Wednesday, September 21, 2005

The New York Yankees - here they come!

The Yankees won a wild and wooly shootout against the Baltimore Orioles tonight. Coupled with Cleveland's loss to the White Sox in a route (7 - 6, 10 innings - no contest - this one was over before it started - the Indians failed to even show up for this one) and Boston's squeaker over Tampa Bay (15 - 2, lucky to escape with this one - MLB will be reviewing some controversial calls by the umpires that cost Tampa Bay a game they surely deserved to win), the powerful Yankees, the mighty Yankees, the fabled Yankees are only 1/2 game behind Boston for the East division title and 1/2 game behind Cleveland for the wild card with a game in hand to each. For you novices, "a game in hand" means the powerful, mighty and fabled Yankees have played one game less than the other two teams and, when they win that game, everything is all knotted up. Again (sigh), for you novices, "all knotted up" means that the standings are temporarily tied until the Yankees smoke away from the riff-raff.

I reeeeealy don't think they'll need that wild card slot, since I don't think Boston can stand the strain. They'll fold up just like they did last year when the Yankees erased them in the first three games of their seven game series.

Aaron Small won his ninth straight decision for the powerful, mighty and fabled Yankees (winners of every 4th World Series since its inception in 1492, which means that the other 67 MLB teams have had to share the Yankees' leftovers) to become one of only four Yankee pitchers to begin their careers with the Yankees with 9 straight wins (Nick Cullop (1916), Whitey Ford (1950) and Tommy John (1979)). I thought that Beowulf also won 9 straight in the Dark Ages (before Ted Turner) but I must have been mistaken. Whitey Ford, if you will recall, has an entire stock-holding family as well as a car company named after him. He was not held responsible for the Edsel as he was on vacation in Kokomo when that unfortunate incident occurred.

And a note to all American League first basemen and to that first baseman from the NL who must face the powerful, mighty and fabled Yankees in this year's World Series; don't crowd first base when Bubba Crosby comes barreling down the line. Brian Roberts did just that and left the game with a dislocated elbow (man, that had to hurt). Orioles manager (interim) Sam Perlozzo was ejected in the bottom of the second inning for objecting to the incidental contact by Crosby and will probably face criminal charges as soon as Manhattan district attorney Morganthau has a chance to review the game films, provided, at the age of 86, he can even see the game films. Per-lozza reasons, the doddering Morganthau failed to have the vicious Baltimore manager arrested and shot on the spot.

Bernie Williams now has 2,211 career hits and needs three to tie Joe DiMaggio (2,214) for fourth place on the Yankees' all-time list. An incredible statistic because DiMaggio, The Yankee Clipper, had Marilyn Monroe fungoeing him, while, well, I don't know who hits fungoes to Bernie. He was called The Yankee Clipper because he was clipping Marilyn on a regular basis, I guess. (fungos or fungoes? Someone help me out. I just teach English here, I don't pretend to know anything about it)

I lost a bet to a good friend of mine and have been wearing a funky blue baseball cap with the red "B" on the front for nearly a year, now, and am aching to toss it where it belongs - on a funeral pyre.

Burn, BURN, BURN baby burn!

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