Thursday, May 19, 2005
*fade in*
*Dramatic confrontation between Jeter and A-Rod, standing on a baseball field surrounded by HOT MOLTEN LAVA. Jeter is wearing pinstripes and a simple tan robe, emblazoned with Gatorade symbols. A-Rod is wearing his gray away uniform with great big black leather boots (the boots will not be explained). Both carry bats, both have their uniforms artfully smeared with pine tar, and both wear expressions of poorly-emoted anguish. Tino Martinez stands between them, with his hair in a fetching braid, hands raised imploringly to A-Rod.*
Tino: Alex, baby, don't do this. You're such a good guy. I know everyone's been saying lies about you to the media, I know you're a True Yankee!
A-Rod: IT'S JETER, ISN'T IT? YOU'VE BEEN LISTENING TO JETER! HE'S POISONED YOU AGAINST ME!
Tino: No baby, it's not like that! I know you're a good Yankee!
A-Rod: THEN COME TO ME! WE WILL DESTROY JETER, I AM MORE POWERFUL THAN HE IS! TOGETHER WE WILL RULE THE YANKEES AND MAKE EVERYTHING JUST HOW WE LIKE IT AND JUST HOW IT SHOULD BE, AND THE YANKEES WILL NEVER LOSE AGAIN!!
Tino: Oh my god.... you.... you've gone mad... you're not the man I thought you were! Jeter was right!
*Tino backs away, hands raised imploringly in front of him, face scrunched up in cringing terror and sopping wet from a combination of sweat and tears. His braid is all awry.*
A-Rod: I WON'T LET HIM TAKE YOU AWAY FROM ME!! HE TOOK MY POSITION, HE TOOK MY UNIVERSAL POPULARITY, HE WON'T TAKE YOU! RRRARRRGH!
*A-Rod beats Tino with his bat, stamping about madly with his giant black boots to indicate his unstable mental state. Tino cowers and screams and, for some reason, protectively curls up around his abdomen.*
Jeter: Alex! Stop it! You're hurting him! LET HIM GO!!
Tino: Nooooo, my baaaabbbbyyyy.....
*Tino is knocked unconscious on the ground. A-Rod and Jeter square off properly, without his useless and girlish idealism or interference. Both let their hands drift to the handles of their bats. The New York media crowds around, camera lenses glinting in the dancing orange light of the HOT MOLTEN LAVA.*
Jeter: Look at you! Look at what you've done! What you've become! Those hideous red eyes and that waxy complexion which is, like, so Transylvania. That will totally never fly in the Big Apple. I... I have failed in your training. I have failed you.
A-Rod: I HAVE POWERS NO YANKEE HAS EVER HAD BEFORE! I HAVE POWERS YOU CANNOT DREAM OF! IT IS MY EMPIRE NOW, MINE TO RULE OVER! IT IS MY PLACE TO SPREAD PEACE AND JUSTICE AND WORLD SERIES VICTORIES THROUGHOUT! MINE! MINETY MINE-MINE MINE! ALSO I HAVE NEW CONTACTS. LOOK, RED! THEY SAY THEY BLOCK OUT SUNLIGHT SO I WON'T LOSE FOUL BALLS ON SUNNY DAYS.
Jeter: A-Rod, you were supposed to be the Chosen One! You were supposed to destroy evil and restore balance to the Yankee Way, not leave it in tatters!
A-Rod: YOU ARE WEAK! YOU SHUN THE DARK SIDE OF THE YANKEE WAY! I HAVE EMBRACED IT, AND MY POWERS ARE UNBEATABLE, AND I AM TOTALLY A BETTER SHORTSTOP THAN YOU ARE.
Jeter: *gasp!* The Dark Side! OMG you're on STEROIDS. You have been subverted by Giambi and Sheffield, lured by the temptations of power hitting!
A-Rod: NO YOU PINHEAD I'M NOT ON STEROIDS. I'VE JUST EMBRACED THE DARKER SIDE OF BEING A YANKEE, LIKE REVELING IN MY ILL-GOTTEN AND BLOATED CONTRACT INSTEAD OF TASTEFULLY IGNORING IT, AND ADMITTING TO BUSH-LEAGUE ATTACKS ON OPPOSING PITCHERS, AND STUFF.
*Jeter raises his bat, tears running down his face, choking on heartfelt sobs, turning his head to make sure the TV cameras properly capture the tragic glistening trails*
Jeter: You... you were like a brother to me! We shared the same infield! I loved you!
A-Rod: YOUR TIME IS OVER, OLD MASTER. THE INFIELD IS ALL MINE. I HATE YOU! OH WAIT.
*A pause, during which A-Rod reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small compact. He hastily applies dark eye shadow to make his eyes look smoky and dramatic and to better highlight his red contacts.*
A-Rod: OK, MUCH BETTER. NOW YOUR TIME IS UP, BITCH!
*A spectacular fight ensues. Jeter and A-Rod attack one another with their bats, making staticky whooshing noises with their mouths as they do for no adequetely explained reason. They leap about with the sort of acrobatic ability one would expect from two master shortstops (or one shortstop and one former shortstop bitterly forced into playing third base), hurling themselves from base to base. Jeter throws himself into some nearby stands with reckless abandon, although there is no reason for him to do so, and the media hoarde murmurs appreciatively. A-Rod runs with a feminine, weak-wristed motion and slaps Jeter's bat out of his hands, leaving Jeter to scramble for his weapon. Several cameramen are inadventently knocked into the MOLTEN HOT LAVA and perish.*
A-Rod: I WILL HIT HOMERUNS AT A RATE YOU HAVE NEVER HIT THEM IN YOUR ENTIRE MISERABLE CAREER. I AM THE MOST POWERFUL YANKEE EVER TO EXIST, EVER, IN THE HISTORY OF EVER.
*A-Rod raises his bat, waggling it dramatically.*
Jeter: Don't try it, Alex. Don't do it.
A-Rod: YOU UNDERESTIMATE MY ABILITIES, JETER!
*A-Rod leaps into the air, bat lifted high to smite Jeter where he stands. But Jeter has been around longer and is wiser in the ways of Yankeedom and, more importantly, Yankee Stadium. He instantaneously and perfectly projects A-Rod's trajectory in his mind, knowing the ground from which he launched himself. With this knowledge, which lets him cut off a line drive during a game, Jeter brings his bat around and breaks both of A-Rod's knees while A-Rod is still in mid-air. A-Rod falls to the ground, shrieking, crippled. The MOLTEN HOT LAVA burbles ominously.*
Jeter: *whispering* I loved you...
A-Rod: Aaarrrrwaaarrggghhh...
*A bubble of MOLTEN HOT LAVA bursts, sending a shower of sparks into the air. Many land on A-Rod, igniting the pine tar covering his uniform. The flames spread up his body, exploding into a small mushroom cloud when they reach the highly volatile spray he uses to keep his hair looking metrosexually perfect even under a batting helmet.
Jeter, sobbing freely, also very sweaty, picks up A-Rod's bat. He walks away, returning to Tino, who is beginning to weakly stir with consciousness. He directs Jorge Posada (inexplicably attired in a natty gold suit and walking like he has a stick up his ass) to pick up Tino and place him in the executive Yankee limo.*
Tino: Je.... Jeter... is Alex....?
*Jeter strokes Tino's cheek and stares off into space, pressing his lips together tightly. It is a great shot of stoicism and leadership and several more cameramen perish, this time from paroxysms of joy. Everyone gets in the limo and they drive off.*
Meanwhile, A-Rod's burnt form is lying twitching on the ground. Another limo pulls up and an ominously Hooded Figure steps out. What little can be seen of its head is hideous with pallid wrinkles and sagging jowls. A terrifying flash of white turtleneck is seen, only to be quickly cloaked again.*
The Hooded Figure: There he is! My apprentice! Tend to him!
*A bevy of batboys race forward and begin to encompass A-Rod in terrible, pinstriped armor. The Hooded Figure cackles briefly and gets back into its limo. The limo races off, wheels squealing. Many slightly singed dollar bills shoot from its exhaust pipes and settle ashily into the fiery depths.*
*fade out*
So, uh, guess where I was tonight? (By the way, kids, he turns into Darth Vader at the end. I know, I've just ruined it for everyone).
I just feel obligated to add that I have absolutely no memory whatsoever of writing that post last night. Looking at the timestamp I posted it around midnight, which with the hours I'm keeping lately is more like 3 am, as should be evident from the incoherence and the small factual errors (Rondell's single in the 11th brought in Brandon Inge from third, not second... Inge had doubled, and Opposite-Nomar had sac bunted him over).
This, kids, is what happens to your brain when you get up at 4:30 am on a regular basis to spend a freezing cold morning/moderately warmer afternoon trying to puzzle out the difference between a second-year and after-second-year catbird, all while said catbird is screaming its fool head off and trying to beat you to death with its wings. You become incapable of thinking in long sentences, and you watch a Tigers game and can only process things like 'Rondell good!' and 'men left on base bad!' and 'bullpen good!' and 'Carlos Pena hot but teh suck' and 'should not be such battle with fucking Tampa Bay'.
I also only saw the first few innings of the Sox game, and thus missed out on the bullpen suckitude and the heroics of Edgah. I'll probably miss the end of today's game because I'm supposed to go get a new streak dyed into my hair (sort of a burgandy-ish red, and if you think that has nothing to do with the baseball season, well, go right on thinking that. I am the worst art student ever-- I should be dyeing my hair because it EXPRESSES MY CREATIVITY AND ALSO ANGST, not because YAAAY RED SOX!).
Friday, however, I will be at the game, because my dad is cooler than the dad of any blogger in the whole of the blogosphere, so if you see a girl with a Red Sox hat on and a ponytail with a streak of red in it, tugging along a shell-shocked shorter girl while keeping up a steady stream of invective and factoids about the Braves, that's me. Not the shorter girl. That's my friend Jess.
Poor, poor Jess.
5:18 AM
|
|
