Pleasure and pain...but mostly pain.

Last night was what should have been a happy occasion for me. My first game of the year in Yankee Stadium: the 72nd to last game in the history of the House that Ruth Built. We had seats in the bleachers, which is cool...but do you know they don't serve beer in the bleachers? Yeah, we didn't either...and it was cold, but I knew about this, and even though I had planned on sweet inebriation helping to pad my three layers, I pressed on. I didn't get to my seat until the middle of the first and the Yanks were already down 2-0. It got chilly. I ate a hot dog. That wasn't the source of the pain.
No, the source of the pain was the next two dingers I witnessed Hughes giving up - balls that traveled so far they should have had a meal served on them. 6 earned runs in 3.2 innings bringing this year's ERA up to 9. He got booed, embarassingly booed, by the 40,000 some odd strong crowd at Yankee Stadium - can a kid recover from that? He's 21, and thank God he's old enough to buy booze because maybe he can kill that selected memory as soon as he got home from the ballpark, providing he escaped the angry mobs.
But the pain didn't subside...because this was the Yankee's all scrubs team, that's right, after Giambi in the batting order, who is technically the highest paid scrub in the league, we saw the likes of Shelly Duncan, Morgan Ensberg, Robinson Cano (who is vastly underachieving), and Chris Stewart (triple-A callup). Even Cano's two run shot was a source of pain, as it was quickly erased the next inning by two home runs over the course of three batters, courtesy of Curtis Granderson and Gary Sheffield.
The Stanks then proceeded to leave 13 men on base, taking extreme care to only get hits with two out and nobody on, walking the bases full, and then choking in the clutch. I did the only humane thing I could - I left.
The Yanks posted a moderate attempt at a comeback...though when you drive in a run because you got hit by a pitch with the bases loaded, you are reaching - very far - to call it an attempt at a comeback.
It was a pretty severe beating, but not with a terrible score, but by the time I left in the eighth inning, balls and strikes weren't even registering. All I could feel was the cold, another hot dog in my stomach, and the sense that this is going to be a long season. Who would we replace Hughes with...Igawa? Karstens? If they want some Wily 50 year old Lefties, my dad's warming up out in the backyard. He's got a wicked curveball and a shuto that'll make your knees buckle...granted, this is all with wiffle ball, but without the performance enhancers...that's gotta be worth something in these troubling times, right?

-Jobimoto out.
"Is it possible to leave 27 men on base?"