Free Fall 2008

            I was about halfway through a pork chop when I heard the ding.  “Who is embarrassing themselves by texting me Yankee updates,” I asked the missus indignantly.  “Don’t they know?”  It was a dumb question.  I didn’t even know.  I didn’t even know what I didn’t know.  But I knew checking on the Yankees was an incredibly bad idea.  Why?  I wrote this in the BPS last week: “But the problem is that you don’t get the feeling they’re going to explode and win ten in a row.  You get the feeling they’re hanging on for dear life, and that one of these days they’ll just slide off seven losses in a row.”  So here we are at four.  I also told Acc on Sunday afternoon that they would be nine out by next weekend.  Ummmm…  check and check. 

            Sometimes you just know when the sky is going to fall.  You know as a Yankee fan, because, incredibly, you’ve seen it not once, not twice, but three times in the last four years.  Last year they came back from a cavernous 21-29 in their first fifty games.  The only solace you took was that the odds of a good team like the Yankees starting that poorly again were so slim that they were barely recognizable.  But you certainly recognize it when it’s coming.  And I knew it was coming tonight and we’re not done.  The Post trumpeted Allie’s return tonight as “saving the Yankees.”  It’s not that simple.  So often guys come back, have a huge first game, maybe it’s adrenaline, whatever, and then go into a funk for two weeks.  There’s very little you can do about it.  It’s just tough to come roaring back when you haven’t played in almost a month.  So this is why those two huge injuries were going to have a two-or-so-week tail in their effect on the team.  So the good news is we’re into the tail.  For Allie, at least.  Posada’s another story.

            The bad news is, as I’ve said, the team wasn’t this bad last year, even in their lowest point.  Tony Sherry said to me tonight on the phone, “I would rather have the worst record we had last year than a .500 record with this team.”  He’s got a point.  I don’t find myself exactly disagreeing with him.  This team is third-to-last in the American League in runs scored, and 26th out of 30 in the entire major leagues, which is just staggering.  It will be Wednesday when I finish writing this, and the Yankees have scored more than two runs in a game exactly once in the last 11 days.  I’m not sure everybody is getting the comedy of that.  In 11 days, the Yankees have scored more than two runs in just one game.  That’s two weeks ago this Saturday.  You wonder how these other teams do it.  It’s the hardest thing in the whole world.  Moises Alou hit a two-run single on Sunday by accident, trying to check his swing.  That’s nine innings of work for the Yankees.  And how is it that the Yankees go 0-16 with runners in scoring position in two games against the Mets, but somehow manage to hit four home runs?  You have to laugh?  Right?  It’s either that or put your fist through a wall.   

            I was actually considering not even checking the final score before I started tapping out the BPS.  The only info I had was Acc’s text, which said, “Shut it off now.”  I texted him back when I was done with dinner.  “I never even turned it on.”  Then he sent another one: “Don’t turn it on, dude.  Promise me.”  Which was fine by me.  Why subject myself to unnecessary carnage?  I would rather watch the American Idol and Dancing with the Stars finales blissfully unaware of whatever horrible things had happened and were yet to come.  Then I got a text from Tony Sherry.  “Who let up the 9 runs?”  So much for that plan….

            So here’s what I’m saying.  David Archuleta has a great voice and can sing like a nightingale, but he’s not a star.  He’s a tiny, whiny, weepy wuss.  I’m tired of watching him cry.  David Cook has an interesting sound.  So I’m looking for a David Cook win.  Jason Taylor is a more endearing character than Kristi Yamaguchi.  He had absolutely no dance training and did well, considering.  Kristi Yamaguchi was a figure skating champ, which is one thin skate blade away from being a dancer anyway.  But she won.  So congrats, Kristi Yamaguchi.

            Yup.  This is what it’s come to.  Sad.  I wonder if Kristi Yamaguchi can play catcher….