Gave my Saturday tickets over to Heath today. Good things seem to happen when I do that... A-Rod hit #500 a couple of years ago, and then today. Maybe I'll give him the rest of my package.
After watching Fox's pathetic coverage of today's game, I've instead decided to see as many games in person as possible. My expectations are veeeerrrrry low for the channel 5 guys, so I can't say I'm that surprised. But y'know-- I expect a certain level of professionalism from guys that do nationally televised games every week. A low level, but at least a level.
Joe and Tim stumbled their way through the first few innings... well, I assume they did because I had the sound off. Even without any sound at all, you know these idiots are talking trash as soon as you see their faces.
My stomach churned after the neophyte John Mayberry Jr. hit his first major league homer off Pettitte and put the Phils up 4-1. A few minutes later I was scrambling turn the volume on after they misidentified some guy in the stands as "John Mayberry Sr., John Mayberry Jr.'s father." I guess the Fox ground team's memo from up-top only read he's a big black guy wearing a Phillies hat, 'cause they came up with the wrong guy. About 15 minutes later they found the real elder John Mayberry, who was a great sport about the gaffe. Hell, his son just jacked one at Yankee Stadium!
I kept my finger on the remote for a while after that, just in case more hijinks were up ahead. Sure enough, they posted an incredibly stupid "poll" about what Ken Rosenthal was doing tonight after the game (besides sending out his resume). The crew revealed that Ken was indeed going to see Springsteen tonight, and quickly cut to Ken himself out in the stands for a reaction. His microphone wasn't on (not because I muted him-- it really wasn't plugged in!), so he stood there blabbing away about "The Boss", no doubt (I guess... who knows what he was saying!). All this during the most exciting part of the game, too.
After this I just had to keep the sound on. Joe Buck supplied his usual stream of deadpan truisms, with ol' Tim sounding pretty tired as the game winded down. Buck tried to come up with something profound after A-Rod's game-tying tater in the ninth, but instead stammered something inane about the supposed wind tunnel to right at the new Stadium and how A-Rod's shot would have been a homerun anywhere. The shot only cleared the wall by about five feet!
Fox then compiled a montage of all the "face-pies" from the last few Yanks' stolen victories. It was a drawn-out exercise, to say the least (show the score deficit, play the clip of the game winning hit, show A.J. Burnett sneak up with the pie, repeat ad nauseum...), even for us Yankee fans. Anyway, Fox screws up by completely missing the Los Chicos double pie-slam by Burnett while they talk to a blank-faced A-Rod. Yeah, you could see it in the background, but come on. Let's just say that Suzyn Waldman and Kimberly Jones have spent a good deal of the month of May cleaning cream out of their hair.
A real team effort today by the Yanks (even the cryogenic Nick Swisher). Pettitte put in his seven innings, which is about all I'll ever ask of the guy. However, we need to see a bit more from Mr. Burnett if we're gonna make a real push for the division this year. More than pies, anyway.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Yankees 6, Twins 4
I completely blew off my game entry from two weeks ago-- apologies to the faithful. At that point I'd witnessed two Saturday drubbings for a total of 30 runs allowed, and I didnt' really feel like talking about it. A few quips about how good the Peroni beer was just didn't seem worth writing about.
Yesterday was a little better. I brought my old pal from upstate to the game. He doesn't really like baseball and pretty much hates the Yankees, but he's always a good sport about it. He also shares my recent cravings for Guinness and Jagermeister, so we were peas in a fucking pod.
Despite a few bumps in the road (late babysitter, near-disaster trying to sneak knife into Yankee Stadium), we made it within minutes of Joba's first pitch. I still haven't gotten used to our new season seats, so we kinda wandered around for a while (beer, crappy food, bathroom, ATM, etc.). The section 422 beer stand can't be beat, but I'm already sick of the nearby food options. Rumors were flying around about $9 cans of PBR yesterday-- I'll confirm that another time.
I had just finished explaining how Mark Teixeira sucks to my friend when he clomped a three-run shot. And A-Rod... well, he's on another planet right now. End of the game was totally weird-- they showed A-Rod standing next to Kimberly Jones on the giant screen with pie all over his face. We left the stadium confused and in need of more beer.
Last night was a little Jager, a little beer, and a little more Jager. Not enough food, however. I ate LJ's discarded dinner (chunks of Boca burger and some cheese toast) and then had some pretzels and popcorn. Yikes.
Looks like we're taking the boy to the Philly game next Saturday. More on that next week.
Yesterday was a little better. I brought my old pal from upstate to the game. He doesn't really like baseball and pretty much hates the Yankees, but he's always a good sport about it. He also shares my recent cravings for Guinness and Jagermeister, so we were peas in a fucking pod.
Despite a few bumps in the road (late babysitter, near-disaster trying to sneak knife into Yankee Stadium), we made it within minutes of Joba's first pitch. I still haven't gotten used to our new season seats, so we kinda wandered around for a while (beer, crappy food, bathroom, ATM, etc.). The section 422 beer stand can't be beat, but I'm already sick of the nearby food options. Rumors were flying around about $9 cans of PBR yesterday-- I'll confirm that another time.
I had just finished explaining how Mark Teixeira sucks to my friend when he clomped a three-run shot. And A-Rod... well, he's on another planet right now. End of the game was totally weird-- they showed A-Rod standing next to Kimberly Jones on the giant screen with pie all over his face. We left the stadium confused and in need of more beer.
Last night was a little Jager, a little beer, and a little more Jager. Not enough food, however. I ate LJ's discarded dinner (chunks of Boca burger and some cheese toast) and then had some pretzels and popcorn. Yikes.
Looks like we're taking the boy to the Philly game next Saturday. More on that next week.
Monday, May 11, 2009
F'd up
I never wrote up my last Yankee game, which was a week and a half ago. I'll talk to my therapist about whether I should revisit that one or not.
Anyway, I had a horrible commute this morning. We all have classic dilemmas that haunt us on regular basis... mustard or mayo? venti or grande? fastball or slider? Mine is switch to 2/3 train at 96th st or stay on until 59th?
I've been opting for 59th St for the past year or so, mainly because I'm too damn lazy to walk the extra 15 blocks or so that taking the 2 or 3 to Brooklyn entails. It's about 5 minutes faster, but a real bitch in the rain.
Anyway, things were fine until I got to Broadway/Lafayette for my transfer to the dreaded F. I knew something was wrong right away-- the silent crowd. Everybody huddled at the edge of the platform, afraid to say anything because they don't know anything. No barking announcements, no guys with orange ribbons explaining about an "incident" in Queens somewhere, just silence.
So I waited. And waited. I counted five D trains, four more B's, and three V trains (aka the "male nipple") until something finally came creaking down the local track. It was everyone's nemesis-- the C! That midget-sized cave-train that takes forever to get nowhere. Of course, I was perfectly positioned for an F (third door of the second-to-last car) and horribly positioned for a C. We all started running forward to get in that last car.
Not that I ever actually believed it was a C. I mean, here we were at B-Laf, where Cs don't exist. Yeah, it said C and the b*$%h on the mic said it was a C, but of course we'd be following the Culver line deep into Brooklyn, right? I mean, what's the point of running a C on the F line at 6, no 7 (at least!) in the morning?!
The C dumped us off at Jay St and staggered off into the hood. So we all waited again, for anything that would get us to friggin civilization. Finally, one of those "new" Fs rolled in, like a jerk in a new sweatsuit. Yes, it seemed like a legitimate option. We were gonna make it!
The train was a horror show. It was packed to the gills with people that I didn't even recognize as human, let alone American or New Yorker. Who were they and where did they come from? Queens?! Bayside? Who wears flipflops at 7:30 in the morning?
Worse yet was the stench? I quickly traced it to a bum lying right next to me on the brand new cyber-seat. He was wrapped in a Giants jacket, but don't you dare call this guy a fairweather fan-- this jacket was OLD. Like, pre-LT era. This derelict may have been a Gifford fan, in fact.
Worse still was the train itself. The new MTA trains really are wonders of design, but this one was a little off. The robot announcers were screwing up the stops so bad that we weren't even laughing-- I swear they called Carroll St "Newhouse Avenue". And these new trains are just not built for the rigors of the F course. The stretch from Jay St to 7th Avenue has to be one of the most treacherous in the system-- it's the Hillary Step of the subway system. I love the new trains, but they're just not built for this kind of travel. Between the swaying back and forth and the stink of Dave Jennings, I was ready to lose a few pounds all over my shoes.
Bad bad bad trip. I'm making a personal vow to transfer at 96th at least 75% of the time from now on. These kind of things just don't happen on the 2 train.
Departing time: 6:15 am
Arriving time: 8:00 am
Route: 1 to B to "C" to F
TOTAL TRIP: 1 hour 45 minutes
Anyway, I had a horrible commute this morning. We all have classic dilemmas that haunt us on regular basis... mustard or mayo? venti or grande? fastball or slider? Mine is switch to 2/3 train at 96th st or stay on until 59th?
I've been opting for 59th St for the past year or so, mainly because I'm too damn lazy to walk the extra 15 blocks or so that taking the 2 or 3 to Brooklyn entails. It's about 5 minutes faster, but a real bitch in the rain.
Anyway, things were fine until I got to Broadway/Lafayette for my transfer to the dreaded F. I knew something was wrong right away-- the silent crowd. Everybody huddled at the edge of the platform, afraid to say anything because they don't know anything. No barking announcements, no guys with orange ribbons explaining about an "incident" in Queens somewhere, just silence.
So I waited. And waited. I counted five D trains, four more B's, and three V trains (aka the "male nipple") until something finally came creaking down the local track. It was everyone's nemesis-- the C! That midget-sized cave-train that takes forever to get nowhere. Of course, I was perfectly positioned for an F (third door of the second-to-last car) and horribly positioned for a C. We all started running forward to get in that last car.
Not that I ever actually believed it was a C. I mean, here we were at B-Laf, where Cs don't exist. Yeah, it said C and the b*$%h on the mic said it was a C, but of course we'd be following the Culver line deep into Brooklyn, right? I mean, what's the point of running a C on the F line at 6, no 7 (at least!) in the morning?!
The C dumped us off at Jay St and staggered off into the hood. So we all waited again, for anything that would get us to friggin civilization. Finally, one of those "new" Fs rolled in, like a jerk in a new sweatsuit. Yes, it seemed like a legitimate option. We were gonna make it!
The train was a horror show. It was packed to the gills with people that I didn't even recognize as human, let alone American or New Yorker. Who were they and where did they come from? Queens?! Bayside? Who wears flipflops at 7:30 in the morning?
Worse yet was the stench? I quickly traced it to a bum lying right next to me on the brand new cyber-seat. He was wrapped in a Giants jacket, but don't you dare call this guy a fairweather fan-- this jacket was OLD. Like, pre-LT era. This derelict may have been a Gifford fan, in fact.
Worse still was the train itself. The new MTA trains really are wonders of design, but this one was a little off. The robot announcers were screwing up the stops so bad that we weren't even laughing-- I swear they called Carroll St "Newhouse Avenue". And these new trains are just not built for the rigors of the F course. The stretch from Jay St to 7th Avenue has to be one of the most treacherous in the system-- it's the Hillary Step of the subway system. I love the new trains, but they're just not built for this kind of travel. Between the swaying back and forth and the stink of Dave Jennings, I was ready to lose a few pounds all over my shoes.
Bad bad bad trip. I'm making a personal vow to transfer at 96th at least 75% of the time from now on. These kind of things just don't happen on the 2 train.
Departing time: 6:15 am
Arriving time: 8:00 am
Route: 1 to B to "C" to F
TOTAL TRIP: 1 hour 45 minutes
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