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

May 8 and 9, 2012

More bad news from ESPN

Alright, so the Yankees won on Tuesday, and that was great, I followed the game on the radio while my dentist tried to kill me. Maybe he didn't try to kill me, but I figured out why people hate going so much. It's not because of the pain, because even though that's pretty bad, it's nothing compared to the feeling of being strapped down (which you're not at all, but I'm dramatic), while someone hovers over you with a bunch of sharp objects, casting judgement on your flossing lifestyle.

I have my phone in one hand playing the game (technology!) and this rubber suction thing over my nose which allegedly was feeding me laughing gas, but I kept asking, "what is this supposed to feel like?" And they kept saying, "You don't feel like you're floating? You don't feel a buzz?"

"No, I'm not even numb, either." Somehow I got shafted in the anesthesia gene department, and no matter how much novacaine you put in me, it won't ever numb me.

So finally I ask them to take off the rubber thing because I'm convinced this whole laughing gas thing is the world's biggest scam/Emperor's new clothes. And so the dentist goes to up the intake or something and says, "Oh! You know why you didn't feel anything? The tank was empty!"

Yeah, that would explain it.

The tank was empty. The Yanks won on Tuesday, but as far as last night goes, the tank was indeed empty across the boards.

We took a page from Philly's book and executed a hat trick of losses. (Of course, today my Metsies friends are quick to remind me that no, it was not a bad night altogether in NY sports, because the Mets swept Philly. I don't know whether to be happy for the Mets or sad because of how pathetic it is that NY is getting its sports kicks from a team that has all but patented the 3 men converging in the outfield over a can of corn play.)

My first priority last night was the Ranger game. Who played horribly, and are now playing what should be a very stress-free, cas game in the Garden on Saturday night. Yeah, that won't be a giant ball of anuerysm or anything. They'll win though. I feel like it was set up that way. I mean, it's kind of like when I had a Pfizer badge that swiped me into the building whenever I had a client meeting. I went 3 months without having to see the client and then when I finally went back there, the badge was demagnetized. MSG is on the verge of demagnetizing itself, because it's starting to feel like it exists for no reason other than to house dejection at the hands of the NYK.

(Oh yeah, the Knicks lost, but this is no surprise to anyone in the entire world. At least they didn't get swept. My interest in the Knicks is so non-existent that even a general sports fan like myself couldn't muster up even the slightest modicum of bandwagon investment in their playoff run.)

So the Rangers lose and that sucked. Then I guess the Knicks lost at some point, and I think it was probably around the time they took the court because more so than any other team, (including the Jets and Mets), the Knicks are fatally allergic to success. Maybe that's for the best. The Jets and Mets will really convince their fans it's for real this time. The Knicks on the other hand seem to always be reminding the world to not get toooo excited because they still fulling intend on playing like Leonardo DiCaprio on LSD in the Basketball Diaries.

Then, like one of those weird sea organisms that look like 1-eyed worms, all the eyes in the bar shifted abruptly to the tv with the Yankee game. And last we had all checked, it was 1-0. Now it was 1-1. Great. Fantastic.

But D-Rob was in, and what could possibly go wrong, right?? I mean, it's not like D-Rob EVER gives up runs. He's the new Mo! Pshh, we were all worried for nothing. It sucks Mo is gone, but we can handle it, our pen is super sweet!

Yeah, except as my buddy Hug noted with text message despondance: "LWM is f'n terrible."

(I got a little anxious when I had no idea who LWM is. I start to question my entire sports knowledge and get panicky that not only do I not know as much as I think I do, but that this is evident to the world and my admission of not knowing who LWM is expose me as a complete fraud.)

Luckily, I sidestepped that landmine when he clarified, "Life Without Mo."

Then Matt Joyce takes him deep and it's 4-1 and he sprains his ankle in the process and calls it the best and worst feeling in the world in the span of a second. Ok, let's slow your roll, Joyce. You can't talk about the worst feeling in the world over a sprained ankle.

Comparatively, you got off easy considering Mo's medical state. The Cloud of Gloom and Evil and Baseball Plagues struck Boston yesterday, with the untimely death of Carl Beane. Terrible tragedy, so a sprained ankle dovetailed with a long ball isn't the WORST feeling, Joyce.

Yeah, LWM is starting to sink in. And oh, Mo has a blood clot. Great. Fantastic. I still think he's coming back. I mean, if he had to get amputated like our poor cat Grey (R.I.P.) I still think he'd be back. Which means Hug is going to owe me a big NYC night on the town. We're going to Sizzla!

Hopefully. Not hopefully about the Sizzla, but about the Mo.

It was just a mess last night. The Yanks hemorrhaged runs in the last inning of the game and couldn't get them back. The look broken. O'Brien came out to watch the disaster, and I will say as soon as he walked in the Rangers scored. But then the dominos came crashing down in succession, and he asked "So how bad are the Yankees this year?"

Who knows? ARE they bad? It's impossible to make any kind of legitimate assessment of baseball standings right now because you have all these factors skewing the data. The Mets holding court. The O's leading the AL East. All these young players living up to their hype. Nothing makes sense.

There needs to be some kind of a control in this evaluation, and there isn't. Not a one.

Except, of course, for Jeter. He was the lone run, driven in by Cano. The Yanks left 8 men on base. What the hell is going on when, in a 9-hit game, you can only bring home 1 runner?

Most of the team got hits, except for Tex, Grandy, and Wise. That's ok, I think.

And I'm not worried about D-Rob. I think he's actually being way too hard on himself, which you may remember is kind of what I like when a pitcher blows the game. Beat yourself up. So he did. And he's forgiven.

"It's the worst feeling in the world. You watch when Mo does it, he comes back the next day and he's the same guy. He goes right back out there, takes the mound and does his thing. I'm going to have to do that tomorrow...Eventually, I'm not going to be able to get out of all my messes that I create. It was really tough, just a sad way to end the game. You're not always going to be perfect out there. I had a good stretch. It just stinks when you do give up the runs."

And when you go back to when Mo replaced the Yankees closer in '97, you'll find that even the great Mariano blew the first handful of save opportunities he had.

D-Rob is bank, his faltering isn't what makes me think LWM is f'n terrible. It's the general sense of emptiness that's evident even across a broadcast. Even when they're winning games, even when they're keeping it close, and playing baseball-without-incident. You can just tell. Something's off in the clubhouse. They're a bunch of misshapen beads strung together by an old woman in a senior citizen's home. Delicate and reticent and disjointed.

They still make a full necklace, but it's awkward and sad to think about how it came to be.

However, in all things, it is better to hope than despair. This, too, shall pass. And hopefully without any more casualties, player or standings-wise.

Come on, Yankees. We're counting on you like you've always counted on Mo.

Iam est vicis pro maiestas.