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

April 17, 2012

Fatso is gold. It's crazy how people will try to make him out to be a regular fat person with regular fat person problems. But he's less like this guy and more like this guy.

Minnesota Fats. Like he's playing the violin. Such a badass.

And look how well it works out that they were PLAYING Minnesota. Perfect circle of life and fat.

So, yeah, people love to say that Tubbo.com is too obese to be a dominant athlete etc, and that he's "notoriously slow" off the block. But I think David Wells really put it best when he was up against the same kind of criticism:

"You don't RUN the ball to the plate."

Amen, brother. It's bad enough I have to listen to the entire universe gasp at my ambivalence to ever seeing Shawshank Redemption. But coupled with the same confused judgement from people who "run"... well, it's a brutal rat race out there. (Would be kind of funny, kind of galatically stupid to try to expand "racism"'s definition to include "the bias against people who think running is weird, unless it's for the purposes of catching a train or avoiding assault. No, let's not do that.)

More commentary from David Wells about the ongoing cholesterol problem in this country and why it's apparently just a conspiracy theory:

“[Sabathia] is a role model for big guys. He’s athletic. He gives hope for other guys who struggle to lose some pounds. He shows you don’t have to lose that much. As long you pitch well and can shut them up, you can be as big as you want."

David Wells confirms it. Big is beautiful. How very Oprah of him.

Round Boy gets into a 3-1 hole and then the booth is all a tither about reminding us how CC, in fact, is a SLOW..STARTER...record in April sucks, etc, gets better as season goes on. I feel like this "notorious" idiosyncrasy must be pretty common, yeah?

What's the available data look like on the number of plays who are scorching in April and then flatline for the lion's share of the regular season? No one wins his first game of beer pong.

After getting himself in this nearly insurmountable deficit, he goes on to pitch over 7 innings. 4 hits, 3 runs, 7Ks, 1 BB. Whatever, NBD. He's unbelievable.

(Apparently, he attributes the huge 180 he did after he let up a staggering 3 runs..to Larry Rothschild telling him to "throw more over the top." This will never, ever cease to amaze me.


Unless I was some kind of sociopath, I don't think I could bring myself to advise all-stars on how they could be better. Like how do these people exist, people who can look at someone like A-rod's swing and be like, "hmm, it's wrong."


And how are there people who exist who are okay with being the man behind the man behind the man? I feel like it's a Dustin Hoffman in "Hero" situation. He wants the reward money and not the credit for saving all those lives.


But at some point, aren't you watching the fruits of your labor get all the glory, and you're thinking, he couldn't have done that without me. I'm the real mitochondria of team, not him.)

Or maybe they go the Michael Scott route

"Dwight gave a great speech. That's the word on the street, anyway. And I entertained Dwight to no end with my bar stories - so I captivated the guy who captivated a thousand guys. Can you believe that? a thousand guys."

Anyways, so there's that. Also, there's this absolutely amazing slice of pinstriped pie. I love postgame interviews with rookies, before they're polished like a semi-precious stone in a rock tumbler. (A rock tumbler was my headlining Christmas present wish one year. I was really into science, stickers, and Mr. Wizard. And Staples. I had to beat the guys off with a stick.)

So back to our back-up catcher, Chris Stewart. Who spent a stunningly beautiful evening under the airy gaze of stadium lights by going 2 for 4 with 3 RBIs. What a nice story. He's bounced around from Chicago to NY to the minors, and he just turned 30 and has a game like this, where his 2-run single on an 0-2 count, put the Yanks up 4-3.

That's not even the best part. Here's what he had to say about it:

"Not only one of my best nights, but it was in Yankee Stadium of all places, and I'm wearing pinstripes. It's awesome. Definitely one I'm not going to forget."

I love him. Chris Stewart, you're dynamite. And excitable. Which is one of my favorite things in the world. (Not actual dynamite. Excitability.)

Liriano had another crap outting, so I guess there's another guy we can add to the "notoriously slow in April" list, huh. He said something that I'm was interpretted as rude and grouchy, but I liked it.

A Clockwork CYC

(Basically talked about how there's nothing wrong with him, no health issues, no injuries. He just didn't pitch well and the Yankees are good. I like it. He got the first part of Rule #76 right. And the Yankees got the second part of it right, Symmetry!)

And in hilarious Twins manager moves, Gardenhire apparently made a catch so acrobatically divine that it was nonexistent. Who proof reads this stuff? I mean, I'll be the first to admit that my posts sometimes read like a page torn out of a Clockwork Orange, with a level of clarity that makes Anthony Burgess sound like Hemmingway.

HOWEVAH, I don't write for the news wire.

Game-changer

Who credited the Twins bizarro manager with the dazzler web gem from GGBG.

 I tried to entertain the idea that maybe Fatso was imagining things, like in cartoons when the wolf sees every thing walking around as a drumstick or something.



But no, it was just the best play of the game being credited to a guy whose take on the game involved what I imagine Keanu Reeves' audition monologues to go like.

"It's a kid's game and you've got to play it like a kid, and you can't put too much pressure on yourself. The weight of the world is not on your shoulder."

Then something that sounded like what I imagine Samuel L. Jackson's audition pieces go like:

"I said my piece and I got dejected, and then ejected."

You got dejected? Really? Or did you just accidentally say "dejected" when you meant "ejected"? It's ok. Fortunately for me, it's hilarious either way.

Speaking of saying one's piece...I have barely touched upon the bat action. (I'm not even going to dignify myself with a pause there.)

The Yanks are looking good from an offensive perspective. Putting runners on base in a nice variety of ways. Going old school style with the occasional long ball. Promising production from people who you assume will be as influential as Melba Toast, but who have been earning their paycheck.

And you know what else is great? The extremely noticeable improvement in patience at the plate from players who insisted on tossing their skee balls at the miniscule 100 point corner circle, instead of taking it nice and slow, and just trying to get on base by patiently tossing at the easy middle circles.

Jeter, Swish were culprits. Thank you, Kevin Long for your Merlin-like wizardry you've imparted as their batting coach, Andruw Jones cheerfully went 5 for 2 with a homerun.

Our run productiion came off the bats of Jeter, GGBG, Nunez, Jones, and Stewart. A real murderer's row of store-bought talent and overpriced beezlebubs.

Actually, everyone on the Yanks got at least 1 hit today. Except A-Rod, because no one wants to be the one to say that he's not a clean-up hitter. I understand the reticence. When Torre moved him to the 8-spot against the Tigers in the ALDS a few years ago, he may as well have been that Dad with the viral video to punish his wiley daughter.

I DID think it was kind of over the top, the whole 8 spot thing. But maybe we should just use him for the 3 spot, put a different 0-fer hitter in the 4 hole. (More early season slow-to-starters, I guess. Pretty soon it's gonna have more people in it than a Community Service Club high school yearbook photo.)

Willingham, however, is doing what the 4-bat is supposed to be doing. Big shots. He's been on an 11-game winning streak, and chipped in a 400+ foot shot over the center field wall. Flew one into left field where GGBG made a tumbling, sliding, graeless stab at the ball, and caught it.

It was like the catch that Manny Ramirez was also unsuccessfully trying to pull off. Actualy I don't think he was "trying" much of anything (beyond estrogen pills or whatever he was taking).

(You know who else was "trying unsuccessfully" today? Boston. Lost 18-3 against the Rangers. Bobby Valentine, man. If I was Dan Shaunessy, I'd be all over trying to will BV into becoming some kind of Hoosiers-meets-Bad New Bears kind of human interest piece. I'm very comfortable with BV's solid footing in the not-cool-enough-to-be-Ozzie-not-intellectual-enough-to-be-Madden managerial purgatory.)

Alright, it's 4:15, and I'm starting to get to that point where delirium starts to become full on dozing off, and "kind of weird" rhetoric morphs into 17 rows of uninterrupted Hs or something.

Great game, Yankees. Although it may be have been eclipsed somewhat by the surplus of low scoring games and free baseball, this still was my favorite game. And of course, it was also the one game I couldn't see ("blackout restrictions apply" informs MLB At Bat app).

Semantics. My sister will tell you that when we're watching a big game together, I'd get too nervous to watch, so I'd stick my face in a couch pillow. But then I could still hear the faint sounds of cheers on the streets of NY, so I'd still be able to figure out what was going on in the game, even with my face in a pillow.

So I'd mute the tv and cover my eyes, and banish my sister to the bathroom. We'd sit in my apartment, total silence, not watching. Soo clearly the main features and benefits of a tv are lost on me, anyway.

Keep it up, Yanks. Do good things.