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

(L)

Actually, the biggest surprise to me was the A-Rod reception. It was almost like the judges on American Idol or something, right before the token Susan Boyle/Paul Potts/homely plain jane opens up to shower the cynics with their golden pipes.  

So it was the first opener in a loooonngg time without one of the Core Four. And for the first time in, like, ever, I felt a twinge of the apologetic subscription to the Seinfeld theory. 

C’mon, let’s call a spade a spade, here. When you watched today’s game (or listened to Sterling/Waldman, as the case may be), tell me you didn’t feel this stymieing mix of hope, confusion, and nostalgia. Then, maybe because I’m Catholic, maybe because I’m a chick, I felt guilty about that, because “CMON! THIS IS YOUR TEAM! FORGET ABOUT THE GUYS WHO AREN’T ON THE FIELD ANYMORE, AND LET’S PLAY BALL.”

The Blue Jays didn’t seem to skip a beat, seeing as they’ve been inexplicably knocking the ball all over the continental United States for the last 3 seasons. Encarnacion and Travis both went deep, which actually wasn't THAT bad, but since for the last few months, I've seen no one take anyone deep (because there was no baseball), 2 seemed like a lot. Plus, every fan has carte blanche to overreact to everything on Opening Day, and I'm taking that privelege and running with it.

I mean, Tanaka actually seemed pretty sharp in the beginning, but doesn’t everyone? No one shows up on your first day of work dressed like a slob. You put your best foot forward and wear a suit and tie. Tanaka just switched to creative department attire a little more quickly than we would have hoped.

He got taken out after 4 innings, which was probably about an inning and a half too much. 6Ks, 2 BBs, 5 hits, 5 runs. It was superbly lackluster. Not terribly blow-you-away knocked around, which for some reason made it even worse. Like, if you’re gonna ruin opening day, at least be epic about it.

To add insult to injury, the Yankees were getting whiffed by a fetus. A-Rod came to the rescue by getting on base, and boy was he happy about this. Good on you, buddy. Keep up the strong work!

McCann finally got a hit off Hutchinson, and then a rally looked like in was in the works, but then it cartoonishly was over before it began. I say cartoonishly because when you see play like that, the only things that come to mind are: tuba decrescendo noises, anvils, balloons popping, bodies deflating, and things running full speed into brick walls.

Gardner funly enough went yard, and I’d love to just bite the bullet and put him in the 4 spot. Why not? Arod’s in the 7 spot, and pound by pound, I’d have given a LOT to be a fly in the room of that talk. “NO POUTING THIS TIME. Ok? Are we clear? Say, ‘Yes, Joe, we’re clear.’”

In terms of non-hitting items, our SS Gregorious was caught stealing, our 3B had an error, and the team as a whole took 37 fewer pitches than the Jays, and scored 5 fewer runs than them. Toronto scored 6 runs on 6 hits and 167 pitches. Also, the Yankees reliever was named Chris Martin, and the booth let the Coldplays on Words go on a touch too long.

You know what though, I think we should all embrace the new Yankee squad in the same optimistic gusto that Sterling is. He’s not looking at it as a team that lacks the Core Four, he’s looking at it as a whole weekend’s worth of brainstorming Homerun calls!

Welcome back, baseball. It was the longest winter of my life, but it’s beyond comforting to say and embrace the same words I do on this day every year.