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

April 11, 2012

In NYC softball leagues, the scores typically end up resembling halftime scores, so it's easy to lose track of how many runs have been tacked on for both teams. Also, I'm bad with numbers. But whenever I invariably ask the captain for a score status (right after we've plated seemingly 102 runners in the span of 4 at bats) I LOVE it when he says "zero-zero."

Meaning, I love calling a 12-12 game a zero-zero game for some reason. I'm easy entertained. Also, it eliminates the numbers. Which I'm bad at.

And now the Yanks have, in my mind, a clean slate just in time to open up their season this Friday. So what if Tampa swept us in the opening series? And everyone makes fun of the O's for always sucking

(They remind of the mid 80's Colts. When I was 5, my dad entered me and Laur into a survivor league. And the only ONLY thing I knew about football was that my dad was always saying how bad whoever the Colts were. So we saved them for last. And won. And weren't allowed to play in the bar's football pools anymore.)

So yeah, similarly, the O's are like that. They shouldn't be as bad as they are. But they play like it. Maybe they should move to Indianapolis, too.

Of course, I'm acting like the Yanks were all eating-pieces-of-shit-like-them-for-breakfast when in reality they barely scraped by, winning the last 2 in extra innings. Which, I swear to God, I thought was going to send Sterling into cardiac arrest. Not because of how exciting tonight's game was, but because he was starting to sound like Jessie Spano in the classic caffeine episode.

Except instead of being scared about Hot Sunday performing well, Sterling was scared about the lack of available pitchers.

"NO pitchers. There's never any pitchers! We don't have Robertson! We'll never make it to Mo! They'll let everyone down! I'm so confused!...And confusion is a natural part of car buying, but a 15 minute call to Geico is all it takes."

I don't even know what he was so worked up about. We used Logan, Soriano, and Mo and that worked out just fine, yeah? Psh. Alarmists.

Girardi is once again very subdued about the matter. Good thinking coach. Seriously. I give him hell for being so bland, while singing Ozzie's praises all over the place, but pound for pound, I want the sane one when the game's on the line. And, you know, there's always a game on the line.

"It's nice to go home. Everyone is excited to go home," Girardi said. "It is nice to get the sweep."

Which just goes to show you that Tebow's in NY for all of 1 month, and already everyone's trying to be more like him.

Seriously. Here's another one:

"I was really excited to get that hit at the end of the game, so excited to come out of here with a sweep," Swisher said.

• Yanks take early 2-0 lead on Grandy 2-run bomb in the 1st off hyped up Arrieta.

• Everyone in bar starts grumbling about Fatso's meatballs he's serving up. (As my dad would say, "On a scale of meatballs to bracchiola, he wouldn't even make the sauce." I'm not kidding, he really said that to me once about some writer I was basically in awe of. I love parents.)

• The meatballs were enough to strike out 8 though (which is basically like cost of entry for every Tubbo.com start). And in the 2nd inning, you start to think if he was literally throwing meatballs, since that is really the only possible explanation in the history of ever for why a pitcher would try to bare hand a hard bouncer up the middle. Which is what he did. He said he "probably won't do it again." I applaud his honesty. He also got hit in the foot with a liner in the 5th. Cat like reflexes.

• The Yanks as a team have seemed to have put on some lbs (cough..Cano..cough). So when Sterling tells us that the Yanks are heading home to have a Welcome Home dinner at the Sheraton, I'm picturing them like cartoons, who always seem to have the most visceral, sublimely excited experiences with food.

• Andino, that little annoying gnat, drives in Weiters and Reynolds to tie the game. Jeter gives NY the lead again with a sac grounder to bring in Ibanez in the 4th. Next inning, Reynolds finally makes himself useful and hits a deep one to plate another 2 and give O's the lead. (Well this game is realllly just very nip and tuck, Suzyn!)

• Granderson singles, game is tied. Stays that way for a while. EXTRA INNINGS! FREE BASEBALL!

• My sister: "Last year I never saw him bat in the playoffs because you made me sit in the bathroom every time he got up. Now I never get to see him back because he strikes out so quickly." I think Arod's doing fine, but there may actually be something to the "striking out quickly" part. And this comes back to something I said yesterday about how his bat speed is noticeably quicker. Am I making this up? I don't know how I'm supposed to feel about it, but my instinct is a positive one. I love anyone who swings as hard as he can.

• The Smokers Quit Hotline Trivia Question of the day: I have a painting in my living room that says "SWING AS HARD AS YOU CAN." Which player in last night's game said this?

So, I'll go ahead and admit that I wasn't crazy about seeing Swisher in the tying-run-on-2nd-with-2-outs-in-the-10th situation. In fact, I think my exact words were "Tex just got a double. And Swisher's up. Which means he'll try to seal the win with one swing and end up popping up to the pitcher."

I'M SORRY. I know, I know. Poor form. I hate that kind of fan negativity. The good news is that we all (I) learned an important lesson about having faith in the Yankees.

(I think I'm still holding a grudge against Swish for a game in 2009 that I went to with a Pinstripe Alley writer. The Yanks squandered a 4-0 lead and ended up losing 7-6 to the Rangers. A failed bunt attempt by Swisher was involved. Obviously had a big impact on me.)

Instead of popping up a bunt though, Swish goes yard, a 413 ft blast that brings in the last 2 runs of the game, completely the sweep and bringing the Yanks to a 0-0 record. Sort of.

Ok, a 3-3 record. Fitting, given the player who ended the game.

Yanks get a day off tomorrow, and then on Friday the 13th they bring it on back to the Boogie Down Bronx. Where sh*t's about to get so real that if this were a gun fight scene, people would be holding their guns sideways. Parallel to the ground-style.

Also, Arod will go deep that game. Because it's a day game and because he's 13. And because he's our clean up hitter and that's what clean up hitters do. Maybe it's like that expression "dress for the job you want, not the job you have."

"Hit in the spot you want, not the spot your BA suggests you should have."

BRING ON THE LOS ANGELOS ANGELS OF POO HOLE'S ANAHEIM.

And most importantly, after all these months, it's time to finally FINALLY bring on the Sinatra.
If Opening Day in the Bronx, with tens of thousands of fire-spitting Yankee fans getting drenched in the chords of New York, New York...if that doesn't remind you of how galactically awesome New York is, then you're fit for strategems and spoils. Just like the man who hath no music in his soul.

(Also, there's this. Courtesy Keli C. for this gem!)

This is fair. They treat us far less humanely.