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

WELCOME TO THE TOP, BOYS!

The New York Yankees are now in sole possession of the #1 best record in all of baseball. To be honest with you Diane, I'm not surprised.

Although, I AM a little surprised by the Rays' willingness to just hand over the lead. I mean, the Yanks are coming off the heels of a bit of a losing skid. You'd think TB would have used that time to pick up some ground, but with every game we lost, TB thankfully followed suit.

Except for today.

Which means the Yanks are reigning once again. HUZZAH!

Yeah, this is exactly the type of game I love. The embodiment of everything good about baseball and the summer and the weekend.

I left for the beach with my mom, sisters, and cousin and the score was at 0-0. Ahh, a nice little pitchers duel. Sweeet. I can't deal with crazy HR derbies when I'm trying to relax. It's like with every bat crack, I get a little bit more of a squeeze on my brain.

No sooner had I walked off the porch then Cousin Kate shouts, "It's 4-0 now! I think Tex hit a grand slam!"

(He did.)

It was a good father's day for Yankee fans.

My dad got a big kick out the video of me playing the piano because he liked the Mo interrupting part. I ate basically my entire weight and then some in spare ribs, ice cream, and Italian cookies. And I slept for a good 3 hours on the beach. Thank you paternal Italian skin for doing your part in fending off sunburn.

And thank you Fatty Sabathia for managing to inexplicably manhandle the best pitchers in baseball twice in one week, after somewhat struggling for most of the month prior.

"I think it's global warming," Girardi said to laughter after Sabathia shut down the Mets with four-hit ball over eight innings in his rematch with Santana.

I get a big kick out of when the Yankees demonstrate shades of dry humor. Like when Jeter jokingly asked Girardi, "So what do you think, Joe? Time to push the panic button?"

Or today, when Swisher randomly laid down a bunt in the 3rd--despite the fact the guy is practically incapable of properly executing this basic task. But this time it was perfect, and actually effected a collision between Santana and the Mutts' 2B. (Well, I don't know if this was by any merit of the bunt so much as it was the Mutts' clear penchant for bonehead plays.)

Swish's response?

"Element of surprise. Sneak attack."

My sis and I both noted there seemed to be a bevy of salamis lately, and my sister astutely noted, "That's good!"

I guess I must have looked at her with an expression of "thank you for spelling that out for me, captain obvious" since she explained, "Noo I mean good in the sense that the lineup, the batting order...it's all making sense and coming together. It's working the way it's supposed to."

Ahhh. Ok, good point!

Others weren't as impressed with Tex's 2nd HR in as many games:

"In this ballpark, it's a home run. In our ballpark, it's a different story," Jerry Manuel said.

Ok, groucho. Stop being such a baby.

Speaking of baby, I'm going to be a HUGE one this week. I mean, more immature than I normally am I guess would be a more accurate assessment. You know why? Because it's west coast week.

Yes, I know there's a lot of benefits to the 10pm start times. I happen to LOVE the fact that once 80% of the other games are done, I still have my own game to look forward to. It's kind of like when I was little(r) and me and my sis would be at McDonalds and eating Chicken McNuggets. I would always hide one of mine so when Lauren was all done with hers, I could still relish my last Chicken McNugget. She hated this. With good cause, I suppose. WTF was/is wrong with me??

HOWEVAH, I do NOT like being inordinately tired ALL f'n week. Tomorrow I gotta be at market research in Teaneck NJ at 7am til 9pm. I'll get back just in time for the D-Back game, but something tells me I'll be less than fired up after having spent 14 hours behind a double sided mirror watching doctors wax analytical.

Plus, well, it's the D-Backs. In the silver-lining world, I will say that I am happy about this week in the sense that, as far as west coast weeks go, it could be a LOT worse. As it is, we got a series against the worst team in the NL West, and then a MEGA DEATH MATCH MEDIA HYPE DRAMAPALOOZA against the Dodgers.

Good grief, I may have to take off from work to find the time to properly cover the magnitude of story lines that will undoubtedly be punctuating this series.

Stay tuned....!