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

I'm always intrigued when I look back on the first things I force myself to do when I wake up in the morning. This sounds bad, but I really think that I could see "sleep walking" as a 100% legitimate defense for serious crimes. Because I'm not kidding when I say I have next to zero voluntary control/conscious command over the array of weird shit I do in my sleep.


This morning at 6AM, roughly 2 hours after I went to bed, I woke up and decided with a vengeance I need to do yesterday's game recap. It started out ok, I guess. I don't know why I thought this was so mandatory at this hour of the day, but whatever. I'm aggressively pounding the collection of half-flat half-full Coke bottles in my fridge, like I'm a college senior with a thesis due or something.

Actually, deciding to write about the Yankees is never a questionable decision, really. It's better than the times I scooped an entire jar of peanut butter into the sink (with my hands, obvi) or poured shampoo all over my torso and knees, or the countless times I've woken up with cheese slices on my cheeks. (It's like a space-saving version of the cool-side-of-the-pillow?)


But the problem with writing about the Yankees at 6AM after 2 hours of sleep is that no matter how much I try to convince myself that I'm up and at 'em, and go through the motions of brushing teeth walking outside of bedroom (YES, THAT'S RIGHT. I'VE SLEPT IN MY BED EVERY NIGHT SINCE I MOVED HERE AND DIDN'T ACCIDENTALLY PASS OUT THE COUCH ONCE. WHICH IS MOST LIKELY ON ACCOUNT OF NOT HAVING A COUCH BUT STILL.), yeah so even when I do all that, I still am just kidding myself, because 5 hours later it caught up to me.


I really thought I had cheated sleep. Like the characters in Final Destination who cheat death. They should do a reality show spin-off of Final Destination, about people who try to cheat things beside death. Like sleep. Or eating. Or getting fired. Or getting caught lying to your girlfriend.


I had a productive morning and ran all over the UES in the pouring rain collecting furniture I found on craigslist. I was really proud of myself and was about 5 minutes away from flexing my biceps in front of the mirror while making gun show comments to my cat, until I slowly realized that my arm's not built at all, but merely swollen. Another beirut casualty. I should have listened to Strange who, despite being strange, has the wherewithall to not get on board with the arm abuse. To paint a picture of how stupid and bizarre a practice this is, the reason I figured out it wasn't toned muscled was because it was lumpy. Hard lumps, but still.


And after allll this heavy lifting that I carefully orchestrated around being home in time to sit on the floor in front of my computer with Yankees.com Audio on, I accidentally passed out right after Melky's 3-run shot. I woke up in a daze once when Kevin texted me, "Fat boy not earning his dinner" but I had no idea what he was talking about in my REM delirium and managed to get out an "ok" response (but it coulda been like 23 lines of 8's for all I remember).


I always give people a hard time who ask me who won the Yankees/Giants/Rangers game, because my feeling is that if you're interested enough to want to know the score, shouldn't you have been interested enough to watch the game or take it upon yourself to check the score sometime within the 5 hours since the game's been over? But alas, tonight I went to dinner for Amanda's birthday and found myself saying, "Who won the Yankee game?" I don't remember the last time I had to ask that.


And not because I watch every single inning of every game, but because at the very least, I'm on top of the day's scores. Not today. So the birthday girl informs me that indeed the Yanks won and Melky hit for the cycle. She also gave me a rundown on his post game interview, which sounded so Melky-like and adorable, I was devastated I missed it, and equally devastated that I don't have a tv to watch sportscenter to see it hit the #1 spot in the Top 10.


Glenn G. of YES-blogging fame, fortunately throws me a bone and, after I text him that my recap is fated to be devoid of recap, he responds: "Sabathia grinded thru, yanks bats showed killer instinct, melky cycle. Done. Oh and hairston continued to pay dividends."


So there you have it.


My sister told me Melky said he didn't care how close the call was gonna be, he was going to stretch out a triple no matter what. Which, of course, is what he should do and what anyone would have done. The funny part is he acts like this is an anomaly, as if this isn't something he does pretty much every time he gets any kind of potentially extra base hit.


Maybe one of my favorite things about something like the cycle or no hitter or perfect game or 500 saves, etc. is when the opposing team and their fans temporarily abandon their collective contempt and embrace their collective appreciation of baseball. It's one of the few times, especially now, that baseball looks like the Great American Pasttime we envision it to be. When the game has been stripped of politics and rivalries and tainted stats and compromised talent...and all that's left, for at least a brief period of time, is excellence and unaffected respect.


I have to appreciate this slice of purity, of uncorrupted celebration, and guileless aprobation while I can...because when the Boston Idiots and their entourage of delinquent fans roll into town, any deluded hope of seeing this kind of mutual respect or deference will be undoubtedly shot to hell.


Like a gang of cartoon motorcyclists tearing through some pastoral image, replacing Mendelssohn's Spring Song with some kind of stock loud metal music, like this hilarious choice scene.