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In the postgame with Kim Jones, Mo makes the above comment with such deliberate conviction, that it wouldn't have shocked me at all if it ended with, "YOU GOT THAT, BITCH?!"

Well, yes, it would have surprised me, but you see where my head's at here.

My day included the following highpoints:

  • (SPOILER ALERT!) The Yankees win
  • I packed up my living room. It only took 12 hours. I changed my mind, that wasn't a highpoint. I'm sitting on Yankee Stadium popcorn tin right now.
  • My dad's buddy's friend's granddaughter in San Fran (I don't know if that's the exact chain, but it was along those lines) made me look like a badass in front of my dad, when it gets back to him that "Hey Tommy, I was eating lunch with so-so and his granddaughter's here visiting and I told her she should read your blog and she already does!" So to the teenager in SF, I owe you. Big. I think it made my parents forget I don't have dust ruffles on my bed, which for some reason, to them, is symptomatic of delinquency.

The Yanks came back against the A's on Sunday to re-gain a game on the Sux, which is now at 2.5. (Thanks, O's.) The Yanks answered the As' 2 in the 1st with 4 of the their own. It looked like it'd be a gentle one on the old heart. but it was essentially exactly like every other game they've played since the ASB. They won on effort and by beating them. To pull a page from sports cliches, they outplayed em when they needed to. Nothing fancy. No Hail Mary's. Just getting it done without getting desperate.

They've let up 11 runs in the last 2 days which is astronomical compared to their previous outings post-ASB, which, to be sure, says more about the low ERA than the 5.5 averaged run games.

Ok so what exactly did the brass said to our pitchers? Because they're playing as if their lives, not their spots, demand on it. It's like all of em are doing the thing little league pitchers do when they're tossing to their dads, talking to themselves in their minds and setting up dramatic bottom-of-the-9th-2-outs scenarios. It's all very "For Love of the Game."

Ha, I'm watching NY1 Sports and they're showing clips from the Mets game and one of the highlights is a long fly fomr Castillo that drops in and brings runs in, and the poor old man who does this sports talk segment at 4:00am says, "And man, Castillo is having a great year, besides for that dropped ball against the Yankees." Will Castillo ever live that down?? I mean, in fairness, it wasn't even really a meaningful game. I'm not sure if I'd asterisk Castillo's "great year" (which I could dispute, but I won't) because of one error in the 1st half of the season.

The Yanks head to Tampa Bay now, sadly. The Bronx has been good to them for the last 10 days. And who can be happy about moving from GNH after a 9-1 homestand to the litterbox that is the Trop?

HAHAHAHA there's Mets fan caller who's calling into NY1 right now who makes some inane claim about what the Mets' record has to be to make the playoffs and she's twanging that she did the math on her calculator and all, and the Poor Old Man (the POM) is gently but quizzically challenging her math.

And then there's silence. To the point where I was thinking, "Ok how long do you say, Hello? Hello?, until you assume she got disconnected. It was starting to get uncomfortable--Jesus, just hang up on her!--and then she pipes back in with the whining Long Island accent, that almost sounded like she was about to cry, and says, "Ok I know, I know, I was stretching it, but I'm a diehard, lifelong fan, and I just love the Mets!"

Hm. Seems to basically align with the general Mets fan school of logic and reasoning, of which there is a staunch opposition.

Long Island Chick must have been taking her queue from the Yankees, who also think that touting a player aggressively and excessivly and stubbornly makes said player legitimate. Who decided Sergio is good? Granted, we don't need brilliance from our #5 starter, but let's call a spade a spade here. He's not exactly mowing em down. The gig's up, Brass. We know you're trying to recreate the hype that was the Justin Craze, and create it around another pitcher so as to eclipse any other chinks in the Yankee armor.

But as Abe Lincoln tells us, "If you call a dog's tail a leg, how many legs does he have? 4. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg."


In other baseball news, the HOF induction ceremony was this weekend. Hank Aaron, suprise surprise, opined that be believes Barry's HR record should be askerisked in the hall. And that every steroid user who slips into the hall should also have aseterisks next to their names.

This is ridiculous. We're never going to be able to identify all the juicers. Which means that there's a good chance we're see Barry Bonds with a star next to his name, alongside another juicer who was just never caught. Is this fair?

The Roy Halladay Trade Media Hype (how come this doesn't get it's own cute little icon, like every other big news story?) is starting to look like a fantasy league message board. It's so difficult for me to find anyone to trade, because no matter how even sided and symbiotically beneficial it is for both sides, GMs (fake and real) seem to get automatically wary of trade offers. As if they're thinking, "Wait a minute....why are they willing to part with these players for mine? What's going on here? If they are willing to get rid of em, why should I want them?"

Which is pretty much why I've made all of 3 trades in one of my fantasy leagues in the 3 year history I've been playing with that league. Only 1 was with a GM who wasn't my sister. And when I say it requred a little deliberation on his part, I mean he acted as if he was making some kind of "Lady or the Tiger" decisions, and not a Chris Young for Torii Hunter trade.

And this is how the GMs in real baseball are treating the Halladay stakes. No one is willing to part with their prospects. It seems to me that in baseball, there's no greater sin and reputation killer than trading young for trendy. Everyone's so scared of getting a slice of the Yankee stigma pie and have the insane "buy their team" tag applied to them. (I love this about the Yankees. Not the fact they "buy their team," but the fact they don't care that every time they binge on another all-star, the rest of the league's contempt is multiplied in droves.

I empathize with them. I feel the same way, whenever I don't print on both sides of the paper, (IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO READ IT THAT WAY!), I get subjected to the Go Green backlash. And so far it has done nothing to persuade me to rethink my printing behavior.

Trees are already dead. They're not people. And it's not like there's going to be a point in time when the world collectively brushes their hands together in satisfication and decrees that everyone is officially done with using paper. Meaning that if I dont "waste" those papers, someone else will. At no point will paper's utiliy be obsolete, despite the internet revolution. I mean, if we're going to act like they're people in terms of saving their lives, then we should consider the possibility that the trees LIKE to be cut down because it makes them feel needed, which is more than they can say for weeds or rocks.

Let's think about this, Yanks. If you're being honest with yourself, how much do you really like Sergio? You really think he's good? And is going to be a solid starter should the Yanks make the playoffs? We need Hughes, but I'm ALL for trading Austin Jackson and Jesus Montero and Justin for Halladay. Yup, yeah I said it. I've never seen those kids play and how many prospects that have been touted as juggernauts have really panned out historically? And how good is Halladay?

Well, there's that. Cashman's looking at this trade potential the same way the Yanks pitchers are playing: like his life is on the line. I guarantee he's thinking more about how each decision's worst/best case scenarios impact him. Not how they'll eventually impact the Yankees.

Normally I'd predict the Yanks pull a Teix quarterback-sneak play, but I don't know about this time. The fans and media are extremely vocal this year, with the prime targets and scapegoats centered on the bullpen, Girardi's managerial decisions, and the cultivation of talent orchestrated by Cashman. And it sounds like the resounding majority is against the J-A-J for R trade.

Less risk. He's not in a position to make another risky move. Joba to rotation added 109 years to Cashman's life, and during preseason, the number of allowable years to accrue was set at 140.

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