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

10 years ago today, David Cone pitched the 16th perfect game in Major League history on a day where Don Larsen and Yogi Berra were the cermonial pitch battery mates. I get goosebumps thinking about it.

So yesterday when I woke up, I had some problems putting my finger on what day we were on.



Today wasn't a whole lot different.



I woke up at 8am on the couch with all my clothes on in a position that looked like I was imitating an upside down tarantula. And I wonder why my ACL isn't healing as fast as it should be. All the lights are on, NY1 happily chirping on the tv, and little Mariano Rivera (the cat) is looking at my quizzically, as if to say, "The first 10 times you didn't make it to your bed were weird and lonely. Now I'm wondering if you just don't like sleeping with me anymore. If it's a matter of putting a cease and desist on my habit of treating your back like a stairmaster, then we can work on that..."


And my first thought upon coming to my senses (I use "senses" very loosely), was "Uh-uh. No way. I'm not falling for this one again, the old 'make-Kris-think-it's-a-weekend-when-she-should-be-getting-ready-for-work' gag. I already fell for that once yesterday."


I shower, get dressed, and head to work.


.....


What the hell is wrong with me.


It really shouldn't be that hard. 5 days in the work week. 2 days in the weekend. Same pattern every week, and has been the entire 6 years I've been out of college. But for some reason, it's been getting more and more tricky coming to terms with this.

However, going to work and realizing it's a Saturday is infinitely better than lounging in front of the tv for an hour on a Friday. before realizing it's not Saturday.

And so began my day.

My recap is over here on Pinstripe Alley.

And then there's the Yankee game. On a day when Cone's perfection anniversary saw a brilliantly executed rubber match, pitching almost stole the show for the afternoon.

Almost.


But on Valentine's day 5 years ago, the Yankees acquired Alex Rodriguez.


And today, he recorded his 18th long ball of the season to put a comforting digit up on a scoreboard that had spent 7 innings hosting fat zeros for both New York and the Tigers.

Which means that more than 75% of the dings he smashed this year have been during games with run differentials of 2 runs or less.


Looks like Harvard and MIT are gonna be working overtime tonight to splice up some new stats proving their treasured choker theories.


Justin Verlander and CC Sabathia honored the anticipated "rubber match" billing, with the former suffocating the Yankees' bats to 3 hits, and the latter being somewhat less graceful in his own blank-fest. Both aces left in the 7th, with CC nailing 4Ks and Verlander, 6. But the score only looks as tidy as it does because of CC's resolute grittiness in response to Detroit's effortlessly stifling pitching. It was like watching Jerry O'Connell and Corey Feldman get into a no-flinching staring contest in "Stand by Me."


"Fatso struggling," my buddy texts me. "Why the hell doesn't someone feed the hungry bastard?"


It stands to reason that someone in the dugout slipped our fiercely tubby southpaw a plate of wings, because the choppy battles of the first few innings morphed into dialed in, 1-2-3's at the tail end of his outing. Which was a perfect time to bring in Alfredo Aceves to bridge the gap to ol' faitfhful. Despite letting up a solo shot to Marcus Thames, Aceves worked 2Ks with a variety of pitches that danced around th plate and made it understandable why "starter" comes to mind.



Understandable, but not recommended.


The offense was only marginally more productive than Detroit, but it was enough. As tough as CC demonstrated himself to be, the firecrackers in the lineup gutted it out in kind. Melky Cabrera's 2-out RBI was a hair from being the 3rd out, but beat out the throw (sort of) with the help of Nick "If I can't offer valuable baserunning to the team, then maybe I can offer value to another baserunner" Swisher, who did a a commendable job creating a diversion.


This brought in the second run which would prove to be the game winner, and while the rest of the order was being carved up at the plate, Derek Jeter dunked in base hits at his first 2 at-bats.

After his game saving shot yesterday, Mark Teixeira went 0 for 3 ALL ON STRIKEOUTS, including one cut that launched the bat 5 rows into the stands. No one was hurt, and it brought back memories of little scrappy Brett Gardner before he knew how to grip a bat. (ARod had a little trouble with the wood, too, and inexplicably threw the bat in a bizarre burst of aggressive frustration over a strikeout. Cmon, Alex. You just went yard. Go a little easy on yourself, buddy.)


So the Yankees grab an important Game 2 of the series, and more importantly, they once again won with the least amount of faculties. No bullpen was depleted. No one got hurt. No one overdid it. People always are always lionizing the Tyler Hansbroughs of the world, glorifying people who give 110% etc.


But there's really something to be said for the opposite. The alpha dogs gunning at full speed every game have to hit a wall at some point. Just ask Bill Belichik. But the team that uses the least amount of resources to lock up success? Ask the Yankees.


(Or ask them after tomorrow's game. A matchup of Joba Chamberlain [4-2, 4.25] against Edwin Jackson [7-4, 2.52].may be the exact reason the Yanks have been more economical than a grandmother who scurries around after parties saving the wrapping paper.)




A couple of other additional notes:

On a Yankeeography commercial for Mike Mussina, they're showing all these brief snippets of talking heads commentary on the pitching prowess of Moose. The ad ends with a voice I haven't identified saying, "Mike Mussina is the type of pitcher that when he takes the mound, you know you have a chance to win."



Hm.


That's, uh, quite a ringing endorsement. If that's what they're using to promote the show, I can't imagine what the rest of the program sounds like: "Mike's a good guy, he's the kind of guy you want on your team so the roster is an even 40 instead of 39."



Old Timers' Day is tomorrow, and Mike Mussina shall be in attendance. Wow. This makes me think of when I'm on the subway and as if I don't have enough monsters to fend off during the morning commute, I have to deal with the everpresent moral quandary of when to offer up my seat.



On the one hand, I'm braced up so I pull rank on about 70% of the straphangers (which is a moot point since only about 20% of them ever actually offer up their seats at all). Pregnant women pull rank on a bum knee. And then it gets dicey with the older folks.



What's a better hand: old man or young girl? Because old people= trump card, but then there's the men being chivalrous to women consideration. But mostly I run into trouble when I have to determine the cut-off age for "old." I don't want to offer up my seat to someone if he/she is going to be rolling it around in they're head all day how the girl on the subway thinks they look old, and are they getting old? Are those wrinkles? Do people see me as a senior citizen already? The 65-year old range is tough.



And similarly, how old do Yankees have to be to get invited to Old Timer's Day? I'm pretty sure 40 isn't even close to that bucket, so if I were Moose, I'd be a little insulted that I'm 1 year into retirement and I'm already being pigeonholed into the sect of society that's using coupons from circulars to buy bedpans and the Reader's Digest Large Print edition at Rite-Aid.



Last night I went out and I don't know what is it about me that tells dirty stayouts that I want to commiserate with them. Because I don't. And I don't have patience for dumb girls, especially ones who are bouncing all over the place like they're playing paintball with my leg, and like they're thinking they're one of J-Lo's backup dancers and oblivious to the fact they more closely resemble something that might dart out of a cukoo clock.



One girl bounds up to me and screeches, "Do you like Michael Jackson?" Why. MJ wasn't even playing. Do I look like someone who likes him? Do I look like someone who wants to talk about anything period with a strange girl?



"No, I think he's garbage."



I seriously thought she was about to cry, to the point where I started to feel bad and started wondering if I stepped over a line because maybe he was her dad or something.



"How can you say that?? Do you even watch the news?"



"No, I know he's dead."



"Um, I'm sorry but how old are you? It was my generation's music, it may be before your time."



"How old are YOU?"


"25."



Then she drops this one: "What he did, what he DID for the WORLD, is like more amazing than anything that's ever been DONE. There's a WAR going on, do you know that? A WAR. And he TRANSCENDED that, he unified the world, and his record sales were higher than ever after he died. Did you know that? He brought togetherness to an entire world in a time when WAR is making everyone HATE. And you're telling me you didn't CRY when he died?! His death made people believe, he made us better people, because



(...wait for it...)


everyone learned to not judge for all the child molesting stuff and think about more important things."


"Like the WAR, right?"


"LIKE HIS MUSIC! YOU'D CRY TOO IF YOUR FAVORITE BAND DIED!"



Yeah, so that's what I was up against last night. Because of that girl, I will never again feel guilty about idolizing any of the Yankees and making them out to be otherwordly heroes and legends. Similarly, if, upon ANY of their deaths, they don't play Yankees Classics on every f'n media outlet in every bar in New York City for a straight week, then there will be hell to pay. I'll track down this girl and drag her to soap boxes to educate people on how there's a war going on and someone died so you do the math.



Lastly, 10 more days til I move outta Prime Time...and onto 9!