Sorry everybody, I just can’t do this anymore. For the rest of this colossally disappointing season, I’ll be watching from afar. The games…they just hurt too much. It’s like my nuts are in a vice and every night they turn the handle to make it tighter. Every loss, every lifeless offensive performance, every poor pitching effort; tighter. Even in victory, it is a painful reminder of what coulda been if not for the injury gods wreaking havoc. Tighter again. I have to get out before I’m speaking soprano – and I don’t mean like an uneducated New Jersey gangster.
Usually when times get tough, I can count on Rem-Dawg and DO to lighten things up with a silly fit of laughter at the expense of a fan, or a half-inning discussion of their bobble-heads and Remy’s new line of polyester pants. Now it’s like they’re laughing at me. The radio is worse, the sheer disappointment in Joe and Jerry’s voices every time an Ortiz fly ball stays in the yard, or a potential big inning is killed by the double play. It sucks. I know the Yankees are going to win the division, and the wild card team is coming from the Central this year.
Starting a few weeks too early this year, I go into full anti-Yankee mode. Sure they’re in the post-season, but so are a few other teams. And those are the teams I’m pulling for. Doesn’t matter what they’ve done to us in the past, once they start playing the Yankees, those teams are my teams. If they somehow fail, I look to the National League. Pedro and the Mets? Grady’s boys? Love ’em. Whoever takes the Yankees down this post-season is my team. If it turns out to be the Dodgers, maybe Red and I will get a little free publicity.
