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

Once a month, sometimes twice, my work day pummels me. Pharma copy and legal review is basically what I imagine it feels like to come up to bat in the 9th and see Mariano Rivera has come in from the bullpen.

So usually when this rolls around, I'll find comfort in the arms of sour gummy bears. Or hot white chocolate from DD. The former is off-limits for another ~40 days. The latter was too far a walk when it's pouring rain out.

(I swear to God, I'm like 3 minutes away from cracking, on account of this candy-fast. Last night, I woke up in the middle of the night, as usual, and slept-walk into the kitchen, as usual. And while normally this results in me sleep-eating candy, I guess my delirium was resolute enough to know not to pound Sweet Tarts. But NOT conscious enough to know that a tortilla wrap with Reddi-Whip and peanut butter would not be a good idea. Next year I'm giving up Pepsi.)

But I digress. The point is, in the absence of comfort staples, I found joy in the least likely place:

Oh, David Arias! Ever since your jersey was buried in Greatness' New Home, the home of the reigning World Champion Yankees, you've been one walking punchline after another.

I'm too kicked from the day to recount ALL of them. But here's a start...

Ortiz didn't hit his first home run until nearly June, was dropped in the order, benched, and ultimately outed as testing positive during Major League Baseball's anonymous survey testing in 2003. Ortiz copped the "carelessness with vitamins and supplements" plea on the latter charge, but couldn't ignore the doubt swirling around him.

But then today, he does what he does best. (Ah, remember when "what he does best" was clutch hitting? Yeah. Now what he does best is flap his gums so mindlessly and carelessly that he truly brings new meaning to the adage, "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." He's kind of like Percy in "The Green Mile." No one knows what to do with him at this point, and he's all but depleted his fan favorability leverage.)

In the past, Ortiz has graced us with his denouncement of steroid use, his whining about MVP, his whining about throwing at batters, his sympathy pains for his team's hardships (one of my personal favorites), and his contention that he was honest to God just taking vitamins! Seriously! Vitamins. My ears just started bleeding thinking about that.

(Eh, maybe I'm not too kicked from the day to rattle off a laundry list of Ortiz implosions, after all.)

Blech. Anyways, so today I get a good kick out of his most recent public relations disaster, when he starts rambling about how he's going to turn the page on last year, and how it's soooo not fair that the fans were so Negative Nancy towards him.

Actually, you know what adage Ortiz REALLY brings new meaning to? "THE WOMAN DOTH PROTEST TOO MUCH."

Every single time this dumbass gets in front of a microphone bank, he employs the same boilerplate format to his whines:

I. Casually assert dissenting opinion.
II. Backtrack
III. More emphatically assert dissenting opinion to establish his veracity
IV. Backtrack
V. Lie OR deflect culpability/doubt on someone other than himself
VI. Forget what he was even talking about

Today, he goes on and on about how he's peeved at the fans for giving up on him so quickly.

(Well, sure. That's understandable. It's totally reasonable to expect fans to lionize him throughout a season of hemorrhaging stranded runners, whiffing so much he looks like a bending straw in the middle of a maelstrom, and basically taking a sledgehammer to the Sux's offensive presence.)

“I think people gave up on me too early too fast, started talking about age and all that kind of stuff. You listen to it for a minute. It was the same people that were clapping for you a year before and saying good things about you. (Their) minds changed that quick? I don’t believe in that. It’s a one-minute thing. That’s the way I see it. I’m strong enough to know how to deal with it and put that in the past.”

But wait, he's not done yet...

"It seems a lot of times like there’s a lot of negativity floating around. It’s a situation I guess that’s where people make their money out of it. That’s too bad. In my situation, I know I’m an employee here. It doesn’t matter how things are going - I try my best. This is just another year, just like the others. We have an owner, we have a GM, they are the ones who decide what to do. Like I say, I’m going to try my best and move on.”

Ughhh...I HATE it when slumping athletes try to tug at our heart strings. No one cares. RULE #76, PEABRAINS.

"My focus point right now is do some damage."

HAHAHAHHAHA, awww don't be so hard on yourself. I'd say there's a pretty good argument that you did just as much damage last year as you had the year before. Just...not to the right team.

"I'm not a beginning guy, I'll tell you that right now. I'm an end of the season guy pretty much my whole career."

8q37eya8usida*^%@(*&UIOHQJEalks

I hate him.

"I'm not going to lie to you, I wasn't feeling comfortable. I guess you have a lot of games too early last year, important games, like the WBC, you wasn't ready for, you putting pressure on yourself just because you want to produce and you're not ready for the time and that cuts you off from doing what you gotta do at this time of the season to get prepared for the season."

You're not gonna lie to us? As soon as someone says "I'm not gonna lie to you," or "To tell you the truth," or "to be perfectly honest," I get leery. What about everything said that you DIDN'T qualify with one of those lead-ins?

"Last season was an experience for me, but at the end of the season when I sat down in my house, I was proud of myself."

Oh, to have those kind of personal standards....

"And it was because there's not too many people that know how to bounce back from that hole that I was in those first two months."

A-Rod.

"And I asked myself, 'how can I bounce back?'"

Steroids.

"And I have an answer for that."

Blame negativity.

"I just stay strong, not put attention to all the negativity that people sometimes bring around. I just stick with what I have."

Ha, I wasn't far off.

"This is just another year, just like the others."

Welllll....not EXACTLY like the others. You thought you missed Manny last year? That's nothing compared to how much you're gonna miss the roid shots this year.

"I feel good. I feel good. Do I look good? [Swing] feels strong.... it's pretty much part of the game that people worry about your body shape. I'm not going to look like Ricky Martin right now. I'm going to be the same guy. I might get stronger. I might try to stay away from injuries, but I'm not going to look any different. I wish I could look like Ricky Martin."

!!!!! Oh my God. Yes, these are the days of our lives. David Ortiz is not about 130 pounds lighter because he laid off the juice vitamins. It's because he wants to look like Ricky Martin.

So there you have it. David Ortiz is moving on. If "moving on" means passive aggressively absolving himself of last season's train wreck by assigning the blame to less than enthused fans.

Well played, assclown. Well played. You made me smile. (So did this, btw.)

So see if you can rustle up some more monuments to idiocy tomorrow. Because it's slated to rain again, and I don't want to have to trek to Dunkin Donuts if I have another rough day.