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

Fatso returns from the DL, and it's 9000 degrees out and he acts like he's playing frisbee at the beach. Is he human? I mean, we always pose that rhetorical question when it comes to adonis-like figures and golden boys and Michael Myers types (quite the range, I know)...but no one ever really says it about 602 pound guys who all but substitute butters sticks for sunflower seeds in the dugout.
But Round Boy may or may not be human since his first night off the DL he pitches like he's playing against a half-drunk wiffle ball team from Zog Sports. Nothing to it. And the heat? He likes it, apparently. What a weirdo!

I remember my softball coach in high school (who was Tito Puente's granddaughter) was big on making all these hard and fast rules that was sacred. Kind of like my dad, who always feels like he has to draw the line somewhere. ("I don't care HOW many people you're inviting to Lauren's Sweet 16 party of cinematic proportions, but there will not be ANY DORRITOS THERE? Is that understood? Ok, then.")

So Puente used to insist on making me wear a long-sleeved t-shirt under my jersey because I was a pitcher and I had to keep my arm warm. I mean, I was a pitcher, yeah. But it wasn't like we had a 5-man rotation. I think me and one other girl just alternated on and off, so it wasn't exactly like she was trying to preserve the precious ligaments in there at all costs. It used to drive me berserk.

I'd be trying to throw my arm around in the windmill motion and feel all these folds of cotton jamming up against my side and it was like putting mittens on a stenographer or something. And the moral of the story is, who likes playing in heat?? I'd rather be freezing than sweating. But not Lard. Nope. He's a weirdo.

Though perhaps not as weird as Girardi for expressing a concern that "Sabathia might feel too strong after his three-week layoff." This is not unlike my mom last night who lamented how she wanted to go to the beach so she went to Bed and Bath to buy a new beach umbrella but by the time she got back, it was already 1pm and too late for the beach.

I want your life where your biggest problem is missing prime beach time on a Tuesday afternoon, or where your biggest concern is that your pitcher is TOO strong after coming off the DL.

No wonder everyone hates the Yankees. They're acting like the chicks with bodies like karate who tell everyone who will listen that they just never need to work out, while every other team is killing themselves at the gym trying to reach some realistic goal of over .500 play.

Arod was off, and Nix was playing 3rd, and maybe after he's been playing every day for another year I'll stop picturing Hakeem Nicks every time I hear Sterling say something like, "And I'll tell you something, Suzyn. Nix...well..well, that boy just does something perfect every day."

No one turns a hyperbole like our boy John. No one. I'm pretty sure he's said the exact same thing about Konerko, Texeira, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Judy Blume, Rick Moranis, the blue Fraggle, etc etc.

Andruw Jones should be added to that list, if he hasn't already, because he hit another homerun. And as unexcited as Ibanez gets about every sick bomb, that's how fired up Jones gets. It's adorable.

And more reasons why everyone hates the Yankees:
Jones' ding was the Yanks' 145th, which leads the league. It's only because we buy our team, of course: the bottom of our lineup got a combined 5 hits and 4 ribbies. You know, our hired guns.

So then there's that from our neophytes. Taking a look at how the opposition's NKOTB did:

When Arencibia lined out to almost end the game, somebody named Anthony Gose got doubled up to really end the game. (Sterling: "Well, that was a weird way to end the game." Weird? His rubric for normal is more skewed than mine. Not Ollie's. But mine, anyway.)


So that was Gose's MLB debut. Coming in to bunt and then going out on a doubled up play. I feel like he should've have the sad Snoopy music playing during his exit.


Cano extends his hitting streak to 20. R-So gets his 24th save in 25 tries and the shirt comes untuck which gets more and more unassailably awesome every time.

Oh, one more thing: Mariano Rivera may return this year. I mean, it's a long shot, but if a 290 lb pitcher can come back off the DL after weeks, to pitch a shutout through 7 in amazon heat...then Mariano Rivera--another prime candidate for not-human status--can certainly see a return in 2012.

Not everyone is as porcelain and lily-livered as Tom Brady. Most people actually don't need 23,012 days of recovery after an ACL tear. Hurry home, Mo.

And, Hug: get ready for our big night out on the town. A bet's a bet.