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| April 21, 2012 |
How can I beat thee? Let me count the ways?
I’ll beat thee to the depth and breadth and height,
The green monster can reach, try to put up a fight.
For the ends of the season and pennant races.
I’ll beat thee in a pitching duel of both our aces,
Is it Beckett? Or Buckholz? (It's hard to get it right),
I’ll beat thee in a slugfest, go yard through the night,
I’ll beat thee in a comeback, just to see Fenway’s faces.
I’ll beat thee with passion put to use,
Our historical franchise knows a million ways to win,
I’ll beat thee with variety, pick a way you’d like to lose.
A blowout, a rally, oh where do we begin!
Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and if you choose,
I shall but beat thee better when we play in Boston.
-CYC adaptation of a famous poem by a woman who's probably angry at me for sullying her wor
k postmortem, but it doesn't matter because if she was a Yankee fan she'd understand, but I have it in my head that she was from Boston for some reason, so HA!
So, that happened.
I don't know where to begin.
I'll start at the beginning and when I get to the end, I'll stop.
Let the record show my intentions for coherence were noble.
So I improvised, took notes during the game, which, upon reviewing right now, make it clear that I am not exactly earmarked for Sports Writer Hall of Fame admission:
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| My penmanship is usually better. Sort of. |
Yeah, so these are good notes.
So here's what happened, not that I can really get my head around it.
The Yankees are losing by a million and everyone is just thrilled about this. Everyone who isn't a Yankee fan. Because they're all ready to slap us for all the mocking we did yesterday, about ruining their stupid anniversary party, etc etc.
So with every score, and there were quite a few of them, it got more and more depressing. And as much as you try to be the ever optimistic fan, as soon as you start moving into the territory where you're counting how many grandslams you need to be back in the game, then it's bad.
And we needed more than 2 grandslams to be back in the game.
And we had only mustered up about a fraction of a hit against this Felix Somethingsomethingsomethingfrenchromancesounding guy. I felt like the coach in the movie Lady Bugs: (the bad guy coach) :
What the hell, where did this guy come from? And why the hell were the Yankees swinging at pitches 6 feet off the ground?
In the words of the Geico commercial about the marriage that was built to last but the house that was built too small:
"This is NOT awesome."
Garcia is confused about a lot of things, most of which stem from the idea of not having to throw the ball right down the middle if youre not throwing it 8,102 feet outside of the batter's box. Middle ground, son. Middle ground. We get it. You had that one wild game. But stop pitching like a little league starter. Whose only task is to "play catch with the catcher. Put the ball down the plate."
Speaking of, I don't want to forget about this so I'll get it out of the way now: Philip Humber. Congratulations!! Amazing! That last AB was erxcrutiating through. 3-2 count. Seriously, I like to think that if I was Brendan Ryan that I'd swing at anything in that situation. An April game? Perfect game on the line? 4-0? Yeah, I definitely would have swung just to get the hell out of the game, the tension and awkwardness was maddening.
But I guess you had to know that after what happened last year, that the ump was going to find a way to give Humber that perfecto, dammit. And that he did. It was a shitty call, I GUESS, but not really.
CERTAINLY NOT ENOUGH FOR RYAN TO ARGUE IT WHILE AN ENTIRE TEAM IS CRYING AND CELEBRATING THE BEST DAY IN SOMEONE'S LIFE ON THE FIELD.
Honestly, what did Ryan think the ump was going to do there? Really.
Declase, dude. Luckily for Ryan, that wasn't the most ridiculous thing I saw tonight.
And for Yankee fans, it wasn't the only perfect game we saw tonight, either.
So the Yank game switched to the perfecto when the Yanks were losing 9-1. No one argued about this change. Humber cries, everyone in the bar claps, the Yank game comes back on.
Everyone in the bar "What?!"s.
9-5 in the 7th.
But then there was that feeling of "They love to do this, make a run for it in the last inning, and end up losing 9-7 or something after getting our hopes up."
But this was Boston. No ordinary game.
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| We didn't strike first, but we showed no mercy. |
When all was said and done, that's actually kind of what it felt like, particularly when I saw they had batted around the order. What a mess for the Socks! First the Bruins now this. How much worse can you lose, on your big party weekend? To the Yankees?
This was, to be clear, not the greatest defensive showing I've seen from a professional baseball team.
As Lauren described it, "The infielders are acting like Dad when the phone rings. He's within 2 feet of it, and technically he could get to it if he wanted to, but instead he just yells PHONE! and hopes for the best."
Yep, exactly. They were letting grounders go to the outfield as if the were doing pre-game drills in the spring training or something.
Before the whole insane rally thing came to fruition, my favorite moment of the game (and by "favorite" I mean hilariously bewildering) was when they show the price of gas before and after Jeter...and the Dow before and after Jeter.
I get that it was a commentary on his ripe old age of 37 and all, but because it was Jeter it just came across as Jeter being the nucleus of the world. Which, maybe he is for all I know, he keeps playing like this and the evidence will really start to be piling up in his favor.
I'm about to go back out and celebrate the Yankees and forget about the Rangers, but I think this is a pretty good assessment of how most of us NYY fans are feeling right now:
Before the whole insane rally thing came to fruition, my favorite moment of the game (and by "favorite" I mean hilariously bewildering) was when they show the price of gas before and after Jeter...and the Dow before and after Jeter.
I get that it was a commentary on his ripe old age of 37 and all, but because it was Jeter it just came across as Jeter being the nucleus of the world. Which, maybe he is for all I know, he keeps playing like this and the evidence will really start to be piling up in his favor.
I'm about to go back out and celebrate the Yankees and forget about the Rangers, but I think this is a pretty good assessment of how most of us NYY fans are feeling right now:
And in conclusion, here's another ridiculous snapshot of my journalistic prowess:
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| translation: this is why Boston can't have nice things. |
SEE YOU TOMORROW!
Man, I'd hate to be from Boston.
"I have just returned from Boston. It is the only thing to do if you find yourself up there." Fred Allen
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Insightful, and entertaining. I am in total agreement with you about the "age" comments--I am so over it already. Jeter is productive and has always been. Nothing has changed but the passing of time. He looks marvelous as does our team!
I am scared for the pitcher today.. oh man! I will watch the game with my hands in my face, like when I used to watch scary movies as a kid. Peeping in between my fingers as if that somehow lessens the blow or changes the dynamics of the game. Like when I am constantly yelling at the TV, my teenage says, "Um, Mom, you know they can't hear you, right?" She looks at me with the "omg, she has lost her mind." I wonder what she'll say when she watches me watching the game with my hand in front of my face. LOL!
Go Yankees!