It ain’t over ‘til it’s over

If I haven’t copped to it explicitly before, let me do it right now: I’m mockably co-dependent about the New York Yankees. I’m happy when they win, and I’m miserable when they lose. (I enjoy using Hootie and the Blowfish as a punchline as much as the next hipster, but I’ve always nodded understandingly at the part in “Only Wanna Be With You” where Darius Rucker sings “I’m such a baby, girl, the Dolphins make me cry.” I hear ya, Hootie.) I get hackles-raisingly defensive when people talk about the Yanks buying championships. I’m emotionally over-invested in them in a way that makes absolutely no rational sense, but it adds something to my life that I would miss if it were gone, so I leave it at that.

So of course I watched Game 1 of the World Series on Wednesday night; in fact; I watched the pre-game coverage and the opening ceremonies. I wanted to blog about the opening ceremonies, I really did. They announced the Yankees starting line-up to the accompaniment of the soundtrack to Star Wars – COME ON. The fact that it was specifically the music from the medal ceremony at the end of New Hope is laden with enough subtext for one of my longer posts in and of itself. Also, Yogi Berra was there, and if the mere sight of that goofball does not make you happy I question both your patriotism and the state of your soul. I have long wondered if the superlative mascot of Major League Baseball is the Phillies Phanatic or the San Diego Chicken but I’m beginning to think that the older and more adorable Yogi gets, the more he deserves the honorific.


However, the debacle (for Yankees fans) that unfolded in Game 1 itself pretty much killed any desire to post about the World Series. I wasn’t quite despairing enough to believe that my hopes for a championship had been utterly dashed, but I was one playoff game’s worth of bummed and didn’t want to talk about it.

My mood has undergone a qualified improvement as of last night. It’s official: I’m done ragging on A.J. Burnett for a while. He was sharp as hell, and more importantly as sharp as the Yankees needed him to be, last night. The lone early run he gave up wasn’t technically unearned, but it didn’t really seem like his fault, since Ibanez scored from second after he got there on a ground-rule double that kissed the foul line on its way into the stands. I was frankly terrified when Girardi left Burnett in for the seventh inning, because pitching too long has been his undoing before, but he came through all right. Tex’s homerun was awesome (even if my wife made fun of me by doing the touchdown gesture because, you know, she reads the blog) and Matsui’s was even better. Rivera was Rivera. All good things.

A-Rod is now 0-for-8 in the World Series, though, and that’s troubling. From here on out, one of three things is going to happen. One, A-Rod will snap out of it and start contributing offensively in Mr. October-style ways as the Yankees win the World Series. Two, he won’t, but the rest of Murderer’s Row will cover for him and the Yankees will win the World Series anyway. I can live with either of those outcomes. The third possibility is that A-Rod won’t step up and the Yankees will go down with him and the story of the Phillies repeat will be overshadowed by the continuation of the A-Fraud saga. (Note there is no fourth option where the Yankees will lose the WS while A-Rod slumps but people generally acknowledge that it’s not A-Rod’s fault. This will never happen. Even if A-Rod only ever strikes out with the bases empty and less than two outs, he will take all the blame. Even if he hits several homeruns but the Yankees lose close games, which seems improbable, I still think he'll take heat for it somehow.) And like a true Yankees diehard I will be crushed to come so close and miss, but I think I might actually feel worse for Alex. So here’s hoping the Bronx Bombers all come back to life and take two out of three in Philly.