Rain, rain, stay away, at least on baseball days

Ever since I was a small child, rain has been an enemy.

Why? Because rain meant no baseball.

Through my youth, there was probably nothing I loved more than baseball. I loved watching it. I loved practicing it. I loved playing it. I loved being around it. I used to look forward to my brother's practices and games, just so I could be at the field.

But rain (well, rain or cold, growing up in the Northeast and all) was the one thing that could take it away. If I was home, and the forecast was for rain, I'd hope that it was only raining where I lived, and not the town where we played our games, about seven miles away. I actually think that delusion bore fruit at least once or twice.

Now that I'm older, baseball has fallen down a little on the list. For one thing, I'm married, which is obviously on top, and I realize that rain is a necessary part of life, especially when I see stories about the epic drought in California. (Ironically, even during the massive drought, the Angels had their first home rainout in 20 years in July ... because baseball is like that.)

So rain is a thing that has to happen sometimes.

Just not on baseball days.

* * * * *

Last night, I was ending a boycott.

I had vowed that I would never attend Lowell Spinners game. Why? Because the Red Sox single-A team had something called the Yankees Elimination Project, where they bought uniforms for local youth baseball leagues that dropped teams with the name Yankees and replaced them with Spinners.

Yes, the rivalry is the rivalry and there's a lot of stuff on both sides that's largely in good fun, but this actually made me angry. As a Yankees fan who has lived in Massachusetts since 2003, most of what I've seen has been relatively harmless, but there is that group who believes any association with the Yankees means there's literally something wrong with you.

The Yankees Elimination Project, in my mind, was teaching kids that the Yankees were so bad, they literally had to be cast out. So, I decided I would never go to one of their games.

It wasn't that much of a problem, though. I had the Cape Cod League. Pawtucket was only an hour away. I should have gone to more Brockton Rox games. 

I even made a few trips to Fenway. (While I obviously dislike the Red Sox, baseball games are baseball games, and if their games or their affiliates' games are what's around, I'll go, except for Lowell.)

I've even been able to hit Yankee Stadium for the thrill of seeing Stephen Drew play instead of that no-good Jeter guy.

Then I moved, and guess which team is the closest to where I live now?

Yup, the Lowell Spinners.

Fortunately, the problem was solved with an email ... the one that I believe actually came from the owner of the team, answering my query about the Yankees Elimination Project by letting me know they stopped the program a few years ago. If memory serves, interest had dropped off, and I think he was actually a bit sad about it.

So I could go to see the Spinners in good conscience, and once my work set up a night at the ballpark for last night, off to LeLacheur Park we went.

Even better, last night's opponent was the Staten Island Yankees.

* * * * *

My wife had noticed the raindrops first. We had just finished eating in the Home Plate BBQ when the sprinkles first fell.

The sprinkles quickly turned into a downpour that didn't stop for about a half-hour. We went inside and talked to a couple of my co-workers, but mostly I fumed, and not quietly. The delayed start was obvious, but we decided to check out the scene when we saw the tarp was off the infield.

It was not promising. The crew appeared to be five or six guys with squeegees and another with what looked like a leaf-blower, and it was all they could do to clear the standing water off the grass in shallow left field. It was no fault of the crew; it's not like the Lowell Spinners have the resources available to the Red Sox.

However, the longer it took, the more likely it was that there would be no baseball, even though the rain had stopped, and that became clear once the crew stopped out in left field. The game probably would have been called off sooner, but they had a bit of business to do first.

There was a WORLD RECORD at LeLacheur Park tonight. #BumpOutCancer http://t.co/SXuSSF9DMk pic.twitter.com/dv3yaPqNYE

— Lowell Spinners (@LowellSpinners) August 22, 2015

The world record was for the most people fist-bumping at one time, trying to "bump out cancer" in honor of Liam Fitzgerald, known for doing fist bumps with the Boston Bruins. My wife and I made our contributions, although the woman next to me, realizing I was wearing a Yankees hat, wondered if it would count if she "accidentally" punched me in the nose. I think she was kidding, and she accepted it when I said my fist-bump counted as much as anyone else's.

As soon as it ended, the announcement came that the game was called off. I was so ticked, I didn't even stay an hour for fireworks, and I never pass up a chance for fireworks.

Our tickets are good for any home game the rest of the season. I hope we go.

By the way ... today's weather? Perfect.

Of course.

Today in silly A-Rod arguments

Jon Paul Morosi writes that Alex Rodriguez shouldn't be in this year's All-Star Game, even though he's worthy.

It's not that he doesn't have the numbers, because he does, and Morosi points out that the numbers should be the thing.

It's not even the PEDs, as he notes that his fellow Biogenesis list members Nelson Cruz and Jhonny Peralta were elected starters, by the fans -- many of whom I'm sure would throw A-Rod out of the game if they could -- this year. (That whirring noise you hear in the background? That's the selective outrage machine. Don't worry; you get used to it after a while.)

No, in addition to the fact that no one elected him to the game -- which I'm sure had nothing to do with the selective outrage -- the problem is that he'll be (cue drama-sting music here) ... a distraction.

"If A-Rod had been named to the All-Star team, he'd dominate much of the pregame discussion in Cincinnati. Would the debate draw greater attention to this year's Midsummer Classic? Perhaps. But it would drain plenty of oxygen from what people who love the game should be discussing: the tremendous influx of young talent to the sport.

The All-Star Game has a complicated identity: It determines home-field advantage for the World Series, yet its heritage is as a summertime exhibition for fans. It's supposed to celebrate the greatest players in the game, while also leaving room on rosters to honor breakout stars of the first half. In some years, the Midsummer Classic does an admirable job of satisfying its many constituencies. In other years, it doesn't.

But in 2015, with a new commissioner and evolving sports preferences in the U.S., it is paramount that MLB leverage its All-Star Game into a stage for Mike Trout and Bryce Harper, Kris Bryant and Joc Pederson, Manny Machado and Nolan Arenado. We need to learn more about their stories. By now, we're familiar enough with the tale of Alexander Emmanuel Rodriguez." 

If Alex Rodriguez was selected to the All-Star Game, he would be a story, and oh by the way, he should be. After all, he missed an entire year because of a suspension to come back and play any better than anyone expected. And so far, he has managed to do it without (so far) doing anything dumb.

But "dominate much of the pregame discussion," to the point where Trout, Harper, Bryant and the other great young stars of baseball would be overshadowed? Now who would be responsible for that if it happens?

Between Monday and Tuesday, the whole of the baseball media is going to decamp in Cincinnati. Surely MLB Network will have wall-to-wall coverage, and I'm guessing the various Fox Sports networks will give the game quite a bit of airtime, since their network is covering it. ESPN will probably also make an appearance.

And while they're there, they can literally cover anything they want. They can devote hours to Brock Holt if they want to. They can spend as much time as they like on the guy who's banned from the game for life but is still being allowed to participate in the festivities in spite of recent reports that he bet on baseball while he was still playing. (And Alex Rodriguez is a distraction?)

As for the game itself, A-Rod is a DH. He wouldn't be in the field and likely wouldn't get more than a couple at-bats, so the only time anyone would have to talk about him is when he hits. Sure, he could do something huge with his at-bats and be chosen MVP, except that wouldn't happen even if he hit grand slams every time.

In other words, Alex Rodriguez would be as much of a distraction as Morosi and his fellow media members let him be.

Calling BS on a Tom Brady story

In case you weren't aware, when a person becomes rich and famous, he or she frequently moves to more-spacious housing, it's harder to go out in public and easy to become isolated. 

If any of that was a surprise, allow me to share this from today's Boston Globe about Tom Brady, which has the undeserved honor of sharing Page A1 space with a wonderful piece by Kevin Cullen (although there's not really any other kind) about the Boston Marathon bombing. In addition to the above, you'll learn that a supermodel wife is one of the "trappings of fame" like endorsement deals or large houses.

Because, you know, it's not like Gisele Bundchen is a person or anything. She doesn't even talk that much! (Of course, when she does, people in Boston hate her for it.)

As usual, sports was the first section I dove into this morning -- although I read the Cullen piece when I saw it was at the top of A1 -- while I was watching soccer and eating pancakes in the living room. My wife, who usually reads the rest of the paper in the time it takes me to read sports because I spend a lot of time with the sports section, read out loud for me from the dining room.

"... after all these years we’re no closer to knowing Tom Brady.
Boston is partially to blame. People here treat sports like a religion and Brady like a deity. Fans, and some in the media, get on bended knee when the handsome face of the NFL appears in front of a camera."

Fair enough.

"They fiercely defend the QB to critics who say he should have cooperated more during the Deflategate investigation."

Indeed.

"They even bite their tongues when No. 12 dons a dreaded Yankees cap."

"Bull ... s--t," I replied through a mouthful of pancakes. "Bull ... f---ing ... s--t."

I know this will seem crazy for any readers I have outside of Boston, but Tom Brady wearing a New York Yankees hat was once actually a thing people cared about.



And it wasn't just the local media. Around that time, my wife and I were house-hunting, and I got into a discussion about it with the real estate agent who was showing us around. I said it shouldn't be a big deal what baseball team Tom Brady likes in his spare time, but she disagreed, punctuating her argument by proclaiming that the quarterback of the New England Patriots wearing a Yankees hat would be like an American wearing an "I love Iraq" T-shirt.

I don't remember if I came up with the retort that the "bombs" referred to in "Bronx Bombers" were a different type right then or afterwards, but I figured I'd better not push it too far.

After all, she was our ride. (We wound up not buying a house with her, but that was because life circumstances changed and we didn't buy one until quite some time later, and in a different town. Other than her unfortunate views on the Patriots and patriotism, she was actually very nice.)

P.S. -- Regarding Deflategate itself, since I don't like the Patriots, of course I think that not only were they deflating footballs, Brady absolutely knew about it and perhaps even ordered it.

If I'm right, he might want to perhaps rethink the possibility of federal court should his appeal not work out. It might be tough if the information he wouldn't give the league was requested under subpoena or he was asked to tell all he knew under penalty of perjury.

Alex Rodriguez "meets the press"

The scene -- New York Yankees spring training in Tampa, Florida.

The event -- Alex Rodriguez, back from a 162-game suspension, addresses the media.

"Thank you all for coming today.

I would like to start by saying that it's great to be back. I have always loved baseball, but a year away from the game has caused me to realized I love it even more than I thought, and I hope to earn my spot in the Yankees' lineup and help the team win another World Series.

That being said, I understand that I've made a lot of mistakes, the biggest being using performance-enhancing drugs. All I can say about that is that I'm sorry, and my time away from the game caused me to realize how selfish and foolish I was.

Looking forward, all I can do is try to be a better man.

I know one issue that has come up is the bonuses I am set to receive for reaching certain home run milestones. Because I realize it would be wrong for me to accept them, I have asked the Yankees, and they have agreed, to use the money toward funding scholarship for underprivileged children in New York and Miami. Those kids deserve the money more than I do.

I also realize that as I say this, none of this matters to any of you, as you probably have your stories about me making another phony statement already written, and are just looking for quotes from me to fill it in.

I am well aware that my original sin was not using PEDs, but having the unmitigated gall to sign the contract the Texas Rangers put in front of me. I have been able to do no right in your eyes since then.

Therefore, I can admit to using PEDs twice when David Ortiz -- who was a nobody before he took them -- has never admitted them, and you fall all over yourselves about how wonderful he is while I'm scum. I also know that I've just helped you write your stories, as now I've 'ripped' my 'friend David Ortiz to take heat off' myself.

Therefore, it was OK in your eyes for my own general manager to curse me out for daring to say that I'm ready to start playing again without wondering what his motivation might be.

Therefore, it was OK in your eyes for Major League Baseball to have had such a desire to come after me for Biogenesis that it would purchase stolen documents and for former Commissioner Bud Selig to never answer for how his office handled the investigation.

Therefore, it was OK in your eyes to not point out that I got a longer suspension because of everything I had done, while apparently everyone else involved in Biogenesis except for Ryan Braun must have been caught having done only one thing and for the first time in their lives.

So you know what else is OK? For you to write and say whatever you want. Because you know what else I've realized in the last year? There's nothing I can do to make you happy except retire immediately and never be seen again.

I'm sure you guys have a lot of questions, but too bad. I'm out of here. Go talk to Ortiz instead."




    

A very minor Derek Jeter memory

Several years ago, my wife, in-laws and I went on a tour of the old Yankee Stadium as part of some package where you saw the stadium, took a bus tour around the Bronx and ate lunch at some terrific Italian restaurant the name of which I do not remember.

Needless to say, my main interest was in the stadium tour, although the bus tour was surprisingly interesting, and I already mentioned the great lunch. Unlike a tour I later took in Phoenix where the perhaps-teenage tour guide pronounced Robin Yount's last name "Yunt," our guide at Yankee Stadium was a longtime employee who closed the tour by showing us his World Series ring, which appeared to basically be a convenient play to store lots of diamonds.

It was during the off-season, and a pretty raw day as I recall, but we hit all the important spots, most of which are standard on a tour -- the press box, the edge of the field, the dugout, some of the behind-the-scenes hallways -- and, of course, since it was Yankee Stadium, we went out to Monument Park.

And we went into the clubhouse. With the exception of Anfield, it was like any stadium or arena tour I've taken since, where you can see the clubhouse or locker room, but don't go much past the inside of the door and stand behind a rope. Our guide pointed out all the lockers we'd be interested in, including Thurman Munson's unused locker, and then pointed out Derek Jeter's.

If I remember correctly, it was on our left, in the middle of the group of lockers on that side of the room. Our guide informed us that until September call-ups required its use, the locker next to Jeter's was left vacant in order to hold his fan mail. One of our fellow tour-goers asked if Jeter answered all his fan mail, and our guide's answer is etched into my memory.

"It is a physical impossibility."

Yankees legends ... then and now

Pretty much the first thing you see when you get to Yankee Stadium.

You can't be a Yankees fan, or even be aware of the team, for more than about five minutes without being exposed to the history.

A major reason for that, of course, is that there's so much of it between the World Series wins and the number of great players who have worn the pinstripes, but a lot of it is that the team itself puts so much emphasis on its history.

From Babe Ruth Plaza outside the stadium, to Monument Park, to the retired numbers to the fact that Joe Girardi wears No. 28 because that will be the number of the team's next World Series win, the Yankees want you to know this is not a baseball team, but an institution.

Only one single-digit number left, and that'll be gone soon.

My wife and I went to Yankee Stadium yesterday, which coincided with Joe Torre's No. 6 being retired and him getting a monument in Monument Park. Between seeing players like David Cone, Paul O'Neill, Bernie Williams, Hideki Matsui, Jorge Posada, Tino Martinez and Andy Pettitte and the video highlights of Torre's years with the Yankees, the ceremony was a reminder that those teams from 1996 to 2007 were really something special.

And yet my wife constantly accuses me of hating Joe Torre. She has a point ... kind of.

No doubt, I have my issues with how Torre managed the team his last few years because I think his calm nature, which was such a positive attribute for years, became laxity. It angers me greatly that he didn't have the Yankees bunt on a one-legged Curt Schilling in the 2004 ALCS, or that he didn't come out of the dugout and do ... something ... when the bugs were eating Joba Chamberlain alive in Cleveland.

And I will never understand why a man who had Bob Gibson as a teammate let pitchers, particularly Red Sox pitchers, hit Derek Jeter over and over with no hint of retaliation.

But with all that being said, Torre was a great manager for the Yankees, their most-successful manager of my lifetime. He's more than worthy of both the Hall of Fame and his place in Monument Park, and I enjoyed seeing him receive the latter.

It's hard to see him, but the passenger in the front of the cart is only one of the handful of greatest catchers ever.

On most other teams, Yogi Berra, who rode in the golf cart with Torre and his family from Monument Park, would probably be the first or second guy you thought of if asked the greatest player in the team's history. With the Yankees, you'd probably think of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle before you thought of Berra, even though Berra is probably one of the three to five greatest catchers who ever played the game. (If you want to say Johnny Bench was the best, who else would you say before Berra? If you have any names, you probably don't have many.)

His biographer Allen Barra goes one further, writing in his book "Brushbacks and Knockdowns" (which I recently reread) that Berra was the most valuable team player in any sport of the 20th century, based on his own success as a player, his team's success and the number of pitchers who had their best (and sometimes only good) years pitching to Berra.

And oh yeah, he was part of the D-Day invasion, so not only is he one of the last surviving links to great Yankee teams of decades past, he's one of a dwindling number of surviving World War II veterans.

Simply put, Yogi Berra is a national treasure. Hopefully, he'll be around for quite a few more years to come.

An all-time great, and I saw him from the start.

Derek Jeter didn't play yesterday, since it was a day game after a night game. All the fans saw of him was him escorting Don Zimmer's wife to her seat for Torre's ceremony.

When I stop long enough to strip away all the debates about how good a fielder he was, the fawning articles about his Jeter-ness or the mocking of same, I realize that for the past 19 years, I've watched the career of someone who's going to be remembered as one of the all-time greats of the game. He's not at the very top of the list with Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron or that class, but he's in that next group or two below.

Once he retires at the end of this season, he's going to be sixth all-time in hits, behind five guys named Pete Rose, Ty Cobb, Hank Aaron, Stan Musial and Tris Speaker. That's pretty decent company.

While there have been better players than Jeter both throughout the history of baseball and over the course of his career -- the thing that has made him so great is that he was somewhere between very good and outstanding for a long time -- I'm not sure we'll see a star like Jeter for years to come. 

His career has been a perfect confluence of factors: the greatness on the field, all the postseason success, his being in New York his whole career, the good looks, the lack of controversy ... and that's going to be hard to replicate. Mike Trout, who is both a phenomenal player and has "All-American boy" written all over him, is probably closest, but he needs to get himself to October.

For Yankees fans, he is the final person still playing who gave those Torre teams (plus the 2009 team) their identity. Those were the teams of Jeter, Pettitte, Williams, Posada, O'Neill, Cone, Martinez, Matsui and Mariano Rivera, and once Jeter is gone, none of them will be left.

On the field, the Yankees, with Stephen Drew at shortstop, beat the White Sox 5-3. Yet I wonder who will provide the identity of the next great Yankee team, when and if that happens.  

Where the Yankees got it all wrong

I see a lot of #firecashman these days on Twitter when I'm watching a Yankees game. It is frustrating these days, with the Yankees bumping along at 29-28, five games out of first place and looking like the very symbol of mediocrity or worse, with a run differential of minus-26.

Yes, Derek Jeter's swan song could be a pretty miserable year, so wanting to get rid of general manager Brian Cashman is an unsurprising way to lash out. After all, he did such horrible things in the offseason like disrespecting Robinson Cano by only offering seven years and $175 million.

If that was Cashman's only terrible move, it would be one thing ... but no, he had to make it worse by signing Jacoby Ellsbury (.298/.355/.426, nine home runs, 53 RBI, 52 steals) and Carlos Beltran (.296/.339/.491, 24 home runs, 84 RBI) to replace Vernon Wells (.233/.282/.349, 11 homers, 50 RBI), Ichiro (although he's still around as a part-time player -- .262/.297/.342, seven homers, 35 RBI) and Curtis Granderson (.229/.317/.407, seven homers, 15 RBI in 61 games. In 56 games with the Mets this year, his numbers are .212/.323/.354 with six homers and 27 RBI).

So Cashman clearly screwed up the outfield by getting two good players to replace three not-so-good ones. Then he had to turn around and sign Brian McCann (.256/.336/.461, 20 homers, 57 RBI) to catch instead of, among others, Chris Stewart (.211/.293/.272, four homers, 25 RBI). Yes, yes, I know they should have never let Russell Martin (.226/.327/.377, 15 homers, 55 RBI with Pittsburgh) go, since he was obviously Thurman Munson reincarnated.

And he had the nerve to think that a healthier Derek Jeter, even approaching 40, would be better than ... who played shortstop for the Yankees last year when Jeter was out? Who didn't? I personally enjoy all the love for Brendan Ryan, who's a wonderful fielder but for his career would be a good-hitting National League pitcher (.238/.299/.320).

Remember the Lyle Overbay Experience ... the .242/.295/393 with 14 home runs and 59 RBI? For a guy signed off the street in spring training, he actually didn't do too badly, but Cashman had the nerve to let him go in favor of a theoretically healthy Mark Teixeira.

(By the way, I got all my numbers from here if you want to look yourself.)

I know I'm no general manager, but by the looks of it, on paper the Yankees improved in left field (since Ellsbury allowed Brett Gardner to move to left), right field, first base, catcher, shortstop and designated hitter (either Alfonso Soriano or Soriano and Ichiro in a platoon instead of the fossilized remains of Travis Hafner or whatever other player was getting a partial day off).

Second base was a loss, a big loss, and I don't know how to judge third base.

But Cashman needs to be fired because:

• Ellsbury, McCann and Beltran haven't been that good, and Beltran has gotten hurt.
• Teixeira and Jeter clearly aren't all the way back, and Teixeira has been hurt.
• Soriano has been Soriano, which means he may hit a bunch of home runs any day now, but there will be multiple games in a row where it's a triumph for him to make contact.
• And oh by the way, C.C. Sabathia's transition to an old pitcher is now complete.

But they're cheap! Kendrys Morales! Make trades!

Yes, a $203 million payroll is practically Houston Astros-like. Clearly, they should have used more money on another first baseman/DH who's so good that he's still unemployed today (although, to be fair, the draft pick attached has a lot to do with that). And they can trade for more stars with their ... virtually non-existent farm system.

I can't stress the last point enough, and if you want to rip Cashman and the Yankees' front office for this, go ahead; I'll be right there with you. What player in the Yankees minor-league system is ready to be an everyday, contributing player in the major leagues right now? In 2015? In 2016? Whenever Gary Sanchez finally arrives? (I swear, for a catcher who's only 21, it seems like I've been hearing about Sanchez for about 10 years.)

Or would you rather trade Dellin Betances, who actually is homegrown (Congratulations Yankees, you got one!) and has been a revelation out of the bullpen?

Let me put it to you this way. It looks like the Red Sox have lost all faith in Will Middlebrooks, and he's likely to go down in history as the guy who got his girlfriend canned from her TV job. He's 25 years old, and if for some reason he wound up in New York (slim and no chance), he'd be the best young player in their organization right now.

So aside from presiding over a terrible farm system, Cashman's biggest mistake is that the players he signed, who were good players just last year, haven't worked out.

By all means, fire him for that.

Baseball means spring ... except in the Northeast

When the phone rang, I knew it was my brother, and I knew why he was calling.

It was the morning of May 18, 2002, and my brother was going to rendezvous with me, my then-fiancee (now my wife) and her parents outside Albany, NY, for a trip to Yankee Stadium for that afternoon's game between the Yankees and Twins.

The weather, however, was nasty, and my brother was calling to ask if we were still planning to go. When I told him we were, he replied, "You do know it's snowing here, right?"

While we were just getting rain, my brother, who lived at a higher elevation about 40 minutes away, was indeed getting snow. I reassured him, however, that not only were we going, but that the rain was projected to stop by about 10:30, plenty of time before the game was supposed to start.

I'm not sure how much he believed me, but he came down to meet us, and the five of us piled into the car and headed to New York.

* * * * *

The arrival of baseball season, starting with images of spring training from Florida and Arizona, means spring is on the way.

It just seems like the Northeast is the last place it arrives.

Seeing snow on the ground this morning at my home outside Boston, since it's both March 31 and the more-or-less opening day of the baseball season (minus the Australia games, last night's ESPN opener and the teams who don't start until tomorrow), put me in a mood. I may have referred to where I live as a "frozen hellhole" at one point.

One of the guys who works for me may have been a little surprised, since he knows I grew up in upstate New York. The conversation brought back memories of my high school baseball days, when sometimes we practiced in weather so cold that I couldn't make my hands work well enough to zip up my pants afterward, so I wore my practice gear home.

The game schedule was more or less a wish list, since a lot of them were going to be called off, and getting anything done required a lot of practice indoors. My high school coach had all sorts of creative ideas for things we could do in the gym, complete with several soft baseballs he had acquired for that purpose.

One of those drills was going to be him pitching from one corner of the gym to a batter positioned near the batting net alongside the divider that split the gym in two, where the softball team was probably trying to get some work in of their own. Imagining balls flying around the gym and scattering other players doing their drills, I wasn't quite sure how it would work, but I never got a chance to find out.

You see, I was going to be the first batter in the drill, but while the coach was warming up, one of my return throws slipped out of my batting glove and short-hopped him in the last place any man wants to be short-hopped.

End of drill.

* * * * *

It was cold, but fortunately for us, dry.

When my boy Poopsie turned 30 a few years ago, we celebrated his birthday at Fenway Park. The game the between the Red Sox and Rays the night before had been suspended, and the weather the next night wasn't much better. The good news was that one of Poopsie's friends had connections that let us get tickets right behind home plate, under cover.

So while it was a chilly night, we were at least dry to see the end of the game from the night before, plus the regularly scheduled game. I tried to be clever by wearing my Durham Bulls hat, but since one of the guys in our group used to live in Durham, he realized what I was going for, since the Bulls are Tampa Bay's top farm team.

Since the MBTA only just started realizing people stay out late on the weekends, those of us who took the train had to leave early, but between the two games, we got to see about nine innings of baseball.

However, I'm hoping that the next time Poopsie and I hit a game, it'll be in Philadelphia, where he lives now, and that it won't be freezing.

* * * * *

The weather forecasts I had seen were correct, and the rain pretty much stopped at about 10:30, as we were approaching New York. 

We got there early, so we found a bar near the stadium where we could get lunch and watch Jason Giambi's walk-off grand slam from the night before. We all knew what was coming. We all cheered, anyway.

It didn't rain anymore, but it was cold ... as in wear-your-winter-jacket cold. The cold would have been bad enough, but the wind was also blowing hard from left field to right ... and we were in the right field box seats.

Did I mention that this wasn't March 18, not April 18 ... but May 18?

At least the Yankees won, but ever since then, I've been loathe to go to any games at Yankee Stadium early in the season. If I'm going to freeze my tail off at a ballgame, I can do it a lot closer to home.