Saturday KenKen in 15 minutes

Maybe it's because I kick so much butt I kick aaaaassssssssssssss...

Red Sox 9, Mets 3

[originally titled "Atrocity Exhibition"]

The Mets started getting their asses kicked immediately. We hadn't even sat down yet and Perez was in deep trouble with no outs. Pretty sure he walked three guys in a row before he got an out, in fact.

So, it was a little tough to soak in the new field while the Sox were trotting 'round the diamond. The place is nice. Very nice. In fact, I'll go on record saying they did a hell of a job. It looks pretty stupid from the outside, but smart on the inside. Not much in the style department, but that was to be expected.

I guess it looked like a better-than-average new park out in the midwest somewhere. I could've been in Coeur D'Alene for all I knew, except for the occasional jet overhead. Totally great, but kinda plain Jane.

Garbage whisked around on the field for the entire game. Like, a lot of garbage. The white shit you see in the picture is flying cardboard. They had a trash detail out on the field twice an inning running around like ballboys at Wimbledon. Joey quickly dubbed the joint "Tray Stadium" as yellow cardboard Nathan's boxes frittered along the grass. I swear I saw a large box of fries fly into the catcher's mitt at one point. The new Yankee Stadium had a wind issue too, but nothing even close to this.

The scoreboards were pretty awesome. Lots of info, but not imposing-- sort of the opposite of the Yankee behemoth. Otherwise, not a single memorable moment A/V-wise.

Beer was reasonable, but smaaaaallllll cups. I had what seemed like a lousy burger, but ended up being quite tasty. A sprawling food court area out past right field sealed the deal: Citi's got good eats. BBQ, fresh sandwiches, healthy stuff like fruit and cheese... you get the feeling you could raise a family at this place.

I'm sure things'll spice up once the season starts. Until then, bring a flask.

Yankees 7, Cubs 4

I was totally late to the game, missing first pitch and god knows what else by about 5 minutes. I had a dr's appt. on the upper east side at 4pm, coming from Brooklyn at 3:15. Bad math-- I was late to that too (which is why I was then late to the game). Had to take a cab with a crazy Pakistani driver jabbering at me the entire ride about cricket. Something about matches taking 50 hours... I have no idea.

I had a scheduled steroid IV, which can take anywhere from 45 minutes to several hours, depending on the drip setting. My last one took the minimum-- I tap danced out of the office like a speed freak. Maybe that's why he set this one super-slow. I didn't get out of there until 6:30, but got up to the Stadium as fast as humanly possible. Still five minutes late.

This might be a good time to talk about 'roids. The common belief is that steroids help you hit lots of home runs, cause your head swell like a balloon, and make you listen to Metallica. This hasn't been my experience at all: steroid megadoses cause me obsessively devour Times crosswords, eat everything in sight, and listen to old Police records. My iTunes Play Count had me at 29 listens of "J'aurais Toujours Faim De Toi" during my last infusion cycle, and I finished (tomorrow's) Saturday puzzle in 24 minutes on the 7 train.

I don't need drugs to tell you that the new Yankee Stadium is amazing. Aside from being corralled across the street by cops like 2nd graders, entry was uneventful. Hilarious overheard snippets: "Holy shit!", "This place is a fucking palace!", or "Everything with the fucking productions!!! Let us walk across the damn street for chrissakes!" Actual gate entry was slick and easy. I was barely frisked, although we had to scan our own tickets (which didn't even beep--suspicious...)

Kinda weird at first walking around. The surrounding halls outside the inner stadium have an airport kind of feel, almost like the Rogers Centre. For a second I was afraid we were going to have to drink our beers with straws and get yelled at for dropping a napkin on the floor. Also as in an airport, people were aimlessly drifting around and bumping into each other, except here it was beer that was spilling instead of coffee. No one knew where the hell they were going.

Me and Mz Mazz sat in great field boxes right behind home plate, but quickly emigrated to the grandstand when it started raining. When you become a parent, you do lame shit like that, even without the kid. Or I guess you start bringing umbrellas to places. Anyway, we met up with our old friends Heath and Karl in the upper deck. Had a few beers, compared notes, you know... we all seemed to agree that the place was top notch.

Here's some quick notes:

Beer was around $6 for a small (12 oz.) and $10ish for bigger (didn't seem like 24 oz., maybe 20?). Heath was bitching about the "souvenir" beers being in blue plastic cups, which surely were releasing all sorts of harmful chemicals into our beerstreams. I dismissed that one until my second souvie, when the bottom of my Miller started tasting like a frisbee.

Food was not yet fully operational, I hope. I think we went to the weaker of the food areas, as our choices were mainly dogs, fries, and "sliders". Mind you, these aren't delicious little White Castle-style burgers-- they're not burgers at all. They were completely out of the "beef sliders" but had chicken, which were basically chicken strips. Very strange. This was an example of a fundamental commerce failure: neither the consumer nor the seller had any idea what the product was called, looked like, or cost. Oh yeah, the number of calories contained in each item (terrifying!) are listed right next to the price, so it's kinda tough to tell them apart. I knew I wanted the chicken sliders, but I wasn't quite sure if they cost 1050 or 9.75.

Bathrooms were extraordinary. I don't hesitate to call the urinals beautiful, works of art. Certainly more works of art than the Peter Max Yankee Gallery, which has to be seen to be believed. The sinks worked, the soap shot out of the dispensers on command (usually onto the floor, but at least it existed), paper towels actually came out when you pulled the levers, and things were generally cheery and bright. An enjoyable experience.

Scoreboard is monolithic. Pretty confusing, as at least nine different fonts are used on the same giant screen. We went long stretches without having basic information: score, inning, count, etc. Seemed like a work in progress.

Sound is incredible. Only the "Hey fans..." spoken stuff between innings was ear-splitting; the music was gut-thumping. I can't wait to hear "Black Betty" on this system.

We didn't really explore a whole lot. That'll come two Saturdays from now, when Lee Jr., my dad and I bring three generations of Mazzolas up to the Bronx. More on that when it happens.

What recession?

Big weekend...
I'll be reporting from each of New York's new baseball stadia this weekend: Yanks-Cubs Friday night and Mets-Sox Saturday afternoon.

We've all heard about Saturday's first pitch being thrown out by Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, who will be competing with our other avian hero "Challenger" for top billing before the game. Early insider reports have either Mike Mussina or David Patterson hurling ceremonial honors on Friday night.

Looks like Dice-K on Saturday. Eeesshh.

Now batting...

Derek Jeter explains the difference between leading off and batting second:

"You hit 60 seconds earlier than you normally do."

When Damon was leading off, I'd say 20 seconds was more accurate.

"It's exactly the same unless somebody's on base," Jeter said. "Some particular inning whoever is hitting ninth leads off and gets on base, then it's back to hitting second."

With Brett Gardner or Melky batting ninth, that could be more like 5 seconds.

Remember Knoblauch at the plate? Even when he totally sucked, you knew you could count on at least 3 minutes for his at bat. Between the clever fans and the utterly disgusted fans, more beer was sold during Chuck's at bats than any other time in those days.

$2625 per seat... do you take Visa?

Each year I plan at least one group outing to Yankee Stadium for work. Anywhere from 40 to 120 tickets, usually around $10 a pop. Usually works out well for everyone.

Just a taste of the New Yankee Stadium for you...

The night I chose for this year's outing happens to be a $5 ticket promotion night-- excellent! I couldn't get through to group tickets today, so I figured I'd try buying them in bulk right off the website. Since the most you can buy at once is 12 tickets, my plan was to buy four batches of 12 each. Hopefully they'd be somewhat close to each other if I bought 'em real fast. Yeah, I'd pay a fortune in ticket fees, but at $5 each who cares?

I couldn't even get 12 tickets period (this was five minutes after tix went on sale). So I tried four tickets. Mind you, this is a crappy weeknight game.

Here's what they offered me for four tickets to a $5 game. Yes, the total is $10,738.80 for four tickets. And that's without shipping.

...trouble it was.

Put my "Smells Like Teen Spirit" rendition in the books. It's done.

As a veteran of the stage, I'm quite familiar with the finer points of live performance. A showman should be in a mode of constant assessment and adjustment during an act-- reading and reacting. I usually know my own physical limits for a given set within the first three minutes. If I'm only feeling 85%, I might skip that triple drop fill at the end of the bridge, dig? If I'm feeling 95+, I just might try something brand new, something nasty. Read and react.

Well, I was running at about 18% tonight-- that was clear from the giddy. I'd been working nonstop from 7:15 to 5:30 without a break, unless you call typing a break. I felt like Peter Gabriel trying to play a show at the AbabaDome after doing 12 hours of humanitarian work out in the desert. Or Pete Doherty trying to play a show, period.

There's the cosmic irony here... I was performing karaoke completely sober for maybe the fifth time in my life, and I felt like a Bowery souse. I sang the entire second verse lying on the floor. I finished the song plane crash-style ("searching for the tarmac"), with no reported casualties. Call me the Sully of song.

I'm getting too old for this silly shit.

Smells like trouble...

The people have spoken, and I have ruled justly.

First, decent idea with "When Doves Cry" by Chuck. Prince was on my list the whole time, but I had a bad experience with WDC once. The squealing and all that weird guttural shit-- I felt like Linda Blair. It's just not a good song for today's youth.

"Smells Like Teen Spirit" is a great idea. I already put my entry in, and I'll be shredding my larynx at about 5:15 pm tomorrow. Got a pretty good get-up too. Still deciding between which prop to "smash" at the end of the song:

1) a broken or fake guitar
2) a graphing calculator (or maybe some sort of SmartBoard utility)
3) a stack of ungraded math reports
4) a pencil sharpener

Hopefully a video will surface by Friday morning. I'll be sure to post it.

I need your help!!!

So let's just say I was to sing at a high school "American Idol"-style karaoke contest on March 19th at 5:00pm...

What song(s) should I sing? Please comment!

The 7-Up dude

This guy was totally dope, right?!