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

THAT's the problem! Of course.

Really scraping the bottom of the barrel now, eh Boston?

That's the excuse I used in recreational softball games. If next week you use one of the following, you're officially more suited for a beer league:

• Hungover
• Got stuck on a roof the night before
• Forgot lucky bat to game
• Pitcher's throwing modified speed instead of slo-pitch
• Too bright out/sun's in eyes/who scheduled 11am start time anyway?

But at this rate, the chicks on the team would be batting before Ortiz. Even the girl who wore flip flops to the field who's only there because her boyfriend needed another female to avoid a forfeit.

Actually, I think I could make a strong argument for the success of my curse that I put on Fenway during a weekend trip there last October.

On Friday, October 3, I ate at "Bleacher Bar," which is a bar essentially on the field in Fenway. If it hadn't been located in the 7th circle of hell, it would have been a pretty cool concept. But if I had to be there, I figured I'd capitalize on being this close to the enemy HQ. Which wasn't easy since a Yankee fan in Boston blends in about as well as a Muppet in a Peter Jackson flick.

But I'm stealth.

And also, it's illegal to follow people into bathroom stalls, which is where I performed the curse ritual.

I needed something officially licensed by MLB, with the Yankees' logo on it, that I was willing to part with for the sake of the curse. Which ended up being the original Phiten necklace I wore as a bracelet, (which was promptly replaced and is that grayish looking rope on my wrist that inevitably ruins every outfit that I refuse to take off.)

If some construction worker was going to bury Sux gear on our soil, then I was going to put Yankee gear in theirs. Which I could only do by putting it in their plumbing system, but consider the results:

I did that on Friday, October 3. Going into the next game they played, Ortiz was batting .300. He went 0-4 that game, and then went .158 in the ALCS. And we all know what happened to him in 2009.

And the Red Sox didn't win the World Series. And won't ever again. Because I cursed them! Or at least I like to think I did, which is the same thing anyway.

If Ortiz wants to get his swing back to snuff, he should be prepared to exhume his jersey from hallowed Bronx ground and wrestle it away from the GNH ghosts who are probably using it as a rag to dust off their World Series rings..