved about the sport, enough to make him let his winnings ride.

At 46 years old, Moyer is teetering on the brink of Kevin Brown-status. Although I can’t speak with any authority (barely an educated guess, really) on what’s going through Moyer’s mind right now, the issue of whether to return next season most likely is making some kind of cameo.

To assist him, I’ve sifted through some case studies on athlete retirement and unretirement, assigning each impressive instance of career waffling with a highly coveted award to commemorate it.

The winners are…

The Britney Spears “Gimme More” Award for Juggernaut Comeback that Flatlined at Mediocrity

Michael Jordan. He should have stopped after comeback No.1, when he shed he minor league baseball pipe dreams in favor of leading the Bulls to 3 straight titles. Did anyone think anything good was going to come out of comeback No.2? Seriously. Besides the Wizards, anyway.



The Melvin Udall Redoing his Kiss to Waitress Carol at End of “As Good As It Gets” Award for Leaving Retirement to Finish Career the Way He Wanted To

George Foreman. Came back from second retirement to reclaim the heavyweight title at age 45, the one he had lost to Ali 20 years earlier. “I know I can do better!”


The Bill Clinton’s Second Term Award for Unretiring only to become Mired in Controversy and Scandal

Roger Clemens. Ugh. Told us all he was retiring after the 2003 season. Then the back page of New York papers were reading “What an Astro!” I don’t even know how many times he announced retirement since then. A lot, though. He comes back to the Yankees, pitches about as well as Aaron Heilman, and then becomes the center of a media steroids circus. And throws in some adultery charges for good measure.





The Michael Myers Award for Continually Resurfacing to Torture the Sports World

Jose Canseco. I used to love this guy, too. My first baseball hat was an Oakland A’s hat. Now look at him. He’d have been better off skipping the Juiced tell-all and just going straight to center square of Hollywood Squares. If I were an active player, I’d live in fear my name would be the one that the peg landed on when Canseco did his daily spin of the Steroid Accusation Wheel.





The Michael J. Fox Award for Unretiring with Flying Colors After Medical Hardship

Mario Lemieux. Retired because of lymphoma, then later returned to re-establish his dominance, netting the second highest number of goals that year. Also saved the Penguins from bankruptcy and now remains the team’s principle owner.




The Elizabeth Berkley in “Showgirls” Award for Bold Comeback that Ended in Humiliation

Muhammad Ali. Comeback No.1: Marked by the epic Joe Frazier fights. Comeback No.2: Came back only to be handed his ass and dignity back to him by Larry Holmes




The J.D. Salinger Award for Consistent Success With Every Re-emergence

Phil Jackson. Called it a day in 1998 after topping off the second of the Bulls two three-peats. Returned to the game a year later to coach the Lakers, taking them to their own three-peat before calling it quits again. Returned to the Lakers the following year and brought them to the Finals two years after that.



The Paul McCartney Award for Playing Well After His Body Had All But Given Up, Making Fans Collectively Plead at the TV to Just Put Himself Out of His Misery

Patrick Ewing. By the end of a dominant career with the Knicks, he was dragging his leg around like Kathy Bates had had a go at it. He had been tough, formidable, and obscenely talented. His fans could recognize he was physically done and just wanted to fast-forward to the number-retiring ceremony.



The Bill Cosby Award for Retiring and Unretiring With Immunity on Account of Good Guy Status Combined with Lifetime Achievement

Lance Armstrong. Good for him. He beat cancer. He won the Tour-de-France a record-breaking seven times. But tread lightly, buddy. They’re gunning for you.



The ESPN Sports Guy Bill Simmons Award for Converting Innocuous Charm into Self-Important Irritation so That Fans Gave Up Hoping He’d Retire and Just Flat Out Ignored Him

Curt Schilling. Please go away. Please, please, please. Or at least get fitted for one of those metal plates that Beetlejuice threw over Geena Davis’s mouth to keep her from talking.


The “Sister Act” Award for Unretiring to Coach A Bunch of Unguided Misfits into Glory

Bill Parcells. After spinning the mess of the Giants into three division titles and an 8-3 playoff record, Parcells retired.

Comeback No.1: Coaxed out of retirement. Within two years, led New England to first playoff appearance in eight years, then three years later led them to first Super Bowl. Left to coach Jets and similarly whipped them into shape.

Comeback No.2: Was lured out of retirement again to coach Cowboys who were coming off three straight seasons of 5-11 play. Led ‘Boys to three winning seasons.

Comeback No.3: Unretired for the ultimate challenge—the Miami Dolphins. Good luck.


The "Sopranos" Series Finale Award for "Wait, what? THAT'S how it ended?" Retirement

Barry Sanders. After 10 years playing for Detroit, he decided it was time to retire. And by retire, I mean fax a letter to hometown newspaper announcing he was done. One of the best running backs in NFL history, he left with 15,269 rushing yards, 2,921 receiving yards, and 109 touchdowns (99 rushing and 10 receiving)—just inches from breaking the all-time rushing record.

It’s a little like how my dad will stay up with me to watch an extra-innings game. And then in the 16th inning, with bases loaded and two outs, he’ll get up and announce he’s going to bed.



The Samuel L. Jackson in “Snakes on a Plane” Award for future HOF-er Joining a Comedic Mess

Brett Favre. After retiring in 2008, Favre unretired only to discover he was persona non grata in Green Bay. He got traded to the New York Jets who, as per usual, straddle the fine line between fortifying momentum and frantic disarray.


The New Kids on the Block Award for “This is gotta be a joke, right?” Improbable Return that Still Makes My Head Spin

Ricky Williams. Retired because it was easier than having someone else pee in a cup for him every time he got randomly drug tested. Unretired and apologized profusely to all his fans…only to fail drug test No.29,108 less than a year later. This back and forth of reinstatement-drug policy violation went on for the better part of a decade. And now he’s back on the Dolphins. Hey, why not?



“The Bob Newhart Show” Series Finale Award for The Ultimate All-Time Retirement Swan Song

Michael Strahan. After the Giants won the Super Bowl, I remember saying to my friend Rob, “I’m scared that I’ll be at the altar of my own wedding someday and think, ‘Yeah, still not even close to as happy as I was on February 3, 2008.’” I couldn’t even fathom a situation that could manufacture the same degree of euphoria I felt that night. And I have to assume Michael Strahan felt the same way when he announced his retirement shortly thereafter.



* * *

I can’t presume to know what goes on in Jamie Moyer’s head or any other athlete who’s confronted with the issue of retirement. The only thing I can compare it to is when I’ll go to the park and shoot the old b-ball around.

Of course, after about an hour of this, my arms are about as strong as the inflated tubemen outside a car dealership. So it’s really anyone’s guess where the ball’s gonna land.

That’s around when I start saying to myself, “Ok, hit this three and then call it a day.” (Which soon becomes, “ok, just bank in this layup…”) Eventually, I’ll hit some nothing-but-net beauty, and instead of making good on all my deals with myself, I’m overly encouraged by this one shot and mistakenly think I’ve hit my stride.

The only thing I’ve ever hit is a number of deadened nerve endings from forcing my body to toss up what now feels like a watermelon.

If I multiply that sentiment by about infinity, I can begin to come to terms with athletes who refuse to give up the game, who won’t just throw in their cards, tip the dealer, and leave.

Deciding when to leave the table is about as critical decision as there is. It’s looking at the Jager shot on the bar after five hours of drinking, knowing that it could either make or break you.

It’s a decision that forces the athlete to consider who exactly he’s playing for: himself or the fan who financially supports him. Whose opinion is more compelling? We rally around our heroes and pride in their successes, as if we have a degree of equity in their glory, in exchange for the high price of emotional investment.

So when they crash, our anger is palpable, draining, and unforgiving. But how far can they take us, or will they take us? And what’s worse—when our heroes abandon us by choosing to retire…or when they stay at the party too long and go from star karaoke singer to the clingy, helpless drunk?

These aging heroes may not even consider what unretirement will potentially do to their legacy. They’ve seen their images go every which way in the course of their careers, so the threat of it being tarnished is eclipsed by the draw of once again suiting up.

Why do we return to our alma maters for alumni weekend? How often do you pass a little league game and think what you wouldn’t give to be the one playing instead of the one on the other side of the fence.

The vise grip of competition keeps us clamped to the table so securely that the win/loss chip count isn’t as important. When my dad comes back from poker night, he’s not giving us the rundown of how up or down he went. He’s going a mile a minute on his buddies Reilly and Danny and Harold and Dorey. He’s swearing off the game or singing its praises. He’s just happy.

So maybe when it comes to retirement, the only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it. Leave the table too early, and you’ll always feel cheated. Leave too late—well, at least you’ll have the stories.

Everyone’s gotta crap out eventually. Except my dad’s friend in Vegas, who actually was escorted from the casino before his legendary roll ended…once cameras caught him urinating in the cup ledge. No one could figure out why he didn’t just use the nearby bathroom, until he explained it:

“You NEVER leave the table when you’re hot.”

Stay tuned for Part III of Wrapping Up the Off-Season, when I hit sunny Florida for spring training next week...

You outgrow almost EVERYTHING. Clothes. The intense desire to lose teeth. The legit disinterest in romance. But, just as I still delight in eating a sleeve of Mallomars for breakfast just as much as I did when I was 5, I also have the same complete inability to wrap my head around time continuums. And I'm not talking about time in a Stephen Hawking, crazy dimensional kind of way.

I'm talking about the time of attitude that was rampant when I was coaching youth soccer. I would trek up to the field (the old Yankee Stadium parking lot) every Saturday morning at 8am, and just pray and pray that today wouldn't be the day that everyone decided to show up at once. "Is today....Jimmy Shakar day?" style.

Because I just flat out couldn't handle taking someone out of the game. The only time someone would willingly leave the field is if he got thirsty. But, I swear, if his shoe was filling up with blood and the soccer ball had lodged itself in the kid's GI tract, telling said boy "Ok, let's just sit out for a minute while someone else gets a chance to play" was the same thing as saying, "THIS IS THE END OF SOCCER FOR YOU AS WE KNOW IT."

Nothing NOTHING exists beyond the immediate moment. So trying to convince an 8-year-old that the benching is only temporary and is not some kind of Russian Roulette game I like to play, was like trying to convince my dad to evacuate Long Beach during Hurricane Irene. "I'm not leaving. I have a flashlight. End of story."

My point is that you like to think that after 20, 30 years you get a handle on the whole "foresight" thing. The "patience" thing. But right now, with the Yankees' first game a month away, it may as well be 4 months away. It feels like it's never going to get here, and while I rejoice like an newborn rhino, when Pitchers and Catchers Day rolls around, I think these spring training games are making the wait even more tortuous.

It's like being on a 6 hour flight and then landing only to have the pilot static and uh his way through a "we're going to be taxi-ing here for a little bit folks, keep your seat belts on" heartbreaker. You're there. You can throw a stone at the airport. But all you can do is sit there and be patient and wait for another 30 minutes, after you've already weathered an expanse of time 12 times longer than that. But it's different when you're so close because I can see it, but it's not really what I'm after.

I'm after April 6.

The first time the Yanks are really back.

And then April 13.

The first time the Yanks are REALLY back.

And in the meantime? In these remaining days of wait? I'm watching baseball.

And licking my chops. (Pause?)

And realizing that this year is going to be a circus. I know, I know. Spring Training doesn't mean anything. WELL IT DOES TO ME.

Since I'm categorically averse to (and I think incapable of) writing any kind of lucid analysis on off season story lines that I'm barely invested in, here's a topline of what's jumped to the forefront. (I'm sorry, I've just never been able to stir myself up in a tither about prospects who no one has ever seen play in a Major League Game, so farm league reports have never really been in my wheelhouse.)

But these line items are:


Bobby Valentine

What an idiot. Seriously. The Yank-Sox rivalry is really fresh material. And putting your stake in the ground, establishing yourself firmly in opposition to the Yankees, is an ingenius way of rallying the fans and creating instant loyalty. If they were cartoon high schoolers, then yes, this would have been a brilliant PR move.



Maybe it's the fact that I've never really been able to hear his name without picturing "Teen Beat" magazine, but the evidence is really mounting against Bobby Valentine's legitimacy. I think the triteness of his comments irked me more than the comments themselves. It's like a new stand-up act at a comedy club that opens his bit with "So what's up with Sarah Palin? Dumb, right?"


AJ Burnett.

Sigh.

I don't know who I feel worse for, him or the Pirates. I can only imagine how the Pirates feel, since I know all too well that feeling of making the token "WHOA. REALLY?" move during a fantasy draft. Or even mid-season. Like Jason Giambi or something. Who picks up Jason Giambi? Someone does, because the feeling of acting like you totally saw it coming (should he do something remotely good) is worth more.

You're really pulling for him, for that chance to bask in your own brilliance. And then he gets some kind of annoying ass quasi-injury that puts him day to day, and you never know what the hell his status is, whether you should drop him and cut your losses or hold out, because fantasy players almost always reward that kind of loyalty with a huge payoff.

Sweet Christ, AJ. I guess we gotta give him credit for his determination, and come on, can you really fault him for trying to iron out the trouble-spots in his game before the season started? Think of how many more quality starts he would have had last year if his bunting had just been up to snuff. It makes sense that that would be at the top of his "To Fix" list. And by "makes sense," I mean it makes sense to someone who has historically demonstrated an inability to accurately gauge situations:

(From June 27, 2010):

A.J. Burnett's struggles on the mound continued with his shortest outing of the season. The right-hander (6-7) gave up six runs and six hits in three-plus innings, walked six and struck out five. He's 0-5 with an 11.35 ERA in his past five starts.

"My command got away from me in the third. I had it early. I had unbelievable stuff. I had velocity, I had movement and I had a good hook," he said. "What it comes down to right now is the fact that I have to relax a little bit and have some fun out there. But it's hard to do right now."

(No joke, I was ust about to say "I like where his head's at," but then got lost in thought about the near certainty of someone interpreting a line like this as "So now you're saying you like putting people's heads into baseballs. Nice. Real nice.")



The Mets

Is it possible that the Mets, a bigger joke than any other team in the league, have landed on "Maybe if we really accentuate each element of our ludicrous nadir of disarray, we're bound to imitate the fate of Hollywood's Cleveland Indians" as a viable course of action? Ok, actually that's not fair. I'm not even talking about the players, just the idiots at the helm who are mired in a Madoff-related lawsuit.

Which, to Scott Boras, seemed like the perfect time to chip in his few cents:

Boras: Big markets pay up or change owners
Asked about the Mets slashing payroll, Scott Boras said big market teams should spend their money.

My first question is, WHO? Who exactly asked Boras for his thoughts on the Mets slashing payroll? Who thought "I'd like to hear Boras weigh in because it's important we put the question to bed on what side of the fence he's really on."

So, yes, to be clear. Boras thinks his players need more money.

(You know how morbidly obese people shouldn't be assholes? Because they run the risk of someone retailiating with the below-the-belt, "Ok, you took it too far, so now I gotta point it out: you're a buffalo"? So given that mentality, why isn't Wilpon just looking blankly at Boros and saying all that, except replace "You're a bufflo" with "Oliver Perez.")


AL Predictions


So far I've heard how the Royals are gonna be the team to beat in the AL, along with Toronto giving the AL East a run for their money. Also, the Orioles are getting screwed with the toughest opening 6 weeks of schedule, in the whole American League. (I love when people start raising eyebrows at professional sports schedules. It's not like they're sticking the Orioles with games that start at 3am. They're sticking them with other baseball teams.)

So, yeah, these are all great predictions that make me think some of the ESPN writers compose their stories like they're just updating their facebook status or something.


Where heads are at

Yanks beat University of South Florida in an exhibition game, 11-0. Which seemed...excessive. But, what can you do? Our minor leaguers were keeping them to 4 hits, it's not like a basketball game where you just stop running up and down the court. I guess there's no mercy in the Yankees dojo. All business.

Conversely, there's talk about how Papelbon won't be allowed to use "Shipping Up to Boston" when he's coming out of the Phillies' bullpen. The Red Sox (or their esteemed house band of Dropkick Murphies, anyways) are focusing on all the most important things.

Not unlike when I first moved into my apartment, and my mom looks around at the completely empty space, and says, "You know what you need to get? A paper towel holder."



Part II to come...

“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….

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!

"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

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.