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

Sans punch.

But the sound wasn't sad! Why, this sound sounded glad! Every Who down in Who-ville, the tall and the small, Was singing! Without any presents at all! He HADN'T stopped Christmas from coming! IT CAME! Somehow or other, it came just the same!

YEAH, Baseball Season came just the same. (Pause, I guess.)

Spoken like a fan whose team just lost opening day? Yeah, I'll sign off on that. Semantics. Baseball came just the same. The Yankees may or may not have actually showed up, but the season did. So, there's a start!

Ahh, in the words of M&M:


Sorry about the delay. I got out of work at a normal hour, so this time we can blame the washer and dryer, because of that whole not-being-able-to-sit-down-and-start-something-if-I-know-I-have-to-get-up-in-30-minutes-to-put-clothes-in-dryer phenomenon.

So, the Yankees lost opening day. Tubbo.com got knocked around like a poodle on a surf board during Sandy. Lester acted like pre-KFCgate Lester, cleansed of the Beckett tumor. And the Yankees, the ones I recognized, lost to the Socks.

(I toyed with the idea of making a losing socks in the laundry/losing to the Socks corollary, but decided better of it. But it's also still very early in the post, so who knows.)

I watched the game in the big conference room on the big tv, which I like doing (if I have to) because I kind of get a kick out of the staccato parade of coworkers that wander in, the constellation of reactions to the scene that range from genuine interest ("score still 0-0?? Have to run to another meeting in a minute, maybe I can be late..") to bemused curiosity ("so...this is like...your big holiday?") to genuine disinterest leveraged into disingenuine Yankee taunts ("THE METS ARE PLAYING RIGHT NOW, TOO. THEY'RE ACTUALLY WINNING, CAN WE WATCH THEM INSTEAD. THE YANKEES SUCK.") to a project manager, who wants to throw hydochloric acid on any and all institutions and events that detract attention away from a job folder. I mean, as they should.

And then there's last year's Rookie of the Year, finance Matt, who became this year's Opening Day MVP, by virtue of the fact he was the most benign Mets fan as well as the soon-to-be party to my first game of the season. His first game at Yankee stadium. My first game back in GNH. April 12. Orioles. Left field bleachers. Also probably will mark the last day Matt will be in the "people who hang out with me on purpose" category.

Yeah, ok, but today. Here we go:

The Red Socks are being called a revamped line-up. This is what you call the winning side of a match-up where long-time fans recognize an embarrassing percentage of their roster.

The Yankees are being called "barely recognizable." In fairness, they seemed very recognizable since the last time I saw them play. I mean, pretty much in lock-step with what they trotted out for Game 4 ALCS, an 8-1 loss, where Round Boy was fat but not good. And the hitting wasn't even fat, it was just not good. Un-phat.

(I visited this college en route to Mardi Gras once, and they spelled Women with a y. Something about the word "men" being in it. Similarly, there's phat. I can't decide how I feel about this practice of changing spelling rules on the basis of connotation. I'll formulate a more robust opinion once I try my hand at it.)

Laundry time. Again. This is the 3rd time the dryer is being run. I'm starting to thing it's drying my clothes a la some Fred Flinstone-esque laundry apparatus. Like a brontosaurus sneezing or something?

The Yankees have also been called "punchless" which was a popular qualifier for them last year. They had no punches today. If you read all the coverage on the game, you'll find that the off-season has really cultivated an interest in "painting the picture." I empathize, sort of. Like all these writers going off antibiotics and being allowed to drink again. For example:

The Red Sox scored three times against a mustachioed Joba Chamberlain.

Mustachioed. Yes.

Good work, Justin! Why are you mustachioed? It's like he got so fat (with an f) that the cells in his body were like, "WE HAVE NOWHERE ELSE TO GROW! WE'RE AT MAX CAPACITY!" and then the follicles said, "We're on it" in a Jimmy Chitwood deadpan.

Also, stop Tanyon Sturtzing the shit out of pitches, please.

Youkilis was cueballioed, in the sense he unmustachioed himself, because he's trying to fit in. Good move. He had a hit. Also, good.

Actually, let's look the box score.

Most of the punchless Yankees had hits.

Nunez didn't, because he never does what he is supposed to do. Usually that comes in the form of errors, but today he brought out the special silverware for opening day and just went hitless instead.

Vernon Wells was without punch because he's aboutn 93 years old.

Ben Fransisco blanked but I have literally NO idea who the hell this guy is.

Lyle Overbay also nothing. Seriously. That wasn't a joke, Lyle Overbay was actually signed. I honestly thought that was a rumor that was going to be dismantled on snopes.com.

Super Mario had our only ribbies.

And the Red Socks beat the Yankees. They left 13 men on base, Yanks left 9. Wasn't that impressive a game, outside of Lester being decent. I guess. The bad guys' ribbies came from Iglesias, Victorino, Pedroia, Ellsbury, and Bradley Jr. How pissed is Pedroia right now that there's some Endy Chavez version of him stealing his thunder?

Not as pissed as Cano is that couldn't Kobe Bryant the team into a win with a "Aight, lemme take care of shit, just give me the ball and get out of my way" swing of the bat.

Welcome back, baseball!

In the interest of illusive corollaries, I'm drinking nothing but Hi-C tomorrow. You understand.

Hey, and for the record, I'd like to establish myself firmly in the position of the following: