let's go yankees

Live blogging the Yankees game!

Things look grim for the Yankees, as we all know. When I last blogged a Yankees game, Mike Mussina left the game suddenly with a strained hamstring. Little did we know, at the time, that strained hamstrings are virulently contagious and that all of the major league and several of the minor league Yankees pitching staff would either fall to this plague, or be summoned to rescue us from it.

They finally fired that damn stretching coach who was instructing the players to do wacked-out stretches that led to this unbelievable stretch of bad luck. But the damage is done, and the damage just seems to snowball, as a loss in confidence and focus has affected defense and offense alike, and not for the good.

How sucky of a coach do you have to be to get fired from "stretching coach"? Christ, it sounds like a fake job title a little league team would give to the slow kid who tried out for the team who couldn't really play, but who everybody kinda feels bad for and so they want him around so they can feel good about themselves for being all inclusive and shit even though they secretly make fun of him on the camping trips they don't invite him on.

You failed at Stretching Coach, champ. Congratulations. I could have done a better job as stretching coach to the Yankees with a copy of The Runner's Bible, a yoga mat, and a lot of post-workout rubdowns for the sexy pitchers who seemed to need it most.

7:06 pm

First pitch. Wang is our ace tonight, and he has been pretty steady. I like how he pitches, with a mixture of power and cunning, even if he is nowhere near as sexy as Mussina. Hell, he's not even as sexy as Pettitte, whose undeniably good looks are somewhat lessened by his Texas-ness and his born-again-fundamentalist-ness.

Mussina is not just melty-hot, he went to Stanford. FOR AN ECONOMICS DEGREE. He uses big, thoughtful words in his post-game interviews. And then he licks his lips, and I stop paying attention to what he's saying.

Manny reaches on a ground ball, which is only to be expected, really. Guy is goofy as all get-out, but kid sure can hit. Ortiz is already on, God knows how. I was busy thinking about Mussina's tongue.

7:20 pm

Leadoff base hit for Damon. That's nice! He's such a nice boy. Especially now that he's learned a few proper grooming techniques.

I should warn you that I am pinned to my computer by my cat Satchel, who is plastered across my lower legs. So I am listening to the New York radio broadcast of the game, with the deLIGHTful John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman. If things get interesting enough, I might evict Satchel and turn on the tv in the other room. But now is not that time.

Although Damon did just steal second! What a go-getter! What a guy! Although Matsui struck out, so now we've got a man on second and two outs. But the mighty A-Rod is next, and he is still getting hoorayed at Yankee Stadium, so he must still be pretty hot on the bats...

AND OH MY GOD WHAT A HOME RUN

OK that got me up to look at the TV. Sterling sounded like he was going to propose to A-Rod after the game, so I figured it was worth looking at. Holy smokes, but he nailed that one.

So 2-0 Yankees. Makes me wish I was at Yankee Stadium. A lot.

7:30 pm

Time for a commercial break! guess what I bought yesterday!

I looked everywhere for shoes as hot as my friend's Pumas, but all I could find were HIS EXACT SAME SHOES which we all know I can't buy, because then I would be wearing his shoes. Or copying him. And people would make fun. And it would TEAR at me that they didn't look as good on me as they do on him. So I bought my cherished old Converses. They'll be here in the mail in a couple of days.

I KNOW YOU ARE RELIEVED.

7:39

Holy error-prone Jeter. Red Sox advance on a fielding error by the captain. Suzyn and John briefly debate whether or not he would have had a play even if he hadn't bobbled the ball, then shrug and go back to living in the now.

Wang is already throwing too many pitches. And he needs to throw a strike right about now-ish.

Which he does! Saints be praised.

7:44 pm

Apparently, Chock Full O'Nuts is that heavenly coffee. Who knew?

Also, certain large, rectangular hardware stores want you to know that they have stuff you might want to buy. FYI.

7:48 pm

And the Giambino hits one to the upper deck! Oh, that tastes good. I love Giambi. Now let's see if we can ease up on the errors and 30-pitch-count innings and hold a lead for once in our christly lives.

And in an excellent demonstration of why I love John Sterling, he just announced that Mientkiewicz has "an absolutely ghastly" average against Sox pitcher Wakefield. Only guy I know who talks more like a Victorian romance novel than I do. John Sterling, I swoon, ladylike, in your general direction.

Which he just followed up with by describing Billy Crystal, who is in his customary seat at the stadium, as "Yankee fan par excellence NON PAREIL" -- without blushing. So awesome.

And Jeter hits a RBI single to make the score 4-0 Yankees, followed by a station identification break on the radio broadcast, so...

You are reading a live-blogging of the Yankees-Red Sox game on The Dune Shack.com. Congratulations. I can do nothing further for you.

8:00 pm

It is getting too dark in the computer room to knit. I might have to migrate to the TV for the rest of the game. Also, my butt is sore from sitting in this chair for so long under a big old black cat who won't let me move.

I'll come scampering back when something exciting happens.

9:33 pm

Well I'm awful sorry about that. PumaGuy™ called and got me involved in a very long and pointless conversation about, among other things, how sad it is to watch the Frantic Dance of the Single People on Cape Cod, how hard it is to imagine what it would be like to not know how to do something you know how to do very well, and, incidentally, how hard it is to blog.

Yeah. You and I know. There are salad greens blogging with great success and vast readerships. PumaGuy™ thinks he has to write a ROUGH DRAFT of a blog post ON PAPER before he even logs onto the damn site. Man. Try to help a brother out, and what do you get?

Retard. Give me your shoes. You clearly don't deserve them.

9:39 pm

Sterling just quoted Gomer Pyle, indulging in one of my Least Favorite Sportscasters Habits: Referencing Popular Culture From Fifty Years Ago. Please. Desist.

Now where were we?

The Yankees now lead 6-1, some of which I watched on the TV with the radio broadcast turned down so I could talk to PumaGuy™, but I still don't have any idea how any of this happened. I mean, since about 8 o'clock.

I saw Jeter do some things, and then Youkilis do some things, and then we spent a few minutes mocking his facial hair. That's about all I got.

9:47 pm

The lefty specialist Mike Myers fails to do the one thing he was put on God's Green Earth to do -- strike out David Ortiz. Honestly, If we're just going to put him on base all the time, we could pay somebody a lot less to just throw four balls out of the strike zone and put the schmuck on base.

Save some money on so-called lefty specialists, put it towards a decent Stretching Coach. I'm just saying.

9:57 pm

What I want to know is, is this game going to be over in time for me to watch the last hour of the Alexander Hamilton biography I have Tivo'd off of PBS?

And that, my friend, may very well be the single lamest sentence I have ever uttered.

10:04 pm

Long story short, even if the Yankees somehow manage to sweep the Red Sox in this series, we will still only be just barely in it. After tonight's glorious win (if it happens), we will still only be something like nine games back. Even if we sweep THIS SERIES AND THE NEXT we will still be FOUR games back. Which is not a little.

Of course, stranger things have happened.

10:29 pm

Well, only three more outs to go. After wandering around during the course of the game, chatting aimlessly on the phone, scrolling through my DVR recordings, knitting a few rounds on some socks, eating about one and a half meals, including, most recently, one deLICIOUS ruby red grapefruit (O! grapefruit! how I adore thee!), I am back where I started

(one out, top of the ninth)

sitting in front of the computer, sipping tea with the radio broadcast streaming from New York and Satchel passed out on my ankles.Satchel is such a little furnace that the tops of my legs, where he is nestled, are toasty warm ("warm as toast" in fact) while the back of my knees are a bit chilly, unclothed as they are by either blanket or cat, and I am frustrated because

(two outs, top of the ninth)

I can't find out who the starting pitcher is for tomorrow until this game is over but suddenly

(three outs!)

Sterling says Ball game over, Yankees win.

Awesome.

The Yankees win!