Royals 7, Yankees 0

Showed up hoping to see A-Rod's 500th, another Yankee blowout, etc. Ended up praying for a goddamn run.

We had a hell of a time just getting to Kauffman Stadium from our hotel, which was supposed to be "across the street". Dodging cars coming off I-70, climbing up and down grassy hills, even avoiding a few Red Sox fans. It was a bit weird.

Yankee fans were everywhere. I'm not sure ANY of them were actually from New York. No big deal, but the guys next to us (who we bumped into later in the hotel lobby) were muttering something about "Sean Penn" in the 7th inning. Other Yankee fans at Fenway or Shea usually feel like brothers in arms-- these ones were more like cardboard cutouts.

An enormous opera singer performed the national anthem tonight, which was hilarious. She even threw in a Mariah-shriek at the end. I enjoyed two $6.25 24 oz Miller Lites and a weird polish sausage. The communal urinal-troughs were easily confused with the communal sink-troughs in the men's room.

Igawa really sucked again. It was downright embarassing to drive over 1000 miles to watch this half-wit pitch. At least Kevin Brown seemed kinda tough when I had to see him pitch in Arlington, Tampa, Flushing...

Yankees 7, Devil Rays 3

Iggy the Stooge somehow made it through five innings this afternoon-- sorta like eating five Big Mac's in two hours. Maybe there's a role for this guy somewhere in the bullpen (manual labor?), but I'm not sure what that would be. He walks lefties and serves up dongs to righties-- not exactly the "lefty specialist" model.

It was real hot today. The only beer being sold in the upper deck was Foster's oil cans, much to the chagrin of the non-independently wealthy residents. The only explanation I heard from one of the vendors was "we're out of regular beer." As if they were stuck selling 40's of St. Ides. Actually, I'd gladly pay $12 for that.

Speaking of 40, happy b-day to Joe Maissel. We had to leave the game a little early so we could make it to Joe's shindig out in Coney Island, which was well worth the long trip on the D train. Except for the crazy guy sitting across from us jabbering about "seeing some fucking live music" and "smoking hydro."

Speaking of smoking hydro, am I the only one that thinks this whole Shelley Duncan thing is a little weird? Wasn't she in The Poseidon Adventure? I seriously thought he was some kind of Sidd Finch-style practical joke until he jacked one into left yesterday. He looks like Rusty from Vacation.

My next Yankee field report will be from Kansas City on Thursday night.

Yankees 3, Blue Jays 2

The following is an experimental "game diary" lasting about four innings.

6:17 pm
1 train came right away-- good sign. The 1 has been bloody awful lately. I can't wait to give it a rating like the 7's supposedly getting right now.

6:24
Going to the Stadium the "old way" tonight (1 to 145th, walk across to St. Nick, B to Bronx). Passed by the enigmatic M & S Front Line Co. bar on 145th, which is one of the weirdest looking joints in town. Jeff G took a dump there once.

6:32
The theme song from Little House on the Prairie has been stuck in my head all night. The closing credits song, that is...

6:38
Making unbelievable time-- until now!!! Stuck at 145 waiting at the goddamn local track.

6:41
Just saw the usual crew of suckers coming within seconds of being sent to Tremont Ave on the express "D" train. I love how the guy lets'em sweat it out for 20 seconds or so, and then finally opens the doors.

6:55
Just bumped into Sweeney Murti in front of Loge 16! We exchanged a solid glance and nod; I gave him the "don't let Francesa grind you down" look...

7:01
Made it to my crappy seats (U26 row B) and promptly kicked a kid and his dad out of the way. They actually had better seats (of course!) and made their way into the tier box.

7:05
Jeter's totally horsing around with Cano and A-Rod during "O Canada." One can only imagine the shenanigans they're reminiscing over. I mean, these guys have had more Canadian tail than the Jacques Cartier expedition!

7:14
Some moron's sitting directly behind me rooting for the goddamn Blue Jays. He's wearing a Yankee shirt.

7:24
I don't think anyone up here knows where their real seats are. Lets make a rule: you only get one chance to sit in the right spot. If you fuck up, you're immediately banished to a holding area-- somewhere near the left field bleachers. This would cut down on lines and other nuisances.

7:32
A girl just spilled most of her beer on the heads of three young boys one row in front of her. One of the kids licked the beer off his hands.

7:39
AAAAHHHH! A 16 oz Coors Light, a giant salami hero, what more could I want? All I need is a jewel-encrusted sceptre and I'm pretty happy.

7:40
This is the worst beer I've ever tasted.

7:42
I've decided to drink a beer for each run the Yankees score tonight.

7:43
The hotshot in front of me just tried to pay for two 24 oz Heinekens with a $20 bill! Imagine the fool!!! He had to fish into his pocket for more dough as his girlfriend watched in shame. Then he held the giant beer up to the light, as if to assess its worth. Gimme a break!

7:50
Unbelievable. The other guy in front of me just stowed his tray of trash behind him in my row, right next to my seat! What the hell is that?! I don't know how long I'll make it up here.

7:52
The garbage guy has a really weird black cap on. It almost looks like the German coat of arms eagle-type thingie. I'm sitting behind a fucking Nazi!

7:54
A few little kids and their folks just came across my row, spilling my beer a little bit.One of the very first things toddlers should learn is to NEVER spill anyone's beer. This was one of my earliest "no-no" lessons in memory-- somewhere between stealing money out of my dad's wallet and wetting the bed.

8:02
The dork behind me really knows all the Blue Jay nicknames-- "here comes the Big Hurt..." and "that's 'Doc' Halladay right there..."

8:07
I'm starting to think I'm the biggest dork of all for scribbling all this stupid shit down during a Yankee game.

8:10
Ah yes, the befuddling "Number Stumper" of the night. Let's say we try a real tough one:
[(WHITEY FORD)^(0.25)]*[(JOHNNY DAMON)/(ROGER MARIS)]+[TYLER CLIPPARD]= ???

8:19
The three Diet Mountain Dew's I drank this afternoon (2 1/2 really-- I spilled half of one on the living room floor) are starting to catch up with me. Or maybe I'm catching up with them.

8:20
The 24 oz beer guy and gal sit solemnly, looking like they just made their first mortgage payment. "These next few months are gonna be tough, honey, but we'll make it..."

8:23
Hey, remember the great arcade game Crystal Castles? One of the best track-ball games around. Along with Zaxxon, that game may have shaped some of our nation's most creative mathematical minds. Not a big step from there to surface integrals and Riemann sums.

Here's where I ran screaming from my section and found Jon Pauley in a more civilized environment. I barely finished two 24 oz Heineys before I stumbled home in time to catch Christopher Walken on Jon Stewart.

Brundle-Kei

Jeez, Igawa is awful. It's only the bottom of the third and I can't take it any more.

At least I figured out what he is. He's the result of a hideous experiment gone wrong: Jeff Weaver and Hideki Irabu fused together in the transporters from The Fly. Somehow the unspeakable result came out left-handed.

Yankees 14, Angels 9

My second stint in the non-alcoholic beverages section this year (kinda like going on the DL), and this time I was actually straight as an arrow. "J-Lo" was more passive than aggressive, as she doled out the dirty work to various underlings. The guy next to me got hassled for drinking a beer (he honestly had no idea what he did wrong), and some other guy had the shirt over his "BOSTON SUCKS" shirt buttoned down too low (I swear!). Pretty mellow game.

Mellow in the stands, that is. As Sir Sterling would say, this one was "a real donnybrook." Things seemed a bit out of control from the bottom of the 2nd on. Pettitte was almost worse than Colon; some might say he was worse. Andy's last two starts have an eerie "leading-up-to-a-trip-to-the-DL" feel to them. Sorta like when Lindsay Lohan gets fucked up a few times in a row and you know another trip to rehab's not far away.

NOBODY in our entire section had any idea what happened to Cairo/Cano on the weird play that ended the fifth. Actually, I figured it out pretty quickly, but... how often does a run just disappear from the board?!

Lots of other weird things seemed to be going on with the audio/video tonight. A-Rod was knocking the living shit out of the ball all night, but still had an "0-for-3" graphic up at one point. The usual cryptic comments were delivered by Bob Sheppard (a disembodied "Bbbrrerraa..."), and nobody's "Express Food" orders seemed to be arriving. Don't ever use that service-- you're asking for trouble.

Oh yeah, we never got our damn Koozies. They looked pretty lame anyway.

Yankees 8, Twins 0

Johan Santana very well might strike out 20 guys today-- this is the worst Yankee lineup I've seen in a while.

Anyway, fun game last night. I was super-uptight about getting there early enough to receive our free 1977 World Series Game 1 DVD, which I lost at some point. We sat next to a couple of out-of-towners wearing Twins and A's hats (I still can't remember what that was all about). After rubbing the Yankee drubbing in their faces all night, we decided to invite them out on the town with us after the game-- like all good NY'ers do. They probably left with all of their stereotypes confirmed: all people from New York are gay, liberal and drunk.

Apologies to the dozens of people I called from the game ("who the hell is pitching right now?!!"). I meant well.

Happy birthday John Sterling, George Steinbrenner and Mike Bonner.