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

See, today is a PERFECT example of why it's better to shut your piehole. Like a few years ago when the Mets when on a crazy run and were in first place for 75% of the year while the Yanks were floundering up until they made a crazy run at the 11th hour to win the Wild Card.

I had to spend most of the season listening to these cracked out Mutts fans harassing us about how much we suck, etc etc ad nauseum ad infinitum. And the worst part of the whole thing?

They were right.

We didn't have a leg to stand on. They were unstoppable, we were floundering. So the only thing we could do was take our lumps and dismiss them as worthless opinions by virtue of the sect that was disseminating such opinions. (NL. Not Legit.)

But then the inevitable happened. The hapless Yanks eeked into the playoffs and the dazzling Mets, who needed to win like 2 innings to secure a spot, wound up losing 4,192 games in a row to blow it.

And then it was open season.

It's not reasonable to completely desist from trash-talking all season. It's half the fun of being a fan. But tread wisely, because there's a fine line between garden-variety, run-of-the-mill rivalry ribbing...and over-the-top, crossing-the-line, hyperbolic berating. Unless your team wins the WS, be assured that anything you hurl out will come back to bite you in the ass.

(In the case of the 2007 Mets Collapse, I personally opted for the biting my tongue route. It was much more condescending and insidious to just give Mets' fans knowing smirks without saying a word. Because then all they could do was preemptively get defensive and nothing belittles someone quite like a desperate effort to fill empty air space--the spiraling descent that is talking yourself into a hole.)

So for the past few weeks, I've had to, inexplicably, listen to this parade of decrees about how Boston is the new reigning dynasty. And how the sun has set on the Yanks' time. We suck. Overpaid. Worthless.

Maybe to the feeble Boston fans, this type of empty rhetoric is gratifying. Because as evidenced by the 2009 season, the lion share of their aired baseball enthusiasm demonstrates a profound slant towards anti-yankee-ism, rather than pro-redsox-ism. (Don't even try to deny this, I can copy and paste the history of facebook statuses from any Boston fan I know that proves this beyond a shadow of doubt. Plus, it makes sense. What exactly would Boston fans be so fired up about right now in terms of their own team? Beckett? Ortiz? Manny? Exactly.)

But is this gratifying enough to gamble on not having a vulnerable day? Your jabs at NY are gradually progressing from annoying nuisance to aggravating imbecility to all-out infuriating. It'd behoove Boston fans to loosen their grip on their NY obsession..I'm sure Thomas J found it satisfying to retrieve Vada Sultenfuss's mood ring.. but he couldn't let it go. He had to go and kick the bee hive. And all those bees who were just minding their own business, in their OWN HOME, had to turn a blind bee eye to Thomas J's meddling about while he looked for the ring. But when he pushed it too far (it IS the bee's turf, after all), they swarmed in unrelenting attack.

(Relaaxx. It's not like that movie was a true story.)

And if nothing else, ALWAYS respect the 3-word golden rule:

IT'S F$@*-ING MAY!

So kick at NY for too long, as we'll muster up an unwavering patience just because we know you'll have a day like yesterday. When your fearful lineup could only summon up one infield single against Matt Garza and the last play Rays. When your defending championship basketball team lost to the 7th seed Bulls to make the series last exactly 3 more than it was expected to.

On a day when the Yanks won.

Maybe if one of those 3 hadn't happened, you would have been better off. But now all you can do is default to one of 2 things:

1.) Arod

2.) Bruins

Hey, Boston? Be more predictable.

(Over-under odds on how long before Cano is accused of steroids?)

..segue into Yankees...

Wait, no. First, I'm having a moment of silence for all the non-silence Boston has been effecting in their interminable rants on why the games the C's lost are fixed.

...

Done. Last night's game was another enjoyable one. Nothing spectacular but ripe with good indicators, like another everyone-gets-a-hit night. Melky and Cano continued to look hot. Their defense even looked like it was running on all cylinders, something I sometimes worry about with the A-Void at 3B.

What I envy about LAA is their manic baserunning habits that may have once stemmed from the human windmill at 3rd, but is now just so engrained into them that they're going for extra bases the second the leave the batter's box. And it looks like the Yankees, though tentatively, are shifting somewhat in that slightly aggressive mentality? Granted there was only 2 SBs from Melk, but the TBs for the night was respectable.

BUT NOT AS DELIGHTFUL AS THE 5 for 11 WITH RISP STAT!

This must be like what the judges feel like on American Idol when a contestant comes back after having an "abysmal" last week ("Not your best, dawg" "You need to sing more horizontally than vertically, you know?" "You're just like a plum in Cinncinati. Helicopter. Pole jump, girl!" "Um, well to be honest with you, it wasn't a good song choice.<>)

And then said contestant returns and takes ALL their advice to heart and blows them away with some perfectly executed, well-prepared number. And the judges are not just impressed with the performance itself, but with the contestant's reception to their critique.

They just like they're trying. And effort goes a long way in my book.

Coming Saturday...my first trip to the Stadium, after having both Unofficial Opening Day tix and Official Opening Day tix pulled out from under me. I'm more excited than the kids on Ghostwriter whenever they saw the orange floating ball that could only mean the fun wasn't too far behind!