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

I left work last night at around 11:30, so I'm standing outside the Channel 11 News Building, trying to decide whether I should cab it because it's late and I'm cranky, or whether I should enjoy the first real night of balmy spring weather and walk to Grand Central. Amidst these musings, I see out of the corner of my eye the largest head in the world that could only belong to one person and one person only.

Oh, Michael Kay!

Why, in God's name, are you randomly standing outside the News Building as the hours creep up on midnight?

But can anyone ever really understand the inner trappings of a mind like Michael Kay's? No.

HOWEVAH, player of the day is coworker Joe K, for his outstanding "What You Should Have Done" comment.

When I see Joe this morning and I'm yawning, etc and we exchange the "late night at the office" commisseries (is that a word? Bowno.)... I tell him about the KaySighting, he's confused (justly so).

"What? What was he doing there?"

"I don't know, I didn't ask him. I didn't talk to him. I briefly considered asking him to give me a ride home though."

"You should have just walked right him while you were leaving and just said 'SEE YA!'"

Gold.

Well-played, Joe. And bad knowledge, CYC on not rolling out the prime line.



Moving on.

The Yanks lose again, in somewhat familiar fashion. Very much like the 2-0 not-no-hitter game on the night prior. Except this time they had more hits. And this time it wasn't a no-name they were handing the W over to, but rather, Gavid Floyd, who really pitched quite a gem.

He struck out 10 and only gave up 3 hits before Jeter singles in the 9th, and Ozzie brings in Matt Thornton, and man I hate missing the tv broadcast of ANY Yank game, but ESPECIALLY when they're playing the White Sox. Just because I love seeing--as Strange hilariously pointed out--the Ozzie Guillen call to the bullpen that looks like how an obese slob would signal over to his waiter that he wants the all-you-can-eat ribs to keep on comin'.

So after Grandy sacs Jeter over to 2nd, and Tex works a walk, we get treated to the 2nd helping of Ozzie's bullpen calling, as he brings in Santos for the final 2 outs.

According to Sterling, Arod's shot was just INCHES away from winning the game. This could be true, but there's just as good a chance that Arod weakly grounded to third. Same goes for Cano's roped liner that followed. Could have tied the game, or it could have just been a strike-out. You never really know when you rely on the Sterling broadcast.

However, both calls were corroborated this morning, and the brilliance of Lillibridge's game saving plays were also substantiated.

So, even though the Yanks didn't lose to a Phillip Humber again, they lost to someone of equal stature in the MLB community:



Then, just to really drive home the point that Lillibridge is a utility infielder who's gonna prove his worth off the bench if it's the last thing he does, dammit.. there's this one, too.

Good work, Lillibridge. I'm impressed. Must have had the lucky feather with you, after all.

Soriano screwed up this game for me and the Crisis Nerviosas, by giving up a game-winning bomb to Konerko, about whom Sterling made the following somewhat lofty claim:

"You know what the thing is about Konerko? He doesn't make mistakes."

Wow. Quite a billing.

Nova pulled an AJ and had a solid outing in a losing effort, but since there have been questions around his value floating around, he probably had the same relief AJ had, though bittersweet.

GGBG homered AGAIN (so did Cano), and this is just hysterical to me, since the Yanks have had 8 bombs in the last 4 games, and 2 of them have been off the bat of someone who weighs as much as a medicine ball.



Also, it should be noted that if we're gonna talk about people not making mistakes, let's bring up the fact the Yanks only saw 115 pitches, compared the 148 seen by the Southsiders. And by not making mistakes, I mean let's not make this mistake again. Is it me, or do the Yanks panic after a loss and do the whole Kobe Bryant, "F this noise, Ima win the game myself" thing where they all try to go yard?

I'm fine with that most of the time. Since most of the time, it works.

Just not last night.

Well, there's always tonight! Which we will win with Allergy on the mound!

Oh speaking of weirdnesses on the mound, can we go ahead and bring up this one, since Hughes seems to be going the way of the Rachel haircut?

My sister was just in my office, and we were both frantically rambling about bananas today has been at work. I've also been frantically rambling about how "I am very irritable today for some reason. Not when I interact with other people. I'm fine then. But when left to my own devices, I'm about to slam my computer against the wall if my bullets on powerpoint won't align."

And I realized why!

On Sunday, on my way to Church, I took off my Yankee bracelet because it irritates my mom to no end (with reason, I suppose, since it's beyond ratty), and now I'm attributing this to my chemical imbalance.

Whatever, I could just be cranky about the loss last night.

"Yeah, I was gonna try to watch the game with Strange last night after softball, but he had work to do. Probably better I didn't, I guess."

My sister responds: "Yeah, well AJ's happy though."

"Huh?"

"Yeah, in the postgame, when everyone else is like, 'you want a win, you don't get it, so you're disappointed,' he's like, 'WELL I WAS GREAT!""

Ha. Oh AJ.

So today, when dealing with the loss of my Yankee bracelet (if only temporarily), I'm going to channel go old psychopath AJ, and recall his words of optimism in the face of defeat.

“I’m making a step, I’m not going to rear back and try and throw as hard as I can anymore,” Burnett said. “I’m going to try and make a pitch — you know, will myself through it — and that’s what I do.”

That's what I do. Will myself through it. Weirdo.

So last night, someone named Phillip Humber, who has as many teams to his career as I have Yankee hats on my door, held the Yanks to 1 hit last night. Good for him. He's the kind of story my dad likes, sort of, since he turned down the Yanks originally in 2001 to go back to school.

The Chisox won for only the 2nd time in 12 games, which means the Yanks are kind of like becoming what the Pirates were a few years ago: a soup kitchen. I remember in 2008 or 09, Pittsburgh was basically just handing out their best players to whomever was interested. And now, the Yanks are basically doing the same thing with wins.

It's very charitable of them. Well, it would be, anyway, if they were doing it on purpose and not just inexplicably providing cellar-dwellers with Ws (cough...Red Sux...cough).

The Yanks were hitless until the 7th inning, so you can imagine how happy we all were watching this transpire. The thing is, it was only a 1-0 game at that point, so the fact we were hitless wasn't reallllly upsetting me too much, you know? If it was 8-0, then fine, that means the big story of the game is the no-hitter. A 1-0 game just means that it's a nice little pitching duel that could go either way.

Unfortunately it went the way of the bad guys.

ARod, of course, put the tick of relief on the board for us, which brought on a cascade of cheers that I'm sure made him smile, even though it was just for a hit.

All in all, it was a pretty quiet game, unless you're Ozzie Guillen and Phillip Humber.

"Phil's got great stuff and he can do it, "Pierzynski said. "He's just got to throw strikes and believe in himself."

Thanks, Crazy AJ #2. (How does one generally distinguish between Burnett and Pierasdkasd [sic]?) Catcher AJ and Pitcher AJ is just kind of meh.

Maybe MissingAJ?

(Yeah, I'm mildly obsessed with the Onion's own aggressive obsession with AJ.)

So, yeah, moving on. The Southsiders scored again in the 9th, Konerko drives in an "insurance run" (God, I hate that term), and the Yanks lose 2-0.

Grandy, Arod, and Chavez are the only hits for the Yanks (2/3 of those folks are on team Las Crisis Nerviosas, but as usual, I'd prefer a Yankee win over a LCN one.)

Humber only walked 2 and hit Swish with a pitch. Really nice work from him. Will there be a repeat performance in his future? He looked pretty good to me. I suppose that, yes, the Yanks historically are useless against a pitcher they've never seen before, but I don't know.

(I know I've said this before, but do the Yanks invest any of there BULTIBILLION dollar budget (see what I did there, payroll obsessors?) to a video analyst? Whatever happened to Charles Worskfkjwe whatever his last name is? Wonsowicz. That's it.)

So there's that. AJ gives up 3 hits, 2 BBs (?? wow), 1 run, and whiffs 2. Soriano is less than impressive, gives up another run, but does it matter? As my buddy Russo wisely admonishes whenever I start getting all alarmist, "Unless the Yankees score a run, we're not winning this one anyway."

True story.

I'll leave you all with this: my mom (who I've mentioned in my last post has been having some spamming issues) sends me an email in the middle of the night, which was the last straw, and I begged her this morning to get rid of her AOL account because I can't take the spamming anymore.

Then she tells me it's not spam, that she meant to email me this craigslist post to me:

Female Roommate Wanted - Your own bedroom in 2 1/2 Bedroom apartment
Date: 2011-04-25, 8:46PM

Furnished bedroom available in spacious 2 1/2 bedroom apartment. Doorman, high floor, city and sunset views, sunny, etc. Washer, dryer and dishwasher in the apartment. The apartment has good heat, is quiet for sleeping, has good air-conditioning, high speed internet and a spare computer for the roommate's use. It's an elevator building and there is a health club in the building. The room is about 200 sq. ft., has a double bed, dresser, desk, walk in closet and a window with a nice view. I'm looking for a female roommate who will occasionally not wear clothes when I ask in exchange for free rent. No sex whatsoever required. Otherwise the rent is $780/month, everything included.


Bleecker St. at Broadway (google map) (yahoo map)

A note of warning would have been appreciated. My heart stopped when I got to the bottom of the post and for a split second I thought my mom was offering this up to me as a suggestion, rather than a marvel at the degree of sleaze in some people in this city.

(Of course, I then received the expository follow-up email from my mom: "is this the most unbelievable thing in the world. There are such sickos out there!!!")

To sum up, the moral of the story is, um..?..

Baseball's a funny game, Suzyn.

So Mariano Rivera blows the save again but unlike the game against the Jays, this time the Yanks prevail in eggstra innings. Yep. Eggstra. Because it was Easter. If I wasn't Catholic, I'd probably make some comment about how they were dead but then rose again to win it. However, I'm Catholic, and hence will refrain from such rhetoric.

As me and my family are sitting together for Easter dinner ("leg of lamp" as I called it), we're keeping one eye on the tv the living room (sometimes 2 eyes even), and man it was getting exciting. First Mo blows the save..

Wait, no, let me back up even more.

We're watching the game at it's 2-0 within seconds. Actually, to be honest, it felt like it should have been 234-0 based on how much they were pounding the ball the whole game. But no, it stays 2-0 for a while. Something kind of Grandish homered early, then Arod brings in another run to make it 3-0. Then I decide it would be a good time to try to help fix my mom's computer, since at least 4 times a week her aol account sends me valuable spam links on how to buy Viagra.

This, of course, doesn't bother me so much, but it bothers 1.) her because her hijacked email is sending it to her old coworkers and it bothers 2.) my sister, who works on the Viagra account and always ends up opening these links thinking they're actually relevant and not, in fact, viruses.

So I try to hack into her mainframe etc aka play around on the Registry files (I have zero idea what I'm doing, to be sure) and it turns out, neither does Justin Chamberlain, all 394,921 pounds of him, because the next time I look up at the tv, it's 3-2 and we're bringing in Mo to stop the bleeding.

But instead, he contributes to the bleeding (after DRob doesn't help, but he has some latitude on account of how well he had been playing). The O's end up tying the game and (!!!!) almost winning it until Swish zips one into Cano who throws out the winning run at the plate. PHEWWWWW.

It ALMOST didn't look like a well-called call, and I almost felt bad, because as much as I want to win, I'm not crazy about being on the positive end of a blown call (especially as a Yankee fan since for some reason everyone thinks the Yanks have the edge in life because it's just HANDED to them on a silver platter. Not true. They have the edge because they're better than everyone else.)

Then basically this happens:



Sort of. Jeter gets called out at the plate in the top of the 10th, with a bullet throw from Jones that gets to Wieters and upon closer inspection, yeah Jeter was out. Both plays at the plate, (bottom 9th and top of 10th) were eggstremely odd because both Wieters and Martin just looked really confused. Like girls who catch in recreational softball. The ball rarely ends up going to them and when it does, they're just completely baffled by everything.

The Yanks cobble together relief pitchers (for no reason, really, since Sweaty Freddy had been pitching excellently!) It's a 3-0 game and Girardi does that overmanaging thing which I never really like to call him out on but I will here because, well, he did. Why bring in Justin for the sake of bringing in Justin for Chrissake??

Actually, it was Easter. Maybe it was, in fact, for Christ's sake. Doing the nice thing.

GGBG saved the game for Mo, even though Mo did blow the save, with a ridiculous catch that my dad said he made because "He heard Kris saying, 'Gardner doesn't need to be a good bat, he's good for one thing only and that's his speed.' You know, people on tv can hear you. He was just proving to Kris that he's good for other things."

Well, there you have it. I've been so misinformed. And trust me, if my Dad says it, it's true.

The Yanks win 6-3 after a 40 minute rain delay, which allowed all us NYers just enough time to see the other remaining NY team (Knickerbockers) get swept. The 11th inning resumes just as we're walking across the street to my Godmother's place for coffee and dessert. Here's how that played out (the game, not the coffee):

RMart reached on infield single to shortstop, Chavez to second, Robbie scored (ps he apparently hates being called Robbie, according to my sis). Jeter reached on infield single to third, Chavez scored (ps I still have no idea where this Chavez guy came from). Jeter to second on throwing error by Mark Reyonds. Something kind of Grandish reached on infield single to second, RMart scored.

There you have it. Great win, Yanks. And happy Easter!

Way to stay atop the league.

Hannibal Lector said that. I definitely used that once, years ago, when I was giving a presentation on copywriting. It was my first significant client presentation, a big conference room of people from Forest Pharmaceuticals, and I explained that consistency in branding is key because, as Hannibal Lector said, "we covet what we see every day."

In retrospect, I might have been better off using that line from my old standby, Oscar Wilde: “It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances.”

That said, I am pleased to announce the partnership with BuildASign.com, who has created a host of CYC-branded goods!

It started a week or so ago, when I received an email from Megan at BuildASign.com (and for what it's worth, she just could not have been nicer and more helpful!), saying that she would happy to provide any kind of branded material from her site.

BuildASign makes pretty much everything and anything you could ever want in terms of a Stuff You Can Put A Picture/Name/Logo On:


So not only did Megan send me a FANTASTICALLY GINORMOUS AND AWESOME banner, but it came within a week of her contacting me. Plus, I have to say, the quality of the banner was pretty top-notch. I actually thought it was going to be a poster-type of banner, but when it arrived, I was so excited to see it was a water-proof, thick, sturdy vinyl type of banner, with robust grommets in the corners.

In addition to the banner (which I can't decide whether I want to put above my couch, hanging in my window/facing outside, above my bed, or in my office), Megan also sent me a bunch of CYC bumper stickers.

I don't have a car (see recent post on why I tend to stay away from motor vehicles), but I know plenty of people who DO drive, which this will now be bestowed upon:

(That's my youngest sister's car.)

Anyways, if you would like one of these CYC bumper stickers (thank you again to Megan at BuildASign!!!), lemme know, and I'll send one along! And of course, I can offer nothing but my highest recommendations of that site, if you ever have any other kind of insignia need.

Welcome onboard, BaS! I can't tell you how much I appreciate the ridicu-cool CYC gear! :)

In Easter gear and all. Actually, it was the day before Easter. April 7, 2007. Just like this salami was.

It was his 22nd career slam, pushing him past WoManRam, and into second place on the career list behind only the Iron Horse (23).

I've said it before, I'll say it again. When all is said and done, Alex Rodriguez will be the best baseball player that ever lived.

And speaking of THE BEST, you know who's doing good in terms of homeruns? THE NEW YORK YANKEES.

They've already logged 35 long balls, by far the most in the league (the next highest is Texas with 27, so I guess "by far" may be a little bit of an exaggeration? Whatever.)

In yesterday's game alone, aside from Arod's blast, R-Mart homered twice, Posada homered once, and...wait for it...GGBG EVEN WENT YARD! Ridiculous.

Sabathia (1-1) allowed three runs and six hits in eight innings, striking out seven and walking one. The performance came one night after his scheduled start was postponed by a rainout.

"Maybe that extra day did help him," manager Joe Girardi said. "I saw him [Friday] and he looked OK, but you know he had a low-grade fever and wasn't feeling great."

Oooh, poor Fatso! Or as my mom would say, "Doctor! Doctor! My little mootzaboodle!"

The Yanks pretty much ran away with the game for most of the game. The ONLY time they even came close to losing ground was when Adam Jones hit a 3 run shot in the the 7th to score Lee and Markakis, making the score 6-3.

HOWEVAH, the Yanks responded with Jorge's 2-run shot in the 8th, followed immediately by R-Mart's 2nd bomb of the day. Soon thereafter, the Yanks load up the bases against Accardo, and that's why Arod is batting clean up.

#13 has this way of returning to the lineup against Baltimore and just basically foregoing any kind of "weening" himself into the game.

For example:



Ahh, that was another good one. (Notice the assclowns in the Camden bleachers with the needle posters? Ha. Morons.)

To paraphrase the famous owner of the Yanks from the 20s, Jacob Ruppert, “a great day at the ballpark is when we get out to a 10-0 lead and then slowly pull away.”

Which is pretty much what happened yesterday. Sort of.

And then, just for good measure, there's what happens after the grand slam. Which, as we all know, usually is just awkward.

But since yesterday was just a total run hemorrhage, GGBG went ahead and added to the bleeding. So confusing. It was a 96mph fastball, though, so I guess little $11 just basically had to touch the ball to put it over the short porch. Which is what happened. And the dugout goes wild, and they're laughing, and you remember how awesome it is to be a Yankee fan.

(Which is a sentiment that is really driven home lately, in the presence of pretty much every NY sports team that isn't the Yankees. Not good showing, NY Rangers. Same to you, NY Knicks. And NY Mets...sigh. Whatever.)

So the Yanktank wins 15-3 and becomes the last team to score at least 4 runs in an inning. Yeah, that's right. The team with the best record in the AL, and the most dings in the whole league, had yet to score 4 runs in an inning until yesterday. Well, slow and steady etc etc, no?

Oh, and just to keep things interesting, there was a completely innocuous brush back in the 9th which the media is desperately trying to blow out into a legit story.

After Rupe hit Martin in the back with a pitch in the ninth, Gardner hit his first homer of the season.Rupe said the brushback pitch was completely accidental."I had no intent to hit him. I looked at the video and it didn't look good," the pitcher said. "But there's no way that I would intentionally go at somebody's head or go way up there. I know how to hit a guy when the situation calls for it and that wasn't it. No, I wouldn't do it."

Yeah, I guess it's either that story or this one.

Things are getting crazy!

Ah, that said, HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE! See you after today's game. :)

Oh, also, me and my Dad tried to make NYY Easter eggs, but they ended up looking more like someone was trying to claw it's way out of a robin's egg. Soo..no posting of those pics. Though soon there will be pics courtesy of our newest sponsor! Stay tuned...

TORONTO -- Bartolo Colon put his best foot forward in his first start with the New York Yankees, and wanted something to remember the occasion.

Colon pitched into the seventh inning to earn his first win in two years and the Yankees beat the Toronto Blue Jays 6-2 on Wednesday night.

"It's very special for me," Colon said through a translator. "The shoes that I wore today, I'm going to keep them as a memory."

Ha, that's pretty hilarious. My sister and I like to commemorate big events with a new pair of shoes (I think she actually just implemented this tradition as a means of getting me to don footwear beyond Sambas). It's just funny that a big leaguer is doing this. So weird, in fact, that I'm wondering if his translator misheard him say "zafato" which would mean something to the effect of "The craziness of today, I'm going to keep it as a memory."

I'd like to assume that's what he meant, instead of shoes.

So, yeah, Colon. CC aka Tubbo.com is FAT. Colon, however, is allergic. That's the only explanation I can come up with to explain why his face looks fatter than Round Boy. Seriously, he looks like how I did my last day of vacation. I'm like fatally allergic to some spice in Indian and Thai and Mexican food, it could make me go into anaphylactic shock if I eat even a moderate amount of it. But I guess I just had a pinch of it or something, since I woke up like this:
(Yeah, I know. I don't why I'm still single either.)

Ok, now compare to this:
The resemblance is nothing short of uncanny.

That said, Something Sort of Grandish homered AGAIN. Last year he had 24 homeruns all season. This year he has around 89 so far. No complaints here, since he's a starter on fantasy roster Las Crisis Nerviosas (also, a starter for the Yankees, so..double bonus.)

The Yanks already have 30 dings and the first month of baseball hasn't even finished yet.

The Pitching Machines were stellar last night, not only was the Allergy in top notch form (7Ks, 2BBs, 2 runs in little over 6IP), but the relief that we cobbled together was equally solid. D-Rob again was brilliant, Logan was unnoticeable which is pretty much what I hope to get out of him, and Lance Pendleton...well, nothing he can do can escape the eclipse of how f'n awesome his name is. He sounds like he should be writing scrolls with feather pens, and saying words like "whilst" and "shant." Instead, he pitches (1 hit, 1 BB, 0 runs.) Soriano gets the save.

The Jays tried to stage some sort of rally, but the magic from the game prior wasn't there. They got 1 back in the 7th, but then screwed it up. They have 1 out with runners on 1st and 2nd. Snider ropes one to the outfield (and sadly, refrains from snapping his bat in exuberance). Encarnacion stops at 3rd (good move). Arenciba rounds 2nd (bad move) and he's tagged out by Tex (who went 3-5 on the day, in other news.)

That was some bizarro hybrid of Mets-Anaheim-esque decision making. But I'll take it.

Yanks win 6-2, retain the best record in the AL East (though the Injuns have the best in the league?? Confusing. Also, temporary). And while all this is going on, the Rangers (of the NHL persuasion) are busy squandering a 3-0 lead to Ovechkin et al in a 2OT playoff loss.

It's good to be a Yankee fan.

Supernova got tagged with the loss, but we all know who screwed this up for the Yankees. You know how there's some people you REALLY don't want to lose a game to? Like you really don't want Manny Ramirez to take you deep in the bottom of the 9th at Fenway? Or strike out looking against Papelbon? (Fortunately, neither of these are possible anymore..)

Similarly, I HATE watching Mo get in trouble. He looks so sad and helpless the few times it actually happens. He doesn't stomp his feet or pound his glove or get angry. Or, if he does, it's in private. All we see is the best closer in baseball, and one of the classiest guys in the game, look sullen and confused.

The weird part about this was that none of us thought THIS was going to be the problem. Kind of like when I took my driving test and I practiced parallel parking for WEEKS beforehand. And then I nailed it. No smoother parallel parking job had ever been executed in the history of life. So you can imagine my surprise when I'm told I failed.

Not only did I fail, but I apparently had broken nearly every traffic law known to mankind in the process. Speeding, wrong way in 1-way street, ran a stop sign, etc. The instructor's exact words were, "I actually feared for my life while in a car with you."

Ok, a simple "F" would have sufficed. The melodrama wasn't necessary.

Similarly, the bases loaded situation in the 6th that was cruelly handed over to Robertson was like the parallel parking nightmare.

AJ Burnett left after walking Nix to load the bases, but Robertson fanned Escobar and Snider to escape the jam.

Speaking of melodrama, Snider snaps his bat over his thigh like it's a toothpick, then hurled the pieces into the dirt in cinematic fashion. I love it when players break bats. It's so badass. Unfortunately, it usually happens after they strike out or pop up. Which is the opposite of badass.

Add this to my list of things I want to see happen in a game sometime: player snapping bat over his thigh after he goes yard.

The game was nip and tuck for a while, the runs started with Bautista's solo shot. (Speaking of Bautista, check out this nutso's website and Youtube page. I use nutso in the most affectionate way possible, of course. I'm bordering on mad she lives in Canada so I can't hang out with her.)

The game broke open (as much as it would, anyway) with the "TEXT MESSAGE" 2-run ding. Things got shady in the 6th, as I mentioned, and if I didn't like AJ (but I do), I'd make some Knicks comparison here, about the longevity of his effectiveness in games. Moving on..

Encarnacion drives in a run to close the gap to 1 run. D-Rob saves us from an implosion, Something Sort of Grandish goes deep with perhaps the sweetest, nicest swing I've seen all year. Just real poetry. Seriously.

Then all us Yankee fans start cheering because the game's over, no? Mariano Rivera's coming in. Done and done. You know how good a closer is when you're not even scared of jinxing it by saying things like, "What's the worst that could happen?" etc.

Well, I guess we all learned an important lesson about jinxes last night.

I don't even know what happened. Basically, Mo imploded.

The rally snapped Rivera's streak of 17 1/3 scoreless innings in April, a run that stretched back to April 30, 2009.

"That's the thing about Mo, he's not perfect but he's close to it," Teixeira said.

That's true. He is. And the thing about baseball is, we play again today. I already forgot about the extra innings walkoff. Sort of.