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

(Not melodramatic at all.)


Welcome back, Yankees. Welcome back.

I was writing a few weeks ago at my parents place, and my mom comes over to the computer and is reading over my shoulder and goes, "KRISTEN! You're writing a poem?? How nice! Oh, and it's beautiful!"

"I didn't write that. Emily Dickinson did."

"Oh. Wait, why are you.."

"I wrote THIS, though," and pointed to the screen.


"Hm. Nice."

"Thanks."

"You can't just like baseball like everyone else. Everything has to be so intense. All I ever wanted was just one normal daughter."

She's wrong, though. Because EVERYTHING doesn't have to be so intense. I subscribe to complete ambivalence when it comes to politics, current events, and basically anything outside of the crosswords and sports section that could be found in a newspaper.

I try to make it a general rule not to cultivate strong positions and attitudes on anything that doesn't really have anything to do with me. Like capital punishment and abortion and environment and gay marriage. How am I supposed to know how I feel about something if it's never been something I've had to confront? Maybe I'd like to say I don't support the death penalty, BUT if someone hurt my family/friends, I wouldn't be so magnanimous. Murderous, but not magnanimous.

So getting all riled up and up in someone's grill over something I only have a superficially manufactured opinion on, is a waste of my time and energy. The flip side is that picking my battles means that the ones I do pick are bloodbaths, though I should note that said carnage is 95% of the time couched on a ridiculous battle. So while I will pick my battles, I don't necessarily choose wisely.

Yesterday the battle I fought (and lost) nobly from here to East Lansing was over my unmoving stance on trading Joba. I'd say maybe about 8 people agree with me. Not 8 people I know. 8 people period. In the world, maybe.

So I start thinking, "Ok, they're pretty aggressively against this idea. It's not just, ehhh not the best plan, CYC... It's more Do I want the Yankees to trade Joba?! Not if you want to keep your spleen. So maybe I'm missing something, there's too robust an opposition."

But, nope. The more I turn it over in my head, the more I just see Joba as a robot that turns into a skyscraper.

Can't it be a robot that turns into a bug? And by bug, of course, I mean Halladay.

Ah, well. It seems the Blue Jays don't want to share their BMOC with anyone in the division, like an insecure girlfriend who's fine with boyfriend having female friends, just so long as they're fat/ugly/lesbians/married.

Last summer, me and my sister were trying to figure out what to do one Friday night, and we were in the awkward wanting-to-go-out-without-moving mindset, kind of like my wanting-to-go-in-the-ocean-without-getting-wet mindset.

"I just don't have the energy to deal with dumb girls in the bathroom talking about their text messages, and drunk guys asking me if the Yankees won today, when they know they didn't," she says.

Which gave birth to the idea of writing down a list of the most commonly heard lines while out at a bar on the weekend. Not a pickup line, and not necessarily something directed to us. Like a competitive Overheard in New York type match up. We divided the list up and whoever had more checked off by end of the night won.*

So then we added things with Bonus Points, like "I'm pregnant" got you 50 points, and "You asked for it, you got it..Toyota.." was 75. And the Mega-Million line that handed you the game if you heard it: "A bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush."

Doesn't seem THAT arbitrary, really. But, my sister argued, "WHEN is there ever an instance that this phrase is so perfect that you're willing to trot it out when it's the most ridiculously antiquated nonsens cliche? NEVER."

UNTIL YESTERDAY.

We're talking about the trade deadline and who the Yanks should deal etc, and she blurts out, "OH MY GOD. This is it. This is the holy grail of times when it's appropriate to use A Bird in The Hand is Worth Two in the Bush. Wow. I never thought I'd see the day..."

Probably my favorite reaction to the whole now maddening issue came from Daily Sports Pages, who, after 6 pages of arguing this matter tooth and nail with the incensed fervor of hungry dragons, (but fiercely perceptive ones, like velociraptors?), this happens:


I respect that. Tossing in the towel means more time to watch game.

And the Joba Issue du Jour has become aggravatingly polarizing (albeit extremely lopsided in said polarizing), so maybe it's just best to see where the chips fall where they may. But as I told Ed at Pinstripe Alley who may or may not ingest Draino if the issue finds its way back onto his site's pages:

krispollina@gmail.com	Thu, Jul 16, 2009 at 11:34 PM
Reply-To: "krispollina@gmail.com" To: Edward Valentine
all bets are off when he either pitches a perfect game and i have to admit defeat with my proverbial tail btwn my legs... or when the first week of aug rolls around and he all of sudden has to be sidelined indefinitely. but im all joba-ed out now anyway. cheers ----------

Maybe I'm wrong about the whole thing anyway. It wouldn't be the first thing I've said that's been met with buckets of vitriol and/or violent dissent. Which I just typed up and erased because with baseball resuming, I don't know if I'll my wits about me to go to battle for any of em. I just emailed them to myself, though. For posterity.

None of them have more than 12 advocates. Anywhere. It's ok. I feel stupid until I think of the fact that as strongly as I think I'm right, that's how much the other person thinks I'm wrong. And vice versa. That maxim came into particular utility during my brief stints of dating non-Yankee fans.

Maybe Joba will blow us all away. And I'll be happily made the predication-dunce. Then again, I got killed for saying these things too:
1. July 2007: "Giants and Pats are playing in this year's Super Bowl"
2. March 2008

My mom laughs at a scene in some Woody Allen movie where they make fun of Apple computers or something in the 70s. And then another Woody Allen movie where a guy's wife lambastes him for his hair brained scheme of opening a pet cemetery.

Both ideas preposterous, I guess. Then.

Actually now that I think of it, it probably would have been easier just to default to the Columbus world-is-flat argument.

More importantly, WELCOME HOME, NY BASEBALL!! I missed you like my Chicken McNuggets miss honey when they're all out or they give me honey BBQ by mistake.



*I took an early 2-0 lead when I heard the 1-2 punch of "Are you a Yankees fan?" and "Are you 2 sisters?" Lauren then scored 3 in a row**, with a hail mary AT LAST CALL when the lights were going up, (courtesy NYSJ, actually, who marched out the bar yelling "18-1!", which was the game-winner for my sis.)
**The first 2 scores for Laur: "I'm AT the BAR! WHERE ARE YOU?" and "F&%^ you."