Let me tell you a story

**contains profanity**
As I write this the Yankees have just lost to the Red Sox. Earlier today I unfriended a guy that claims to be a Yankee fan but does nothing but complain about how bad the team is and how bad Girardi manages, today he said he wanted to “test Teixeira’s leg with a ball peen hammer.” Maybe he has never had a bone bruise, I unfollowed him.

I am the only Yankee fan in my family. My mother is from Detroit, she roots for the the Tigers and the Spartans (although she will deny it, I know the truth). My father is from Arkansas and is a college sports fan, in particular college football. He is a fountain of knowledge, the smartest man I know. I was born in California but I grew up in Florida. I hated Florida and clung to California, rooting for any California team, mainly just to piss people off. Sometime in my teenage years I saw Catfish Hunter pitch. My father told me ‘You don’t want to root for the Yankees.’ The NY Yankees, a place I had never been, never imagined I ever go even to visit. In retrospect he was right, rooting for the Yankees is heartbreaking. But as a teenage girl, an unhappy teenage girl who hated her life and her parents, it stuck a thought in my head. And when I met the person who became my BFF, who is still my BFF, who offered a place to live in New York with her, I ran away from home. I was 22. If you knew my mother you would know why I say I ran away from home. Now as a New Yorker I no longer had to be a closet Yankee fan. I could be open about it.

My family of course still hated it (they will maintain they don’t hate me, but I have my doubts), they are now living in Seattle and so are Mariners fans. Except for my father who is still a college (Arkansas) football fan, and still the smartest man I know. And still wonders where he went wrong that one of his children still roots for the Yankees.

That brings me to this year, this has been a horrible year for me. On Memorial Day my nephew died. He had cancer, and even worse than that, my father called to tell me and he was crying. I HAVE NEVER HEARD MY FATHER CRY IN MY LIFE. When my other nephew died, my brother called because “Daddy said he tired and going to bed.” It was only midnight, something was wrong. Maybe he cried, but I never heard it. It shook me, my father is strong, if I needed anything I could count on him, then in July he went in the hospital because of a problem with his colon and had emergency surgery, then another surgery. I felt my life was falling apart. Now he’s home and healing, but weak my mother says. FUCK YOU CANCER AND OLD AGE!

Now, I need something good to happen, which is not happening, the fucking Blue Jays in FIRST PLACE! NO the Yankees have to win, the Yankees have to at least make it to the world series. Your princess commands it.

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It’s raining in the Bronx

Rain rain go away, come again another day. Except I wanted the game postponed because Em couldn’t make it, and I couldn’t get anybody else to come. I was praying for a postponed game, instead I got a 3 hr, 32 minute delay. The delay was longer than the game. There were two reasons they waited, one is it was a day game, the other is because of how late in the season it is, fitting in another game would be tough.

~~ Yankees 5, Blue Jays 3 ~~

Instead of sitting with my best friend, I got an empty seat to put my bag in. I spent the delay drinking and looking for an outlet to charge my phone, in my immediate area I found 5. So every time my phone got down to 20% I went and charged it back up to 50%.

During the game I got to deal with idiots, without Em there to sympathize with me. It was not the most fun I’ve ever had at a ball game. I couldn’t even clap because I has bruised my hand on Tuesday.

After a pretty good pitching effort by Pettitte, Kelley let a couple runs score. Boone came in and did his job, got the last out without giving up a run. There were a couple of bad calls, Alex got tagged at first after a bobbled play, but the replay showed he was safe. David Robertson got the save. So in one week I got to see 3 favorite pitchers. Turned out to be a good week after all.

~~ Questo è tutto, dice la principessa ~~ 😛

Game 127
Yankees 68-59 (0.535)

Perfect day for baseball

Tuesday was the perfect day for baseball, sun was shining, temperature was that nice but not to hot and there I was, soaking up the glow from my computer terminal. Until the e-mail popped up, “Nice day for a baseball game, want to go?”

~~ Yankees 8, Blue Jays 4 ~~

We met up in ‘Little Cuba’, I had to walk the last 10 blocks because of mechanical problems on the train, so I got there a little annoyed, a little hot and very thirsty. Ready to see some baseball, G didn’t have tickets, but he had looked online and said there were tons of tickets of available. Apparently there was a rush on tickets at the box office, since the only tickets available were on the main level near the bleachers in the sun.

So we left, we didn’t have to go far to find someone with tickets for sale and G handed over the cash, as we walked back I heard the score. “We have to get in there G! They need you!” In we came in, a little late that’s true, when we got to the bleachers to sit the ball came whistling into monument park. 3-run home run by Cano.

But it was too hot in bleachers so we walked around and ended up behind home plate for the end of the game. Finally I got to see Mariano pitch. Perfect ending to a perfect day for baseball.

~~ Questo è tutto, dice la principessa ~~ 😛

Today was a fun day in the city

Kasey finally made it to the city and we had a blast, eating chicken with hot garlic sauce, going to get tea in SoHo and what else? Oh, baseball.

~~ Yankees 3, Blue Jays 2 ~~

Kasey checked first and said that we needed to find a bar to watch the game, cause the Yankees were behind. So we started walking and looking, actually she did all the looking since I didn’t have my glasses on. By the time we found someplace it was 8th inning and the Yankees were ahead. We got to watch Mo pitch.

Kasey said that Sarah has decided to ‘like’ Overbay until Curtis gets back. She was concerned that it might not be all right to continue to like him after Curtis returns, Kasey said, “It’s fine, you can have more than one ballplayer.” I’ve kind of lost track of how many baseball players are on my ‘like’ list. In other news around baseball, the Tigers swept the Braves, 10-0, 7-4 and 8-3. It’s kind of sweet. And in a bizarre turn of events in Chicago, On his off day, Rays RHP Jeremy Hellickson was ejected after the seventh inning after he yelled at home plate umpire Tom Hallion from the dugout.

~~ Questo è tutto, dice la principessa ~~ 😛

Game 24
Yankees 15-9 (0.624)

Good day for baseball, bad day for me.

That’s not entirely accurate. It wasn’t really a bad day, I got my work done, I got to go to the ball game, the Yankees won, I was just upset because my friend couldn’t make it to the city to visit.

~~ Yankees 5, Blue Jays 4 ~~

A friend of mine had tickets to this game so I was able to go. We arranged to meet at “Little Cuba” before the game to have a couple beers. Cheaper than inside the stadium and we don’t have to drink them in plastic cups. His train was late so I was kind of wandering around before looking at stuff. I decided to add to my Yankee stash with some ‘bling’. Rose refers to this as my ‘Purple Pinstripe Power’. There is not much else to do on the street across from the stadium, so after buying that I walked on to wait for my friend. After he got there and we had a few beers we started back to the stadium. He went in a store, he wanted to get something Yankee for his grandson. They had some really cute t-shirts that said, “Daddy’s little home run hitter.” The only problem is, the baby’s mom is the Yankee fan. He decided on a little hat and then we went in the stadium. Before heading up to my seat I walked around to a few stands looking for an opening day pin. I had bought one before at the stadium, but this time I wasn’t able to find one.

It was a pretty nice day to be at the ball park. Not too cold, but I probably should have worn pants instead of a skirt, I wasn’t really cold, just a little uncomfortable. We had to put up with Jays fans. I always seem to be around the other teams fans when I go to games. The only time they really annoyed me was when I went to get something to eat, they were standing in front of me and just milling around and getting in the way. I realize that they had to come to the concession stand to get beer (there is a two drink minimum when buying beer) but the way the men were standing, in front of the register, between lines, drinking the beer that had already been poured and laughing and talking was unnecessary.

What else happened? When Travis came up to bat in the fourth with two men on I said, “Hafner home run.” After he hit the home run I turned to Gary and said, “I just realized I have a Haffner jerser (#33).” After the 7th inning, which is when the Yankees took back the lead, the Jays fans sitting in front of us turned their hats into rally caps, like this and another man turned his cap inside out. I yelled down, “Your rally caps won’t help them!” CC pitched a 1,2,3 inning and Joba came in to pitch the 9th, with two men on base Melky came up, Gary said, “The Melk-man!” and I replied, “No deliveries from the Melk-man tonight.” He grounded out. This is another reason I go to games, the Yankees need me to win. What would they do without me to tell them to hit home-runs and get batters to ground out? Think about it.

~~ Questo è tutto, dice la principessa ~~ 😛

Breaking the streak

Yankees have lost two in a row, the last game to the Blue Jays, Nova was pitching and the score was 4-8. Then the first game with the Rays, Sabathia was on the mound and the score was 1-5. Phil Hughes gets the ball tonight.

~~ Yankees 4, Rays 3 ~~

Hughes did not give up any home runs tonight. That does not mean I have changed his nick name. He is still a fly ball pitcher, but he managed to keep the balls in the park this time. In fact the only home run in this game was hit off of Mariano Rivera.

Tampa scored first in the first inning, then in the fourth the Yankees tied the game. After a rather rough first inning Phil settled down, he even had a 4 pitch inning. That was pretty sweet. In the third inning, Jennings got caught stealing twice. Robot Umps anyone? The Rays scored again in the 7th making the score 2-1. Which was upsetting, then the Yankees tied it again in the 8th, in the ninth with the bases loaded Ichiro brought in 2 runs. Which was a good thing because that jerk Longorio hit a home run off Mariano. But that was all they got, Yankees win.

~~ Questo è tutto, dice la principessa ~~ 😛

Game 19
Yankees 11-8 (0.579)

My favorite game
Played by my favorite boys
Win or lose my team

Game 2 in Toronto

In the post game interview Hiroki said, winning the game is more important than if I get the win. Still, I think Dave is off his Christmas Card list.

~~ Yankees 5, Blue Jays 3 ~~

Baseball has such funny rules sometimes. For instance even though Kuroda pitched 7.1 innings, only giving up 1 run he doesn’t get the win, because the pitcher after him let the Blue Jays tie up the game. That pitcher was David Robertson, whose beautiful ERA has now blown up to 3.18, Kuroda’s is still rather low at 2.35.

Shawn Kelley got the win, and I still don’t know how this is figured. Joba, Boone and Shawn each pitched after Dave blew the save, the Yankees scored the winning run in the top of the 11th, Mariano gets the save, so Kelly as the last pitcher to pitch before the closer gets the win. You might think I got it, but the next time this happens, I’ll forget it and start arguing and complaining, the pitcher who pitched the best should get it! The starter kept the other team from scoring for most of the game, he kept the other team down to 1 run, so why doesn’t he get the win? Well at least he got the low ERA.

~~ Questo è tutto, dice la principessa ~~ 😛

Game 16
Yankees 10-6 (0.625)

Yesterday was when
All of us liked Boston Strong
still can’t root for Sox

North of the border

First game of a new series, north of the border, hunting blue jays. Probably bad timing to talk about hunting, but I am talking baseball not real hunting.

~~ Yankees 9, Blue Jays 4 ~~

Considering the week this has been, even though none of it affected me personally, it bothered me emotionally, I needed a break, baseball heals me.

Except that when I turned on the TV to watch, I heard that the terrorist, suspect #2 had been surrounded. Instead of watching the game I watched the news and watched Twitter for game updates.

I did manage to see the first inning, the Yankees got on the board with 2 runs, then the Blue Jays came back and scored 1. Andy was pitching on 10 days rest because he had back spasms, he settled down after the 1st inning and the Blue Jays didn’t get another run until the 6th inning. By then the Yankees had 8 runs.

Robinson Cano got a chance to show off his sweet swing, he has the sweetest swing in all of baseball. For all those people who say Cano doesn’t hustle, he does, I think he doesn’t when he hits in the infield because he knows he can’t beat out the throw, but when he hits a long fly ball, like this was, he charges out of the batters box and runs at top speed. He has impressive amount of doubles, he wouldn’t have that if he didn’t run when he hits the ball.

There were 5 home runs in this game, 3 by the Yankees and 2 by the Blue Jays (one of which was a bomb by Bautista). Two of the Yankees runs were due to a throwing error by center fielder Colby Rasmus, he overthrew the ball to third and it went into the dugout which means Ichiro could advance two bases and score. Game one down, two to go.

~~ Questo è tutto, dice la principessa ~~ 😛

Game 15
Yankees 9-6 (0.600)

We sit in the stands
count balls, strikes, swings and misses
fly outs and ground outs

The plan for today is ….

Or actually what I hope happens today is the Yankees win (of course!) and Texas wins, and Baltimore loses.

We shall see if that actually happens. The Yankees don’t have to do an exact repeat of last night, Andy just need to be dominant, and Ricky needs to not be good.

Sometimes I hate baseball

Tonight was one of those nights. Dave Robinson’s wife had a baby today. He came in and pitched a scoreless inning, then Rafael came in and blew it. Derek hit a tying home run and Clay Rapada pitched scoreless then Derek Lowe got the loss. I personally think Soriano should have the L beside his name, at least he got a blown save by his name. However since I don’t want to talk about this I’m going to post some pictures I took after the game I went to with the kids. The game with the huge rain delay that ended around midnight. I took these pictures of the Stadium at night from the platform of the #4 train, I missed the colored lights but now I know to wait for them next time.