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

The Red Coats Ain’t Coming.

Good thing I didn’t pour all my tax refund into Stubhub. One of the biggest reasons I came down to Florida this week was based on the Grapefruit League schedule in the greater Palm Beach area. So far, the Mets-Sux game was a quasi-rain-mess.

And today, the Cards-Sux game was cancelled altogether. In a stark departure from my normal code of conduct, I did the whole “cross that bridge when we come to it” thing when it came to locking up game tickets. Usually, I’m more of “build the bridge whether we need it or not and cover all potential avenues.” Aka I HATE going anywhere without tickets. But look at me being all breezy.

Donna got MVP of today by getting her boy on the Boston roster to hook us up with 4 tickets to today’s game. To steal a line from “American Psycho,” a wave washed over me in awesome relief. (To put things in perspective how hard it was to get tix for this game: Stubhub had 4 bleacher tix listed at $68 a piece. FOR A SPRING TRAINGING GAME. Bananas.)

But, alas, no dice. And me, Laur, and Donna retreated to some bar outside of Roger Dean Stadium called JJ Something or other, and where me and Laur were enveloped by an unrelenting stream of “YANKEE FANS?!?!? What are YOU doing here?” (OK, granted, we were wearing Yankee gear at a Cards-Sux game, but technically NO ONE was in their rightful city. All that red was certainly blinding.)

I was so thrown off by the rampant Sux presence, that I inadvertently mocked some poor kid who was just trying to make friendly “hey we’re rivals, haha” banter. He offers to Donna his bar stool, (“BUT ONLY HER SINCE SHE’S A BOSTON FAN AND YOU TWO ARE YANKEE FANS!”) then says something about buying a beer. And I laughed because I honestly thought he was trying to sound like an idiot. “Ohhh, I get it. BEE-UHH. Ha, because that’s how New England imbeciles say it?”

I swear to God, I was being dead serious, I really thought he was putting on his best Sully and Marty Boston bar accent. And geez, it wasn’t like I was making fun of Marlee Matlin or something.

We actually spent the afternoon talking to 2 tolerable Sox fans (actually, they were above par, 7.5s on a scale of 1-11, with the scale being recalibrated to take into account their non-Yankee-ness), who were (admittedly) funny and entertaining if you could look past their occasional “You gotta admit, A-Rod does suck…” lapses, which is the unshakeable vice of all Bostonians. Just keep that in mind if you’re ever tempted to overlook a Boston fan’s inherent Boston-ness. Because no matter how tolerable they are, they will ALWAYS, ALWAYS subject you to the “Well, you gotta admit” bullshit.

We went from public enemy #1 to thick as thieves with the Sux fans, in a brief turn of events that was akin to that scene in "Dude, Where’s My Car?" when Chester has to answer some question about how fast an ostrich runs or something, and he gets it right to free him and his buddy from whatever torture a bird poacher is likely to inflict upon them.

Right, hear this. I am going to ask you a question.
If you get it
right I will set you free.
If you get it wrong...
...well, you will be
spending a lot of time with the...
...ever popular Mark.

I can be very nice.

Alright, here it is:
What is the average running speed...
...of a full grown male african ostrich?

Pass. Pass to me. I know it.

Pass to Mark.

You can not pass!

Shut up. What do I have to do to shut you up? Do I have to hose you
down again?

Don't hose me. Maybe later.

Dude, we're dead.

Not so fast. The full grown male african ostrich or the latin
"struthio camelus" can go to an average size of sixty six inches...
...and weight anywhere from 225 to 350 pounds that can get up to....
...well an average speed of...
...27 miles per hour.

This is absolutely correct.

Animal Planet!

Well. I said brown.

Here, let me get you out of this stinky cage.

Similarly, I was instantly attacked with the “You’re not even a real fan! You probably just bought that hat this year!” accusation. Sigh. It’s a lose-lose. If I wear out my decrepit Yankee hat, I get railed for wearing a germ-habitat. If I wear a cleaner version, I get tagged with the “I-just-started-watching-the-Yankees-this-year-is-that-not-cool?” stigma.

And, as usual, I got the basic litmus test of Yankee fandom. He actually asked a fair question, as opposed to times when I’ve gotten “Who was the Patriots’ tight end in 1988?” (I’m not kidding. Someone actually asked me that once to disprove the theory I was a big Yankee fan. So I guess, in some circles, and in some schools of thought, I would not meet such fan criteria.)

Today, I got “Yeah, so if you’re such a big fan, who played SS before Jeter?”

Ah, there’s a name I haven’t much of since August 2.

Bingo. I’m in the clear. I passed. I felt like Sarah in “Labyrinth.”

So we toast over Red Stripes, and celebrate the ability of us rivals to coexist and get along. I also learned he’s sang the National Anthem at both Roger Dean Stadium and Fenway. Good story, he should have lead with that.

So that’s all I got on the day. I learned that Florida beers contain less alcohol than NY beers. I didn’t get arrested. I threatened to throw 2 kids in a wood chipper if they continued their “talk-loudly-in-the-vicinity-of-the-Yankee-fan-about-how-much-the-Yankees-suck” routine. I later told the “bee-uh” guy that I would cut out his spleen if he kept making stupid Yankee comments. And I spent $2 on that claw-grabbing-stuffed animal arcade game, but didn’t win.

All in all, I’d say I made the best of a rainout, and managed to hone the all-important Yankee defensive skills that are crucial come Opening Day.

Tomorrow, I may venture back to Roger Dean Stadium to check out the Cards-Astros, or on Sunday to see the Marlins-Mets…

(Most likely the latter, since I’m still dead set on getting my hands on an Oliver Perez autograph for my nutso buddy Ollie. I can’t believe I just actually publicly subscribed to that sentiment, I don’t know how much worse it can get than chasing down Oliver Perez.)