Monday, April 04, 2005
David Wells. Let me tell you something.
You are dealing with a city that is just now getting over a certain something that they had to suffer under for years. It was something we knew we were going to have to see with unfortunate regularity, yet we still dreaded seeing it. It never got any better, even when we learned to laugh bitterly and mirthlessly at it. We thought we had seen the last of it when the issue was finally purged from our ranks this winter. So you'll understand if we react rather poorly to seeing it from you.
Wells, I'm only gonna say it once. We just finished getting over The Derek Lowe Face. Don't bring it back.
You get some slack for last night. It was really, really cold. The Yankees were really, really pumped up. The Toilet was really, really loud. It was really, really Opening Day. And, whatever, the first of 162, it doesn't matter all that much.
But I do not, I repeat, do not want to be seeing that face any more this year. OK? We got that straight? Would you like me to WRITE IT OUT IN LETTERS OF BRANDY WHICH I WILL THEN SET FIRE TO SO THAT YOU CAN FUCKING INHALE THE ALCOHOLIC MESSAGE IN WHAT IS SURELY YOUR PREFERRED METHOD OF INFORMATION RETENTION? Whatever it takes to get the message across.
Other things that need to not happen ever, ever again:
Hitting Giambi twice. Twice. The first time I will admit, it looked like a pretty routine inside pitch that Giambi just left his unnaturally bolstered shoulder out there for. He could've gotten away from it if he really wanted to. The second one, though... the second one was just pure, good old-fashioned lost control. And it had to be the same batter, huh? Couldn't have mixed it up a little? I mean, blimey, I hate Giambi as much as the next non-steroid-using individual (Alex Sanchez what what? Talk about getting out at the right time...), but was that really necessary?
No. It was not.
Also, the balk. The balk. With, yes, the bases loaded. That. Needs. To never. NEVER. Happen. Again. Not again in the history of ever. Unless it's the Shriveled Unit doing it against us. The balk, well, one never expects it, but one would perhaps be slightly more understanding of it if it was done by, heck, I don't know. Jeremy Bonderman. Rich Harden. Felix Hernandez whenever the Ms decide to bring him up and ruin him early. Zach Greinke. Someone young and with a certain amount of inexperience. Not someone who has been pitching in the major leagues for 18 fucking years.
So, Wells, you're not dead to me yet. Of course not. It was the first game of the first year of the Red Sox as Defending World Champions in my lifetime. It'll take a lot to make me give up on the season. But, those things, they simply are not allowed for the rest of the year. Bear it mind.
Tito? Tito, we have someone named John Halama in our bullpen now. He is a long-relief man. This means that if your starter sucks like a ventilation hood, you put in the long man. You don't parade out nearly every reliever you have. I do not care that we have a day off today. We are no longer in spring training. The games, shockingly, count. Please try to act like you realize this in the future, thanks.
There were two good things about this game. One was getting to see everyone live-action again, not just in photographs, and not just in teeny tiny images on the MLBTV screen on my computer. You can watch Jason Varitek take an at-bat on the computer, but the true majesty of his extremely, wonderously, fortuitously tight pants can only be achieved on a largish TV screen. Or presumably in person, but I won't get to see that for a while yet (I will, however, get to see Pudge soon. April 21. Tigers/ChiSux. I will be there).
The other good thing was Matt Mantei. Not his hotness, although seeing him flaunt his red underarmor to such perfection was indeed a small balm upon my soul. Not his Control, which was definitely not anywhere in the park last night (I imagine it tried to take the subway to the stadium and just got lost along the way. The New York subway system's tough like that, I could see a poor, innocent little Control, used to the quieter, simpler ways of the National League getting lost). No, what was good to see was the speed at which he was chucking that baseball. He was regularly getting his pitches up into the mid and high 90s, with no visible wincing or shying or other signs of pain.
Now if only he can dig his Control out of the bowels of Grand Central Station and start throwing those heaters somewhere in the general vicinity of the plate, we'll be all set.
As for the Yankees, well. I think pretty much everyone has said it all about Matsui (IT IS ALWAYS FUCKING MATSUI) and there's really almost nothing to say about the Shriveled Unit. He whupped us. He whupped us but good. He bent us over his bony, elongated knee and whalloped our baseball-pant-clad heinies until we'd had enough and decided to throw some dude named Blaine Neal into the game (on Opening Night. A sign of surrender if I ever saw one).
Jason Giambi was notable mostly for getting hit by Wells' pitches, and by making a simply atrocious play at first only to follow it up with a somewhat remarkable defensive play that made me swear like a myna bird that's been trained to swear a lot.
Derek Jeter gave a little clap of glee in the dugout that ESPN showed, and I felt the deep burn of hatred in my soul that means the season is truly here, and all crazy things like 'actually not hating Jeter deeply and caustically' can go right back out the window along with, hopefully, snow and negative windchills and college basketball.
Tino Martinez was the recipient of the most sickening aspects of the evening. Hearing all of Yankee 'Stade Fasciste' Stadium chant "Tino! Tino!" was cringe-worthy on its own, but hearing the announcers talk about the whole Tino saga was downright vomit-inducing. The real kicker of it is, I don't actively dislike Tino, and I'd probably be relatively OK with him if the fans didn't hold him up as a shining Tiffany-glass example of The Yankee Ideal, The American Ideal, and The Human Ideal made flesh. He is like Derek Jeter, only he left and came back, so his story has more pathos and tragedy and overcoming and things.
The whole Tino thing can probably be best summed up by transcribing some of the conversation that Amy and I had during the game last night. Thank god we were talking on AIM, because upon rereading it is one of the most hilarious things ever and I would have hated for it to get lost in the ether. Screennames changed to protect the blatantly guilty.
DecemberSnow (10:30:30 PM): TINO MARTIINEZ I FUCKING HATE YOU AND YOUR BIG FAT HEAD
DecemberSnow (10:31:04 PM): MY SOUL
DecemberSnow (10:31:05 PM): MY SOUL
BostonFaninMichigan (10:31:09 PM): AND ALL THE YANKEE FANS COMMENCE TO JERK EACH OTHER OFF IN SMUG SATISFACTION
DecemberSnow (10:36:34 PM): LET US ALL GENUFLECT IN FRONT OF TINO
BostonFaninMichigan (10:36:53 PM): LET US ALL GET DOWN ON OUR KNEES IN FRONT OF TINO AND ASK HIM TO BLESS US WITH HIS HOLY TRUE YANKEE HANDS
BostonFaninMichigan (10:37:27 PM): TINO, I HAVE SINNED! I HAVE LOOKED UPON THOSE NOT WORTHY TO BE YANKEES! CLEANSE ME WITH YOUR PRESENCE!
DecemberSnow (10:38:35 PM): fix me tino
DecemberSnow (10:38:38 PM): love me
DecemberSnow (10:38:40 PM): teach me your ways
DecemberSnow (11:06:32 PM): the who? pussy.
BostonFaninMichigan (11:06:48 PM): tino circlejerk. is it going to be like this all season?
DecemberSnow (11:06:51 PM): yes.
DecemberSnow (11:06:53 PM): yes it is.
DecemberSnow (11:07:06 PM): REAL MEN LISTEN TO RUSH AT THE PLATE.
And then there's this, which is one of my favorite passages, which happened right after the announcers started saying how remarkable it was that Tino was back, and back with the Yankees, and it was so remarkable, and the Yankees in general were just remarkable, and they used the word remarkable about 12 times in two minutes, and we were in a bad mood by now anyways because we were getting destroyed.
DecemberSnow (11:08:26 PM): oh dear god
BostonFaninMichigan (11:08:54 PM): it's like, my god, tino, SAVIOUR OF TINY LITTLE INNOCENT CHILDREN
BostonFaninMichigan (11:09:01 PM): ALSO, THE YANKEES
BostonFaninMichigan (11:09:03 PM): HE'S A TRUE ONE
BostonFaninMichigan (11:09:13 PM): LET'S CHANT HIS NAME
DecemberSnow (11:09:18 PM): oh my god the yankees are so remarkable
BostonFaninMichigan (11:09:19 PM): IT WILL BE A REMARKABLE SCENE
DecemberSnow (11:09:24 PM): ooo paul o neill
DecemberSnow (11:09:26 PM): ooo he cried
DecemberSnow (11:09:29 PM): how professional
BostonFaninMichigan (11:09:33 PM): HE ALSO CONTRIBUTED TO THE REMARKABLE SCENE
DecemberSnow (11:09:42 PM): he swung
BostonFaninMichigan (11:09:49 PM): REMARKABLE
DecemberSnow (11:10:11 PM): OH NO BERNIE WILLIAMS DOES NOT HAVE A HIT
DecemberSnow (11:10:15 PM): THE WORLD WILL END
BostonFaninMichigan (11:10:30 PM): HE IS AMBASSADOR TO THE CHILDREN OF THE WORLD
BostonFaninMichigan (11:10:35 PM): DIDN'T YOU READ THE ARTICLES?
BostonFaninMichigan (11:10:41 PM): WE'RE NOT ALLOWED TO DISLIKE HIM
BostonFaninMichigan (11:10:48 PM): BECAUSE HE WENT TO IMPOVERISHED NATIONS
And, well, like I said earlier, there wasn't much to say about the Shriveled Unit. Not much to say about his performance, anyhow. His name lends itself to hours and hours of fun, and I would be a bad blogger if I refrained from sharing this simple comedic joy with you.
DecemberSnow (8:05:41 PM): randy johnson is funnier than pooholes
BostonFaninMichigan (8:05:56 PM): much funnier.
BostonFaninMichigan (8:06:16 PM): 'he's got quite the randy johnson'
DecemberSnow (8:06:27 PM): "if you have a randy johnson on your ball club"
DecemberSnow (8:06:31 PM): don't share towels?
BostonFaninMichigan (8:06:37 PM): :D
BostonFaninMichigan (8:06:56 PM): 'you've got to cover up randy johnson, you can't leave him exposed out there'
BostonFaninMichigan (8:07:06 PM): 'randy johnson is way too tall'
DecemberSnow (8:13:19 PM): randy johnson does not have excellent control
BostonFaninMichigan (8:13:30 PM): he just fires stuff everywhere
BostonFaninMichigan (8:13:50 PM): all over the strike zone, all over the outside of the strike zone...
BostonFaninMichigan (8:16:59 PM): no, not really. but it's the shriveled unit in the bronx, throwing hard, methinks he's gonna be getting the benefit of the doubt :/
DecemberSnow (8:17:20 PM): he's old. he'll blow his load soon.
BostonFaninMichigan (8:18:12 PM): can't last long. when you get a unit that old it doesn't matter how big he is, he just doesn't have the stamina
Amy and I should either never be allowed to watch a game in this fashion again, or else we should be required to watch at least one game a week like this. I'm not sure which would be better for humanity.
There's a lot more, but quite frankly I doubt you kids want to read any of it. The Tigers season opener is going on right now-- look at me, not checking the scores or going anywhere near the Tigers message board. I'm stuck here until sometime after 9 tonight, so I'll even miss the rebroadcast that FSN is kindly doing around 7. Bugger. I'll have to watch it on MLB TV, which, yes, saves my life, but still. I guess any way I get to watch it will do, as I'm not missing Bondo versus LimaTime v. 1.0. Not for you, Flash animation class, and not for you, fibers studio monitoring, and especially not for you, fucking University bus system.
So, Tigers game recap hopefully at some point tomorrow. Until then, keep it in perspective, and let there be baseball.
2:32 PM
|
|
