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

As soon as the words, "Yeah, I don't think I'll be here late" leave my mouth, my fate has been sealed. Still at the office, watching the Denver-Lakers game on ESPN GameCast, pounding sour gummy worms, and retracing the steps the Yankees have taken. But very delicately and cautiously. It's funny how when the Yankees couldn't hit water if they had jumped off a boat, that I was airily skipping around, clapping about how this would just be a funny thing to laugh about when we win the 2009 World Series.

Now that they look like a team as I understand the definition of it, I'm in a much more high strung state. A writer (W&L alum) once described how he felt talking to girls he met at bars, and it pretty much mirrors the same unease yet determined aggression I'm feeling towards the Yanks right now:

“Talking to a strange woman in a bar is like trying to sustain a Ping-Pong ball in midair by leaning your head back and blowing; if you stop to breathe, the ball falls.”

If I stop to pay attention to anything other than what the Yanks are doing--like engage in the tempting yet beneath-us habit of ratting on the Sox, or start taking games for granted, or fall prey to the overtly maddening contention that some games count less than others during the regular season. Like my high school Finite Math teacher who would snicker at how frazzled and nervous I'd get before every test. "It's 40 minutes of your life. It's not going to mean anything in the long run, it's not that big a deal."

And TECHNICALLY, yes, that makes sense. But only if the 40 minute periods would have no measurable impact on an endpoint that WOULD make a difference. You can say 40 minutes will have no discernible impact on your life if those 40 minutes are spent in a movie theater. Or on a bad date. Or passed out on the beach.

It starts off as just a 40 minute exercise in failure and vain but then before you know it, you're failing math. And same goes for baseball. It starts OUT as a little meaningless May game. But before you know it, you're either a contender...or you're not.

Actually, more remarkable than the fact I recalled such a detail from the mnemonic archive of Repressed High School Memories §1.5,II: Math and Science Courses, is the fact that everything the Yanks did last night was in direct contradiction to their normal modus operandi.

Norm: Win fantastically significant momentum-bolstering series and/or game.. follow it up the next day to an unbelievably anticlimactic, baffling, fizzled loss to a terrible club.

5/19/09: Followed up 4-game sweep of the Twins, 3 walkoff win series, with a continued strong showing against a terrible club. This was an easy series to win money betting online.

* ****************************************
Norm: Fall swiftly and early into a medium sized run deficit. Bats slumber until a slugger launches a solo shot in the 6th inning. Crowd gets slightly renewed hope that the lead’s been cut. Opponent follows it up by tacking up some “insurance runs” in the 2nd half of the inning, promptly 2 out of every 3 announcers to unequivocally underscore how “those insurance runs are looming large now.”

5/19/09: Yanks scored 6 in the first. When was the last time this happened? Shouldn’t this have been the first stat tossed out, courtesy of the Elias Sports Bureau? I know it doesn’t have the same cache as, say, the number of times a left hander has gotten on base against AL East teams on Tuesday nights when at least one NBAer records a double-double. But semantics. 6 runs in the 1st!

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Norm: ARod hits, but only well completely juiced and while vandalizing the team’s chemistry, thereby assuring he will never be a true Yankee.

5/19/09: 3rd homerun in as many games. And interestingly enough, it came when the Yanks were down. One more ARod-hating-hypothesis we can deposit on the cutting room floor.

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Norm: “Trendy stars” strike out about 4,083 times in a desperate attempt to fortify the Yankees Buy Their Team and Waste Their Money Because It’s Never a Wise Investment to Acquire an Established Talent. (campaign).

5/19/09: Teixeira and ARod both go yard again. CC let up 1 run, 3 hits, fanned 7.

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Norm: Random rookie recruits act like they're auditioning for a job as the NL's official mascot: E.Z. Out.

5/19/09: Cervelli, Cano, and Melky are get hits and runs. Cervelli better watch out, as he is dangerously close to being chased around the middle school parking lot with doily valentines from YES...

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So what's there to criticize about our boys now? Everyone's running a hard 90. Everyone's having fun. There's nothing sadder than watching someone settle for being a paled version of himself. And right now, watching the Yanks play is like playing video games on my the Trinitron, the 1970 13inch television set in the basement of the house I grew up in. And to maximize the eventual litany of eyesight ailments that would befall me, I went to town with the color/saturation/hue dials.

And the result would be this fantastically blindingly awesome kaleidoscope of hue-warped Mario brothers.

Watching the Yankees play the way they've been playing..? It's a little bit like that.

"Sweep= our wedding's off. My mother will be so disappointed." -Iowa Jeff


So, like Gloria so astutely put in one of the all-time cinematic classics, "Sometimes when you win, you really lose and sometimes when you lose, you really win and sometimes when you win or lose, you actually tie and sometimes when you tie, you actually win or lose. Winning or losing is all one organic globule, from which one extracts what one needs."


But in terms of the Yankees? They really won. Again.


I will admit that part of me feels a little bit bad it had to be against the Twinkies. Besides for the White Sox, who don't count, does anyone have any kind of problem with the boys from Minny? It's impossible. Is there anyone on the Twins that anyone can boo in good conscience? It'd be like as heartless as throwing eggs at the redheaded, kindly loser in "Can't Buy Me Love." And if I had to rank em, I'd put them dead last on the teams I'd investigate for steroids.


I unexpectedly had to work late, so listened to the first 6 innings courtesy Sterling and Waldman, who both decidedly have developed a boundless infatuation with Cervelli, "who's really gonna be something special." Say what you will about Ms. Waldman, but in my experience, she knows her baseball.


The team, as a whole, has turned maybe 120 degrees. Not quite a 180 yet, but they're playing like they belong together. The line up FINALLY is hitting on all cylinders, people are getting on base and the BA with RISP has been improving slowly but surely every game.


A-Rod homered for the 3rd game in a row. A-Rod. You know, the guy who was only good because he took steroids, and who never would have been anything without cheating. Yeah, that guy.


Teixeira is just unreal at 1st, as good as there is. Maybe better than ARod. He does it so effortlessly. In fact, the entire right side of the field is a defensive juggernaut right now, they're eating up balls more aggressively than Garfield eats up lasagna. (That's what she said?)

I don't know whether his surge (Tex's, not Garfield's) is a result of the inevitable end of his routine hibernation for the first 6 weeks of the season, or because of ARod's return. Since ARod's been back, our 1B's gone from batting less than .200 to slugging twice as many HRs. (Throw "Going Deep From Both Sides" on the list of Indisputably Badass Baseball.)

It's quite remarkable actually, how tight the Yankees' defense has gotten. It's reminiscent of last years' Rays. And even more remarkable is how their offense is bolstering it. They don't need to rely on late inning solo HRs when they're running hard 90s all game.

Even the fans are making less errors, as evidenced by a reverse warning track foulball grab by a pre-teen. Backhanded, no bobble, over the ledge. "And look at that, right in front of Pops, too!"--YES Booth. Aggressive fielding, that's what I like to see. Probably stole that move from Melky, who made a great catch by cutting off Swisher today. In a nice, teammate-like way. HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE THIS TEAM?

When was the last time in this century that I can remember saying that the Yankees defense looks just as robust as their offense? It's a weird feeling. I'm not going to get too attached to it. Like a really great first date that makes you start thinking about the next one, and gets you excited and stupidly happy during the day...I'm not going to expect their defense to call for a second date, I'll just try to keep myself busy and not think about it, so if something happens, then great!

(Annnndd I 100% just realized that I'm talking about dating a team's fielding percentage. I don't know what's sadder, the fact that I made that analogy to begin with, or the fact I know my mom would probably be ok with this arrangement if there was a way for infield stats to enable grandchildren.)

One of my favorite parts of the game came around when little Phil Coke started having a little trouble recording the final out. I swear to God, the guy looked like he was at a school-wide piano recital and just couldn't remember the next notes. (Nothing's worse. Nothing. Except for stepping in dog shit. At least in a play someone can cover for you if you forget a line. When you're sitting on a hard bench with absolutely nothing in front of you except 88 keys that all look alike...you're on your own.) And that's how terrified yet determined Phil Coke looked on the mound.

I don't know what he was so worried about. I bet half the team was secretly hoping for another opportunity to log a walkoff in the books.

So after he walks another batter, Pena and Cervelli trot out to talk to Coke. And as CC&P is shifting around on the mound like they're antsy at recess, Ken Singleton notes how interesting it is to see the young'uns out there, with David Cone awesomely pointing out how it used to be Posada, Jeter, and Mariano out there, and "Talk about a coming of age!" (David Cone, btw, is probably the most endearing man in the world. Well played, YES Network, for bringing him back to the Bronx.)

And when Coke did record his first Major League save, Teixeira was leading the charge in the congratulations. I got goosebumps, actually, watching the last few innings when I returned home from work.

Tomorrow we're hosting Baltimore. Please please please please for the love of God don't do that thing where you have a huge amazing empowering, momentum-generating win and then lose by 12 runs the next day to a bunch of confused hedgehogs in cleats.

Fantastic stuff from the finalists of the BP Idol contest. If you're a subscriber, I strongly enough you to vote since it determines the next writer of the site.

And if you're not a subscriber..well, subscribe. It's invaluable during fantasy season.

Every week there's a theme, with one writer getting "voted off" based on the public's vote count. This week's theme: "The Basics" which comes out--and will be open for voting--this Sunday, 5/24. Then they announce who's voted off on Tuesday. And every week there's a different theme. It's like real American Idol only awesome because it's not hopping around a stage with a mike yelling about soul stuff.

I'm looking forward to reading what comes out of this, particularly from my early favorite..(if I may offer a voting suggestion, this finalist is the best.)

WOOHOO! I take baseball for granted a lot, like the fact that I can watch it every single day. And not have to wait long weeks in between Sunday night games. I love the Yankees more than the Giants but I would never doze in and out of a Big Blue game, if I could help it. But when there's a 162 games on the queue, the call for high focus attention isn't at great. And sometimes that's kind of nice, to be able to just have the game on in the background while I pretend to be productive.

But in the last 3 games, there wasn't any periphery viewing going on. 3 nailbiters, 3 comebacks, 3 walkoffs. And on a particularly monumental day...

1.) Giambi's 14th inning walkoff GRAND SLAM against the Twinkies, 2002

Which I maintain is the backdrop for my bottle opener. I've listened to that thing open a lot of beers, and how many walkoff grandslams do the Yankees have to their credit? It's gotta be that game.

2.) Mariano Rivera's first save ever, 1996

What a cool cat.

3.) David Wells' perfect game, 1998

Boomer adds another magic notch to one of the best seasons in baseball history, by one of the best teams ever. I still will always be partial to the Don Larsen game though. Back in the day when announcers didn't do things like say, "CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS PITCHER HAS A NO HITTER GOING THROUGH 3 INNINGS?!! ....and here's the pitch...oh. Nevermind."

Another big win for the Yanks. After losing approximatly 240 home games in a row, we needed not only a few Ws in the BX, but more importantly, some Ws like that--games that maybe indicated some of those ghosts from across the road finally decided to cross the t's and dot the i's of their new lease. I hate moving, too. So I empathize.

And maybe the whole mystique/aura thing is overhyped superstition. But maybe it's not. One of my sister's professors at Georgetown said once in a theology class, regarding the belief in God, "Maybe there's no God. But if there is, you can only gain good things from believing in Him. And how does it hurt or burden you in any way to just make that leap of faith?" It's no skin off my nose to believe in the Yankee Stadium aura. So...welcome home, Ghosts!

Not sure why Cano wasn't in the lineup, but I wished I had known this sooner before I started him in both of my leagues. But his replacement, Little Pena, looked pretty sharp in there. He bobbled a ball but only after making a sick diving catch. God, I love the rookies. They're like interns. And although all the airtime in the highlights reel is going to Mauer's amazing game-saving play at the plate, the most spectacular move was absolutely at the hands of my favorite off-season acquisition in the last decade.

(I was seriously more excited about getting Teixeira than Arod. By a long shot. I remember working the coat check at Dorrian's that night, and the karaoke DJ introduced playing "New York, New York" with "MERRY TEXMAS, NY!" and the excitement and unbridled glee was just palpable. Which is hard for me to appreciate usually when I'm near suffocated with coats and fielding "I lost my ticket, but mine is the black wool peacoat.." nonsense.)

In the last 3 games, the boys have been reminding us why they pull more bank than us. ARod dunks another one past the fence. Burnett-brilliant, even after 8,231 pitches (career high). Even the bullpen managed to not suck, despite giving everyone 12 heart attacks in a row by not just loading the bases, but making sure that the first couple of pitches to every batter was a ball. It's a lot more exciting to make the count 3-0 with bases loaded, and then lock up the outs. Thanks. guys.

Aceves is, PUN INTENDED, aces. He's the best guy in the bullpen, I don't know why they don't go straight to him instead of messing around with whoever the hell Tomko is. And Phil Coke. Abidalsomething...they're just different iterations of my favorite RP of all time.)

Bruney and Wang are getting better. Our starters are going longer into the game so we don't need to rely on the hangover hole pen. Our batters...still not crazy about the idea of hitting with runners on. Not sure why, it's kinda like when Pee Wee saves all the animals in the pet store at the end of Pee Wee's Big Adventure and he keeps avoiding the snakes, til the very end.

That's kinda like the Yankees and Not Stranding Runners. They'll do walkoffs, dazzling pitching, great baserunning, not terrible relief...but are categorically averse to knocking in runs the old fashioned way.

I understand. I was like that with Calculus. I refused to take it, but since there was a math requirement in college, I had to take some other upper level course that my advisor strongly discouraged. But I put my foot down. No Calc.

Discrete Math 221 for me...solo dings for the Yanks.

A. Is this rhetorical?
B. Or a legitimate question?

I guess A because it has the same area code as me, which means NY which means making fun of how ridiculous it is that Red Sox Nation actually thinks it's a real thing. And from spotty experience of dealing with members of this imaginary faction, I think there probably IS a form for Manny* support resignations.

*Caught cheating.

It kinda reminds me of when I'd go to the bank with my dad when I was little, and when he was waiting on line for the teller, I'd play with the deposit forms and envelopes etc. And pretend I was writing checks and doing important office work. (I'm sure the Citibank employees just loved this. No wonder they made such a big online banking campaign--if for nothing else, it minimized the number of batty toddlers scribbling all over their deposit forms in the bank lobby.)

And that's how I imagine "RSN"--a bunch of toddlers making pretend busines cards and using Sesame Street phones and Fisher Price ovens and eating Playdoh spaghetti...and thinking it's real.

If I think about how much it costs to watch games out at bars, between the pitchers and chicken fingers and potato skins and sliders, and also the amount it costs to actually go to a game to get the full experience of being in a ballpark, between the tickets, and the hot dogs and popcorn buckets and beer...then this investment will ultimately pay itself off in dividends. Because once this thing is sitting pretty 5 feet from my tv (and the rest of my apartment will be redecorated/restructured to revolve solely around this sick piece of furniture), I will probably never have any need or desire to leave my living room, let alone my apartment. I may have to get it surgically attached or something. Like fashion of wheelchair-type device out of it so I can maximize my time in the stadium. Well, as much as that can be done without actually being in the stadium. This was the same loony tunes reasoning that served as the backbone of my other sound interior design move.

I don't know if I'll ever wrap my head around the fact that not everyone (in fact, most people) don't care about the Yankees. In my head, they're the center of the sports universe around which all other institutions revolve. But at the W&L/UVA party yesterday down at Hill Country BBQ, I was reminded that if it's not SEC, than very few southerners give a crap. As evidenced by the fact all the TVs there were showing ESPN World Series of Poker, pre-Preakness (Preëakness?). I had to beg, borrow, and kill to get the Yankee game turned on, and even this was an ordeal, because at first they put the Met game on, and then acted like that should suffice.

"Uhh, this isn't the Yankee game, it's the Mets game."

Exasperration/huffing and puffing, "Well, I don't know if I can put the Yankee game on."

"It's channel 53, if that helps."

"I don't understand, I just put the game on."

As if the request was for any NY sports game, and I was nitpicking. Roar.

Then between the 10th and 11th inning, I go to the bathroom and come back to see they've reverted to watching horses mill around a race track in the riveting 3 hours pre-game of the freakin Preakness (Freakness?). Which could only mean the game was over. Awesome. You come back to an unstirred room of people with the Yankee game off after it was in 11 innings, and it can only mean a loss.

I call my sis for the final score, sadly:

"AHHHH I JUST LOVE HIM!!!!"

"Huh."

"AROD!!!"

"Wait, what happened??"

"What the hell are you talking about? Did you not watch the game?"

"I was. They turned it off before the end."

Sneaky southerners. I leave for 5 minutes and they switch the channel on me. Next time I'll know better, that if I want to watch the game in its entirety, I bring a bed pan. That'll show em.

Anyways. Two walkoffs in a row! I had JUST said on Friday night that we needed that game, and that the next type of game we need is one where ARod, not Melky, gets the walkoff.

Other highlights from the day:

• Keith, who basically makes everything awesome always, brought me back a Yankee popcorn tin from the luxury box. Which means I have 2 YANKEE BUCKETS NOW!
• Beetlejuice was on.
• My sister and I were talking to a guy obsessed with zoos. Which was funny enough by itself, but made infinitely greater when he said, "You know that movie '50 Days of Dates? Or The First 50 Dates? What was it called? I don't know. But the point is, I know that walrus in it."
• Special thanks to NYSJ and Josh for assuring the gimp reached home safely.
• AND HERE COME THE YANKEES!! Great news.

Man, think how good they'd be if they got rid of Girardi. I'm not sure how I felt about Arod swinging with 2 on in the 11th. I mean, obviously, it paid off. But who wouldn't drop a bunt in that situation?? It worked out well yesterday, and I'm not complaining, but it does raise some questions about the managerial leadership on this team (and btw, I changed my mind, he doesn't remind me of Michael Scott, he's Toby! Holy crap, on Friday night's post game conference, it was just uncanny.)

Speaking of at-bat strategies, me and Laur got mired in an increasingly escalating argument about 3-0 counts. She thinks it's badass when someone swings on 3-0. I think it's dumb. (These assessments are precluding any kind of mitigating factors like "Oh it depends who's up/pitching." It's more of a general rule. 3-0. Yes or no.)

And I disagree 100%. (Well, 99%. I agree it can be badass. But so is punching your fist through a brick wall, doesn't mean I think you should necessarily give it the old college try.)

You got a team to think about. A GOOD hitter only hits 30% of the time. And if it's 3-0, the pitcher's up against the wall to throw a strike if he doesn't want you on base. And maybe he doesn't throw it exactly down the pipe, but he's not gonna dance around the strike zone too much. You see a strike at 3-0, you're probably gonna see another one at 3-1. And if not? Then you get a base. Plus, if nothing else, make him throw more pitchers for the sake of the guy on deck. I never swung at 3-0. Ever. And I was playing little league ball. Nor did I ever swing at the first pitch. Ever. My dad told me I was a good enough hitter that I could take a strike. I don't know if that's true, but I liked the dad that my dad thought so. Or told me he did, anyway. Plus, as a rule of thumb, parents are always right.

So there it is. Golden rules:
Don't swing at 3-0.
Parents are always right.
After that, everything else is cream cheese.

I love how this team picks up each other's slack. Like the batters help in the inning after a pitcher's bad inning. The pitching is determined for every single batter. One fielder makes a bad throw, another fielder evens it out the next play by knocking down what should have been a base hit. A month into the season, but this finally looks like a team. I guess all they needed was that overrated, overpaid, can't-hit-in-the-clutch, useless 3B to come back.

It'd be great if that guy could start pulling his weight.

I don't want to rely on in-the-park homeruns from Brett "Beepbeep!" Gardner all the time.

Or walkoffs from Melky.

Or game-tying dings from Teixiera.

2-out hits from Matsui.

Extra-base hits from Damon.

Oddly consistent OBP from the rookies.

Deep-inning showings from our rotation.

Improved work from our bullpen.

Now if only we could get Torre to come back home... (Sorry Girardi. You just aggravate me, and it's a cold day when I ever utter something derogatory about the boys. Maybe Girardi isn't Michael Scott OR Toby. Maybe he's the new jackass that was on The Office that was going to whip everyone into shape, but instead just threw a monkey wrench into the dynamic and made it very difficult to work.)

Just ignore him, Yankees. I love this team.