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

WOOHOO! I take baseball for granted a lot, like the fact that I can watch it every single day. And not have to wait long weeks in between Sunday night games. I love the Yankees more than the Giants but I would never doze in and out of a Big Blue game, if I could help it. But when there's a 162 games on the queue, the call for high focus attention isn't at great. And sometimes that's kind of nice, to be able to just have the game on in the background while I pretend to be productive.

But in the last 3 games, there wasn't any periphery viewing going on. 3 nailbiters, 3 comebacks, 3 walkoffs. And on a particularly monumental day...

1.) Giambi's 14th inning walkoff GRAND SLAM against the Twinkies, 2002

Which I maintain is the backdrop for my bottle opener. I've listened to that thing open a lot of beers, and how many walkoff grandslams do the Yankees have to their credit? It's gotta be that game.

2.) Mariano Rivera's first save ever, 1996

What a cool cat.

3.) David Wells' perfect game, 1998

Boomer adds another magic notch to one of the best seasons in baseball history, by one of the best teams ever. I still will always be partial to the Don Larsen game though. Back in the day when announcers didn't do things like say, "CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS PITCHER HAS A NO HITTER GOING THROUGH 3 INNINGS?!! ....and here's the pitch...oh. Nevermind."

Another big win for the Yanks. After losing approximatly 240 home games in a row, we needed not only a few Ws in the BX, but more importantly, some Ws like that--games that maybe indicated some of those ghosts from across the road finally decided to cross the t's and dot the i's of their new lease. I hate moving, too. So I empathize.

And maybe the whole mystique/aura thing is overhyped superstition. But maybe it's not. One of my sister's professors at Georgetown said once in a theology class, regarding the belief in God, "Maybe there's no God. But if there is, you can only gain good things from believing in Him. And how does it hurt or burden you in any way to just make that leap of faith?" It's no skin off my nose to believe in the Yankee Stadium aura. So...welcome home, Ghosts!

Not sure why Cano wasn't in the lineup, but I wished I had known this sooner before I started him in both of my leagues. But his replacement, Little Pena, looked pretty sharp in there. He bobbled a ball but only after making a sick diving catch. God, I love the rookies. They're like interns. And although all the airtime in the highlights reel is going to Mauer's amazing game-saving play at the plate, the most spectacular move was absolutely at the hands of my favorite off-season acquisition in the last decade.

(I was seriously more excited about getting Teixeira than Arod. By a long shot. I remember working the coat check at Dorrian's that night, and the karaoke DJ introduced playing "New York, New York" with "MERRY TEXMAS, NY!" and the excitement and unbridled glee was just palpable. Which is hard for me to appreciate usually when I'm near suffocated with coats and fielding "I lost my ticket, but mine is the black wool peacoat.." nonsense.)

In the last 3 games, the boys have been reminding us why they pull more bank than us. ARod dunks another one past the fence. Burnett-brilliant, even after 8,231 pitches (career high). Even the bullpen managed to not suck, despite giving everyone 12 heart attacks in a row by not just loading the bases, but making sure that the first couple of pitches to every batter was a ball. It's a lot more exciting to make the count 3-0 with bases loaded, and then lock up the outs. Thanks. guys.

Aceves is, PUN INTENDED, aces. He's the best guy in the bullpen, I don't know why they don't go straight to him instead of messing around with whoever the hell Tomko is. And Phil Coke. Abidalsomething...they're just different iterations of my favorite RP of all time.)

Bruney and Wang are getting better. Our starters are going longer into the game so we don't need to rely on the hangover hole pen. Our batters...still not crazy about the idea of hitting with runners on. Not sure why, it's kinda like when Pee Wee saves all the animals in the pet store at the end of Pee Wee's Big Adventure and he keeps avoiding the snakes, til the very end.

That's kinda like the Yankees and Not Stranding Runners. They'll do walkoffs, dazzling pitching, great baserunning, not terrible relief...but are categorically averse to knocking in runs the old fashioned way.

I understand. I was like that with Calculus. I refused to take it, but since there was a math requirement in college, I had to take some other upper level course that my advisor strongly discouraged. But I put my foot down. No Calc.

Discrete Math 221 for me...solo dings for the Yanks.