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

WIN.

I didn't follow this game very well. Starting a game at 3:00 was weird enough. The downloaded the Yankees schedule onto my Outlook calendar at the beginning of the season, and the only good thing about games during work hours is that it blocks off 3 hours of my calendar. Except now everyone is wise to this, so there is officially nothing good about games during office hours.

I wish Outlook would also send me game updates.

As if the weird start time wasn't discombobulating enough, there was a 2 hour rain delay.

And if THAT wasn't enough, the tarp would come off, get rolled up, and then...nothing. (I know all this based on twitter. This type of information was not readily available refreshing mlb.com. Social media!)

By the time I leave work and get to a tv, the Yankees were walking off the field and high fiving. And to sum up, my knowledge of the game is 70% based on twitter feeds and Sports Center.

Here's what I know:

• Fatso was mad he didn't get to bat.
• Cano had a big day, 1500th hit and passed Paul O'Neil on Bomber's Bomb List
• Colorado's manager thinks Mo's 13th save in as many chances was facilitated by an expanded strike zone.

Those umps! They'll do anything to help the Yankees win when they're on the road, you know?

Oh, also: the Decoys are in first. Sort of. 60% of the division is in first right now, and I don't think there's anyone in the free world who doesn't know how I feel about multiple superlatives. "One of my best friends..." "These are both top priorities..." etc. I just flat out don't believe in ties, period.

With one exception. So, I flat out don't believe in ties, semicolon; I love my parents the same amount, and both my sisters the same amount. That's it.

So the idea of sharing first place is making me lightheaded. Hashtag Yankeefanproblems.

In that I didn't even listen to game on radio (on account of the afternoon meeting clusterf-word), I can't even ride the WCBS ridicule wave.

HOWEVAH, there is something on which I would like to expound. And that is David Americo Ortiz Arias. (How come no one ever sings the Banana Picking Beetlejuice song when he's up? Seriously. D.A.O.A= this, yeah?)

Ah, Daoa. Papi. F'n moron. You make it easy for people like me who already profoundly dislike you. People like me don't WANT to find out you're actually a really cool, great guy. So when you do these little soapbox things, it's just like throwing a half eaten bread slice to the hoard of seagulls menacingly surrounding your beach towel.

They're out for crust. We're out for blood.

For example...

2009 he announced that players who tested positive for steroids were such a sad pathetic disgrace and should die a death that is both fitting of such iniquity and also one that is rife with agony. Basically, that's what he said. Then a few years later he tested positive for steroids, and everyone was all "SMH"-ing everywhere (which apparently means "shaking my head" and not "so much hate").

Now in 2013, he has announced that his steroid allegations and suspicions cast on him are indicative of racism, and that everyone is just saying that because he's Dominican and a lot of steroid users hail from those parts.

To really fortify his argument, he gave about 97 comparative examples. You know I'm the last person to criticize analogies, but Ortiz's were devoid of supporting Family Guy clips.

His arguments were definitely NOT devoid, however, of a Ku Klux Klan reference. Yep. Yeah, he's not on steroids. He's actually totally in control of the situation and not at all like a freebasing walrus.

H/T to espn.com:

"Yesterday the guy came to see me and asked some questions about steroids, and when you see the writing, it basically focuses on the fact that I'm Dominican and that many Dominicans have been caught using steroids. And what about the Americans?" Ortiz said.

"If you're from the Middle East, because there are some people there who put bombs and terrorize civilians, I have to see you like that, as well? If you are a white American, I have to call you a racist because white Americans were in the Ku Klux Klan?

"The thing that stung me was his statement about Dominicans. You mean that in Dominican Republic there are no players who try to do things right? We are all in the same boat. And the people here who have been caught, does that put everyone here in the same boat?"

"I have spent many years in Boston and still do not know the right way to do things: Do it right or do it wrong," Ortiz said. "If you do it wrong, they'll finish you. If you're doing well, they'll finish you, too. There's no area where you feel safe."

Poor guy. He's just trying to do things the right way. And he can't win! If he takes steroids, he gets in real PR and legal hot water. If he doesn't take steroids, he doesn't play well and gets in real Beantown hot water. Talk about a Hobson's Choice.

I can totally relate. It's like I still do not know the right way to do things. Do I cheat at Wednesday Night Trivia and google shit serreptitiously [sic. Jesus. A lot of sic]? Or do I play by the rules? It's so unfair, if I do the former, I'm a cheater and I'm disqualified.

If I do the latter, I don't get the free bar tab at end of night. THERE'S NO AREA WHERE I FEEL SAFE! (Except the sports and lit categories) There's really no other options, yeah?

Not to be an asshole, but a little bit to be an asshole, is Ortiz, um, not all there? Is he taking his cues from Schilling? I mean, most people know you don't just go on national tv and drop the F-bomb. But we gave him a pass because of Boston tragedy.

But then most people don't follow that up 2 weeks later with a lonngggg incensed rant that sounded kind of a like a less funny version of Nathan Lane in The Birdcage trying to sound like an informed political-savvy citizen. Or a lot less funny version of when Dwight gave his Salesman of the Year acceptance speech.

Thank you, DAOA for doing such a galactically terrible job of convincing the public you're an innocent victim in the social warzone that asphyxiates us with its oppressive racial profiling of PEOPLE WHO HAVE ALREADY BEEN CAUGHT DOING STEROIDS.

Sweet Christ. It's like saying we shouldn't profile child molesters as sexual deviants just because they're child molesters.

(Too far? I never compared anyone to the KKK though, which was my benchmark of aggression that DAOA himself set.)

I'm chalking this all up to the day game at 3:00 that didn't start til 5:15. I know. It's bad to profile day games like that just because they're played in the day.


Anyways. In other ridiculous baseball news, the umps screwed up a call in an Indians/As game and the tying homerun was a legit tying homerun but was called a double and the As lost. That really sucks, I'd be pretty upset if something similar happened to the Yankees. But the Yankees never have any calls go against them, ever.

Sweet Christ, they f'd up a call. I'm not being all blase about this to be all breezy and dismissive, (as much as I'd love to turn into one of those irresistibly nonchalant chicks like Jennifer Aniston in Along Came Polly, it'd probably have better luck trying to turn into potato salad.)

I'm being dismissive in this particular case because it's early May. There is PLENTY of time. (Oh my God, I love that phrase.)

TS Eliot put in best maybe, "There will be time, there will be time. Time for a million decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse."

The Galarragga thing? That probably SHOULD have been made into literally a federal case. Wasn't crazy about the midge game, either. (Oh, hey. Yeah. The midge game. Guess Cleveland is really the charmed team of MLB.)

"All happy families are alike. Each unhappy family is alike in its own way." -Tolstoy

Everyone except the Yankees hates their closer, my buddy Ollie once told me. And everyone thinks their experiences with ump missteps are the most unfair ever.

Now the damn replay machine is being called into question. I don't know HOW the umps didn't see the ball hit the rail, or maybe they did and just hate the replay machine, too, and think that continuing to blow calls will get MLB to say, "Well, these machines are clearly useless! Get rid of them, we gotta think of something else!"

But maybe we should put a cease and desist on trying to fix human error. It's pretty obvious the umps are just being targeted because of insidious conceptions and harbored discrimination. Screw the replay machine. If they screw up a lot, then get new umps who don't screw up.

It's kind of funny how players only have to be right 1 out of every 4 attempts, but an ump works with a no-tolerance-policy.

Ah well. It's May. This is the fun part of the season that we should enjoy before we're puking every day and losing weight and treating out bodies like unamusement parks (September/October/hopefully November)

I'm almost ALWAYS wrong whenever I say something bad is going to happen in baseball (ie the Grandy trade, the Pronk/Wells/Overbay aquisitions.)

But I knew this replay shit was going to cause problems. Wrote this in 2011, topic was something along lines of "What will have the biggest effect on baseball this season?"














So while instant replay may never see the light of day, its absence will be enough to make everyone take a closer look at our past time’s umpires--the living, breathing testaments to “damned if you do, damned if you don’t.” The question is, is this sheer act of scrutiny capable of changing the 2011 season?





Tomorrow's a night game in Kansas. How much mileage do pilots/stewards get out the "Not in Kansas anymore" thing? I would probably laugh because it's true. Once you leave Kansas, you're not there anymore.

Oh my God, I need to go to bed. Good series! See you tomorrow/today, Royals. (Pretty sure they were also a "sleeper pick" to win the 'ship this year. Show us what you got, KC.)