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

There’s a Friends episode where Monica introduces Chandler to the joy* of bubblebaths, and then when Chandler tries to draw himself his own bath, it just doesn’t have the same sublime effect as when Monica makes him one. Which is pretty much what it’s like going home for a weekend, only with food instead of baths.

I went to my parents’ place on Sunday with my buddy from Boston and basically ate them out of house and home. I could go to the best Italian restaurant in Manhattan, and it still wouldn’t have tasted as good as the prosciutto/parmesan/mozzarella clubs they supplied us with for the beach, or the steak and baked potatoes I later shoveled in like an Appalachian beast.

But despite this gluttonous consumption, nothing was quite so filling as feasting on my own words.

While I was tossing the old nerfskin around on the beach, Joba Chamberlain was drawing from his own downtime-at-home benefits, going 6.2 innings and only letting up 3 hits, while striking out 8. He hasn’t had a win in about the last 98 years, so maybe retreating back to the Nebraskan homeland was exactly what the young righty needed to get his head on straight.

His fastball was 97 mph. Welcome back, velocity! Amaaaaazing speed, how sweeeeeet the whiff, that saaaaved a struggling ARM. He oncccce was relief, but noowwww he starts, was bad, but noowwww throws heat.

Maybe Karter Chamberlain is Joba’s Iris Gaines?

In today’s game, the key performances came from players who did exactly what their job description outlined. Another gem from Edwin Jackson handed the Yanks’ bats yet another uphill climb, after having gone through the same lightning bullets at the hand of Justin Verlander in the game prior.

Even with the lineup we have, no one expected this to be easy, and it wasn’t. But the dangerous 3-4 combo earned their paychecks, with both of NY’s runs coming off the bats of Alex “I know, I know, I’m not clutch” Rodriguez and Mark “Those are interesting 3-1 pitch choices to serve me” Teixeira.

And once again, Girardi went with the less-is-more bullpen approach, and once again, this proved to be so effective and simple that I hope Girardi doesn’t revert to his old habits of acting like he was trying to prove Fermat’s theory when faced with the most basic of problems.





Other notes from the day:

• Old Timers’ Day at the Stadium. I wish I had seen this, if only to see the absurdity of Mike Mussina standing alongside Whitey Ford and Goose and Yogi.

• Speaking of Whitey Ford, I wonder if my mom was floored to see him lining up on the baseline at the ceremony’s onset. When I told her I had opted for a cadaver instead of an allograft for surgery, she said, “Ooh, did they tell you whose they used? Wouldn’t it be something if you ended up with like Whitey Ford’s ACL?” Well, she’s not false. It would be something.

• My Sunday wrapped up with an extremely enjoyable argument with someone who works in the Sox system. I think spending the day with a Boston fan had watered down any animosity toward the Sux, so what normally would have been a vicious exchange of words that ended in bloodshed, was actually the tops. The main topic was Jeter vs ARod, with requisite Joba debate shoehorned in. He contended that Jeter is the best in baseball because he was the linchpin of their dynasty and and hence is a winner. The Yankees have won approximately zero rings since ARod’s been on the team, so it reasons that ARod is not a winner. But…Jeter hasn’t won any rings in that time either. So while ultimately a ring is the only thing that matters in the end, is it really a true barometer of a player’s value to the team? Who would you rather have on your team, Frank Crosetti or Don Mattingly?

• I don’t know who I was more proud of, the Red Sox for demonstrating they aren’t Beezelbub’s corporate sponsor, or myself for not shifting into lethal-attack mode at point during my Boston Immersion Day. (It’s funny because whenever I introduce someone to my buddies or family, I always follow up their names with their team affiliation, and I’m always, always stunned when this doesn’t stir any reaction.)

• The Yankees are now 1 game behind the Sux. In 2007, during a huge comeback game, like something around 8 runs, the Yankees are right in the thick of their take-no-prisoners rally, and I hear Kay say, “And here come the Yankees!” I wish I had a recording of it. It’s so applicable in many everyday situations. Sort of.

• The Yankees now have a 3-game set against the O’s, 4 against the A’s, and then ship out to play the Rays and ChiSox before retreating back to NY for a “let’s try this again and if we fail, we’re in trouble” series against the Sux.

• My Yankee stadium chair hasn’t arrived yet. Half of me wants to call and check on the status of this piece, but the other half of me kind of wants to do a watched-pot-never-boils thing and just relish the unbridled excitement that’ll ensue when I come home from work one day and see it sitting and waiting for me. Yeah, a chair. I assign normal levels of importance to things.



*I will never understand the concept of baths. You just sit there, marinating in your own tepid dirty water. How is this relaxing? I can’t imagine anything less destressing. But I guess this is coming from someone who does laundry when I want to calm down.