Friday, May 20, 2005

Deride of the Yankees

I went to the Yankees games on Monday-Wednesday May 16-18, 2005. I would write game reports, but to be honest, the Monday and Tuesday games sucked enough ass to film a Sir Mix-a-Lot video, and Wednesday's featured an awesome comeback, so instead I will share with you a couple moments, and we'll leave it at that.

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At the Yankees-Mariners game Wednesday, I was sitting in front of a little girl who kept kicking the back of my chair. I turned around and looked her right in the eye, snarled, and said, "ARRRRR."

She stopped kicking my seat.

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A-Rod's biggest fan in the world was also sitting in the row behind me. He had a few too many beers, or not, but he kept getting up and yelling random stuff. "NUMBER 13 IS CURSED, A-ROD!" or "TOO BAD 252 MILLION DOLLARS CAN'T BUY YOU A WORLD SERIES RING," or "YEAH! TRY TO KNOCK THE BALL OUT OF SEXSON'S HAND WHY DON'T YOU! HE AIN'T NO BRONSON ARROYO YOU PUNK!"

In the 6th inning there was this point where the guy stood up and yelled "I SEE AN E-5 IN YOUR FUTURE, YOU LOUSY NO GOOD EXCUSE FOR A THIRD BASEMAN". Two batters later, A-Rod infact did fall flat on his ass trying to field a ball and tag someone out at third when Wilson Valdez knocked in two runs instead of one, tying the game. A-Rod was the first up to bat the next inning, and the biggest fan stood up yelling, "THAT WAS *YOUR ERROR* LAST INNING, RODRIGUEZ! IT'D BE 6-5 NOW EXCEPT FOR YOOOOOOOU."

A-Rod struck out and everyone cheered.

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The father of the aforementioned little girl behind me actually was explaining it to her: "You see, Alex Rodriguez used to play in Seattle, and then he left because other people would pay him a whole ton of money. I don't think we care that much anymore, but it's fun to boo him, isn't it?"

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Monday night there was a whole section of people there waving Taiwanese flags and cheering on the Yankees pitcher Chien-Ming Wang. Would you believe, I'd never actually seen the Taiwanese flag before and I had to look it up on my cellphone? Wang had a bigger cheering section than even Matsui. I suppose the Japanese fans still felt obligated to cheer on Ichiro in his home park.

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Aaron Sele struck out the whole side of Yankees right before being pulled on Monday. Given, it was just Giambi, Flaherty, and Jeter, but still. He struck out more guys in his start than any other starting pitcher did against the Yankees, and more than any other pitcher did, period, except Matt Thornton's awesome stint on Tuesday. Sele Monday: 6 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 6 BB, 5 SO, 0 HR. Thornton in relief Tuesday: 3 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 5 SO, 1 HR. I like it when we get the Good Thornton, even if everyone else hates him.

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There was also this weird thing on Monday where Hideki Matsui hit what looked like an infield bouncer to Bret Boone, who threw him out at first while Robbinson Cano scored from third. Then there was this whole big to-do out on the field, and next thing we know, all the runners and runs are restored and Matsui's back on the plate with a 1-2 count, and promptly strikes out. A minute later A-Rod knocks in the run and gets the RBI instead. Edgars and I were trying to figure out what happened but were at a total loss -- and the scoreboards were also broken for quite some time, showing Matsui as the active batter for most of the rest of the inning.

It turns out from later TV reports that the baseball hit his bat, then hit home plate, then hit his bat again as he finished his followthrough, and THEN went bounding into the infield. As a result it was ruled a foul ball. I wish they'd like, put that up on the board at the game, though, so those of us at the game know what's going on. I guess it was too broken trying to redo the score and all.

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I was watching Mike Mussina warm up on Wednesday. His biggest fan was apparently there too, yelling things like "YOU SUCK, MUSSINA! WE ALREADY HAVE A MOOSE IN SEATTLE, AND HE'S CUTER AND FUZZIER THAN YOU."

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Tuesday was a patently annoying game, involving Carl Pavano pitching a complete-game shutout for the Yankees. The only funny moment of the game for me was probably when Ficus and Josh started singing along to "Boone! Here comes the Boone!" to yell "READY OR NOT, I STRIKE OUT A LOT". Sure enough, Boone struck out.
 

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