Yankees 5, Red Sox 0

What a wonderful day for a baseball game. Jr. was taking a nap, 75 degrees, no plans-- so I grabbed the Mz and we headed up to the Bronx. Yes, we got a fucking babysitter!

I'm assuming nobody out there will be turning down invitations to join me at a Yanks-Sox game anymore because I'm "bad luck"... let's cancel that shit right now. If I have a little time tonight, I'll dig up my all-time stats at home against Boston (I won't include my 3-1 record at Fenway).

I'll also note that my behavior during CC's perfect/no-no stretch yesterday was beyond reproach. It's possible that I cost Mike Mussina his perfect game at Fenway by drunkenly (and blindly-- I forgot my glasses) cavorting around the bleachers saying things like, "Hey, did he walk anybody yet?" I sat like a statue and said virtually nothing, ignoring all calls and texts (except the babysitter looking for coffee filters) until Ellsbury's hit.

We obviously enjoyed the game. Also nice not drinking gallons of beer and running up and down the grandstand like a fool. I once went almost an entire season in the bleachers without drinking (yes, before the beer ban) and had a great damn time. I'll get back to you on this one.

Again, we have a state-of-the-art scoreboard that shows 50-foot pictures of Kevin Youkilis's face.

Highlight of the afternoon was a guy out in front of the Stadium playing the Yes network theme song on his clarinet. I almost gave him ten bucks. Instead I gave the ten bucks to the popcorn lady inside.

I gotta sound off about this Josh Hamilton story. Turns out the guy had a wild night in Tempe, AZ way back in January. According to reports, he "became drunk" and was involved in "lurid poses" with "several women, not including his wife" (at first I thought that meant that his wife was actually there, but he just wasn't posing luridly with her). This photo completely backs up the story:

We all know about J-Ham's struggles with booze, drugs, (religion?) and other ills of society. We also know about his remarkable comeback last year, which peaked with a spectacular HR Derby display at the old Yankee Stadium (not to mention wreaking total havoc on our baseball pool for a period of time). Facing the horrific gauntlet of press apologies, opposing fans, and (I imagine) his wife, the man simply came out and explained the situation openly and honestly.

I happen to know a little bit about what this guy's going through right now. I was involved in an unfortunate situation a while back where similar photos leaked out of yours truly celebrating a grueling series of studio sessions in Frankfurt. The photo below has made plenty of orbits in cyberspace-- I'll spare you (and myself) some of the other ones. I know that Googling "kebab mazzola naked" and "monkey prostitute germany" used to hit a few of the more "lurid" photos, but those are long gone.

Anyway, I also had to own up to magazines and my professional community about the shocking photos. Turned out that other session guys didn't really give a shit (at least not in Germany), and the fanzines left it alone after a few weeks as well. I actually almost got a Jagermeister endorsement out of the whole affair, but that fell through after one of their reps saw that photo with the girls and the shuffleboard chalk, which I guess crossed some sort of line.

I guess these kinds of things are just among the many prices that come with celebrity. Or maybe celebrity is just the price of being really fucked up all the time.