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

Last night I played softball for the first time in a while, and we lost by the mercy rule. The only thing the mercy rule is really merciful on is the ump because I think most people playing in central park leagues would rather just play out the game, especially since it's not uncommon for shit akin to this to happen.

(The silver lining was that it was also the first time I got to apply the batting tricks that Phil Brassinger taught me when I met him on Old Timer's Weekend. First time in my life someone offered batting tips beyond "level swing" and words cannot fully communicate the difference I felt at the plate. It was unreal how much easier my swing was. Cheers, mate.)

Anyways, so the Harrison & Star team gets our asses handed to us last night, and the game is called prematurely, and the Yankees do something similar this afternoon to the Jays, who didn't have the best trip to the Big Apple. Everything bad happened to them.

Kiruda pitched a 4-hit game, and trying to assign a modicum of predictability to our pitching performances is reminiscent of that scene in Silence of the Lambs.


Random Scattering of Sites Seem Desperately Random?

Ta, Hannibal Lector. So whimsical that flesh-eating sociopath!

Anyways, so the desperately random pitching came through, and keeping in theme with the randos, Dewayne Wise gets to start. I keep wanting to capitalize the W whenever I write out his name. Kind of like how I always wanted there to be a third "g" in Ty Wigginton's name. Like a gerund.

The Yanks scored about 20 runs in the first, some of which came off the bat of Tex's 2 run bomb, and I can't tell if Tex's only-good-late-in-the-season thing is a real phenomenon or if it's just the work of a masterful PR campaign that allows him to suck for the first few months of the year, since, you know, he's only good after May and pshh don't expect anything earlier, that's just dumb.

Romero lost and I think I mercifully (see what I did there?) forget to move him off my bench in my fantasy team. Somehow I'm still locked in at 2nd place, 2 games behind first, despite the fact I am having a hard time following baseball outside of the Yankees.

So I'm starting to treat team 1/CYCp3col2para9 the same way my mom treats everything, which is adopting a foresight schmoresight mentality and only reacting to things you can see with your own 2 eyes right then and there. That's a great way to be. Nope. I'm like 5 minutes away from dropping Hanely Ramirez to waivers on account of this approach.

Brett Lawrie, who's been holding it down pretty well on said fantasy team, will now be replacing Matt Kemp's DL seat, since he almost made a really great meaningless catch that, had he properly executed, I would have pointed to as a reason why Jeter's diving into stands catch isn't as impressive as it's made out to be.

But instead Lawrie screwed it up and this happened and he looked like Lance Berkman trying to gracelessly play defense. Could be karma. You know the umps in the proverbial ump pub are having a good chortle over this one, after Lawrie's last episode with authority.

The Blue Jays have been consistently giving the Yanks a run for their money in terms of who's the bigger badder bombsquad, and it never really annoys me, mostly because they're Canadian, and they're like Canadian pennies in the sense that sometimes they're cool, and they look different, but ultimately I don't really think they count as legit currency.

And to underscore this irrelevance, they're limping out of the Bronx below .500, with 2 of their stars hurt, and having been outscored 18-4. And with one lone homerun to show for all their big bad bombsquadness.

Actually, they still probably haven't even left NY, given the ridiculous storm that just passed through long enough to kill my afternoon productivity. (You'd think I was working in the fields or something, but no, I just get distracted by lightning. A lot.

I'm not really easily distracted, but lightning storms are on par with true crime documentaries and Law&Order marathons in terms of things that guarantee to hold me hostage.

(My weird fascination of being hit by lightning ALMOST became a reality in the sense I'm pretty sure the office building was hit, seeing as we saw sparks fly out of the overhead lights and then everyone's hands felt all tingly. I'm convinced getting hit by lightning means gaining clairvoyance. And I will not be dissuaded from this assumption.)

So anyways, yeah, the Blue Jays are probably still in the airport waiting for a flight out, and I almost feel bad for them, because having been on a terrible trip that culminates in a crappy flight out, I can sympathize that there are few things more miserable.

Cano got another hit today. Bears mentioning.

Jeter had one of the team's million extra base hit. In 6 innings, the Yanks hit 12 times to the Jays' 4. It was like one of those montages in movies where the team is doing really well and all you see is just bat crack after bat crack, and then shots to the dugout of teammates laughing, and then an occasional web gem to really drive home how, yeah, this team is really firing on all cylinders!

(I have one in mind, too, but I can't find it on the internet, bringing my "things I can't find on the internet" to a grand total of 2. I don't care about the HardBall movie clip so much as care about finding my Bronx Bombers hat. I swear I will end up marrying the person who finds it, like Wart got to be the king because he pulled the sword out of the stone. Yeah, just like that.)

But, yeah, keep it up, Yankees! As my dad used to always tell me, "never look back, they're gaining on you." (My dad always thinks someone is chasing him, though.)

Incuta primus. Incuta ferreus. Ostendo haud misercordia.