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

Game 130.
Played 8/30.
Final: 8-3.

Magic #: 27 (it certainly is!)

Straight talk from Ozzie:

"As a group, we all stink right now. The only two members of the White Sox currently earning their paychecks are the trainers."

Creep - TLC

Ok now swap out all the Creeps in exchange for Sweeps.

It's topical because we just SWEPT the White Sox. But not topical in the sense that this song is so old I couldn't even remember who sang it. I kept googling, Creep and then about 50 different permutations of 3 letters. I felt like I was bowling or something.

JScape from Pinstripe Alley hits the nail on the head in his recap of this one:

Mark Teixeira went 1-3 with a sac fly, and his 32nd homer of the year. He drove in his 101st RBI of the season. His line stands .283/.381/.543.

Derek Jeter went 2-3 (single and double) with a BB. He scored 3 times, bringing his total for the year to 90 (eclipsing last season's total). His line reads .333/.396/.479.

Do you prefer gelato or cannolis?

I usually choose the cannolis with custard filling, unless there's limon gelato. Really there's no wrong choice.

The tiramisu of the league has 'slumped' down to .371/.439/.614. Oh yeah, he's a catcher, too. But as the Yankees separate themselves from the rest of the league, every time Joe Mauer doesn't get a hit hurts his chances.

***

On another note, if Joba is going to make a number of these 3 inning starts, I'd rather have him pitch 3 times a week for an inning in the 7th or 8th.

"THE MVP EDITION" he titled it. Excellent point. If this game was anything beyond an easy, getaway day, lazy wrap up of the weekend's series, it was a showcase of talent from 2 no-brainer MVP contenders: Tex and Jeter.

In my preseason MLB preview, I predicted Tex for AL MVP (this and the fact I have the Yanks winning the division are possibly the only 2 things I could have a hope of accuracy.) To give you an idea of the rest of my brilliant hunches:

• Cincy winning the NL Division
• Oakland winning the AL West
• NL RoY: McCutchen
• AL RoY: Wieters (I hate myself particularly for this one)
• NL MVP: Manny (But not as much as I hate myself for that one)
• SF in dead last in the NL West
• Texas in dead last in the AL West

Excellent knowledge on my part.

Anyways, back to MVP candidates Tex and Jeter.

Jeter went 2-3 and Minka Kelly can stick around for as long as she wants if this is the type of effect she's had on him. I don't know if I could live with myself if I actually went so far as to research when they started dating and then do some kind of analysis on statistical impact. But someone certainly should.

Tex went deep right after Junior's sac fly that brought in a run. I was watching the game with my 2 sisters and said to Laur: "Not that we need it, but I kinda wish that sac fly never happened so Tex would have a grand slam now instead of just a 3-run ding."

She nodded and gravely said, "I know. I know."

Then with equal deadpan-ness: "But at-bats after grand slams....are just awkward."

I know she's referring to some Onion piece here, but I still respect that level of seriousness she toting with her.

Is it fair to call our "short porch" a short porch in homerun calls where the shot was legitimately clearning the wall?

On the subject of long-balls, Damon went yard for the 24th time this year, matching his season record he set in 2006. The top part of our lineup is pretty good.

As a team, they were 3-6 with RISP. An improvement, for certain.

In terms of our pitching, it was an odd arrangement here. The brass's ingenius solution to Joba's mysterious, vague pitch count limits was to have him throw 35 pitches. On the one hand, I'm thinking, "Ok, if he can only go 3 innings at a time, why is he a starter?

I mean, it really reminds me of this time at work a few years ago when I was writing a detail aid for sales reps and on one spread there was the standard set-up:

• Eyebrow
• Headline
• Chart
• Bulleted points

And I was told that I needed to repeat the content in the bulleted points in the headline. I argued this tooth and nail, til I finally capitulated. And then I was told that it was repetititve with the bulleted points.

Similarly, they moved Joba into the starting rotation even though naysayers argued tooth and nail that he was a reliever and couldn't go that many innings. But they moved Joba anyway, and then it was an issue of pitch count, so they cut his pitch count down severely. Wouldn't it have made sense to just keep the bulleted points and Joba exactly where they were in the first place? Ah, whatever.

Isn't the whole point of a starter to go deep into the game until a reliever is necessary? And wouldn't his slider-fastball combo be a bit more effective if batters didn't have the entire game to get used to it? Sigh. The Joba debate is more tiring than a reality show marathon.

But then on the other hand...I'm thinking that what the hell do I know. Obviously there's some method to the madness, because indeed, the Yanks seem to be doing ok for themselves, and our pitching system, while perennially in flux, is seemingly getting the job done. (KoWKoWKoWKoW)

All in all, the White Sox faced 6 different Yankee pitchers:
Joba
Aces
Marte
Robertson
Hughes
Coke

Which seemed to me a bit unnecessary. I guess when they pulled Aces out after 3 scoreless innings, the score was still pretty tight. It wasn't until the 7th inning where the game broke open and the Yanks lit up for another 5 runs.

But still. It's not like we're off tomorrow. We got a road trip to Baltimore, which is officially in spoiler status (and may have been for the past month, I think.) And it's these teams that worry me the most. Particularly Nick Markakis who seems to destroy any and all pitchers indiscriminately.

Before I forget, I saw the WEIRDEST thing on Yankees on Deck. (Yep, I watch that show. What of it.) And they have this little mascot guy Tony who they send into the field to do research sometimes.

In the episode last week that I just watched on DVR (Yep, I DVR it.) they have this segment where we learn that before the games, the gameballs must be stripped of their glossiness without ruining the leather and while still keeping the outer coating of the top layer in tact.

Interesting. But not as interesting as how this is done before each game.

We watch as Tony follows this 65ish year old man into the depths of the woods and into this remote corner near a swampy area. Ok, apparently, there's a muddy hole back there that has been determined to have the best mud for this particular ball-stripping process.

Unreal! They've built machines to predict the location of the last 3 remaining Willy Wonka golden tickets, but they can't pool their resources and develop some contraption that would sidestep the practice of this poor man wading into the depths of a swamp to erode baseball leather??

So there's that to think about.

And such completed the sweep of the tailspinning out of control White Sox. Unfortunately, the other Sox also won today. The ONLY consolation is that I know as frustrated as I am with the fact they keep winning, Boston is at least twice as frustrated that the Yankees ain't losing.

The absolute worst part about trailing a team in your division is having to monitor another team. Which means that your team could have a 10-run comeback in the 9th and win on a dramatic walkoff grand slam or something, and the supreme excitement and elation around this is somewhat tempered by the fact your AL rival also won, meaning no change in the division standings.

Perhaps that's patently obvious, and goes without saying, but there's just something about cheering for another team's downfall that makes me feel like I need to shower 70 times in a row. Like I'm besmirching the honor of the game I fell in love with in the first place. And of course there's always the everpresent distinct possibility that I'm taking everything too seriously and need to just relax and enjoy the win.

Done.

And happy I am. It's Sunday afternoon, the Yanks just swept the Sox, they remain in 1st by 6 games, it's lovely outside (I'm on my roof right now! Looking like the biggest all time loser, but this is nothing new.), and The Blood of CuChulainn is playing on my itunes.




There's something about that song that will forever make me sublimely happy. At the risk of sounding too emo/high school/IM away message/NYU/reality show, at the time, when I first heard that song, it was like the best 5 minutes of my life--I had borrowed my mom's car and was driving to Cooperstown in November of 2006.

Nice drive, albeit long, but it was perfect fall weather. But by the time I was about an hour and half away, it was all dirt roads, rural country side, one line stuff. And I was starting to fall prey to the afternoon sleepiness/dozing off at the wheel which is BY FAR AND AWAY the WORST FEELING in the world, the feeling of not being able to keep your eyes open.

So I lower all the windows and stick the ipod at full blast and I don't even know what this song was doing on it. I had never even remotely heard of it before. But there it was. And it was the best feeling in the world. Driving to Cooperstown in the fall with all the windows open. Life's good.

And I feel the same way today.