RANGERS HATS AT THE HOCKEY GAME TONIGHT

WE ARE IN MICHIGAN.

ANY YANKEES HATS?

DON'T BE SILLY!*

*IT IS INTERNATIONAL CAP LOCK DAY TODAY. WHERE YOU BEEN?

Matsui: 6, Yankees: 1, Phillies: 1

Of course, by default the Yankees would still win if the game ended now as Matsui is on a team so the Yankees just claim his runs.

Team game, you know.

(Godzilla only has 11 career triples. Forget the cycle, Buck.)

Coke, you are a lefty, ok?

If you are a lefty pitcher and you can't get lefties out (or even prevent them from hitting it 440 feet), what is your raison d'etre?

You know, Computer Boy watches that Gordon Ramsey show "Hell's Kitchen" which for the uninitiated involves a bunch of cooks/chefs competing weekly on cooking tasks with the ultimate winner getting to be an executive chef at a prestigious Ramsey restaurant. I was watching an episode with him about a year ago when a contestant, and presumably a somewhat experienced cook/chef stumbled badly in cooking some steaks (I think it was that) and then afterwards complained bitterly that she had never "cooked meat" before. WTF?

Same thing going on with Coke.

"American League hitters are unfamiliar with Cliff Lee"

From the mouth of Tim McCarver (8:35 pm).

I just walked in and frankly that is the first thing I heard from him today so perhaps he previously put this into a context that would make sense though I do not know what that could possibly be.

Of course, Cliff Lee pitched 7 1/2 years in the American League and 182 of his 194 games were pitched in the American League.

He's gonna have to give those American League guys some credit as I don't think they forgot all about Cliff Lee after he was traded out of their league a few months back.

If they are truly brain dead, all Girardi has to do is jog their collective memories and tell them that this is the same Cliff Lee that they used to face in Cleveland. Same guy, different uniform. That's what managers are for.

Oy.

When was the last time....

.....a pitcher had an utterly disastrous regular season and was put on the playoff roster and then completely turned it around in the postseason?

Yea, I am still thinking too.

Egregious error number two!

Everett has a strike zone that includes a couple of different zip codes and he now awards a run to a baserunner who does not touch home plate on a play he witnessed from 5 feet away.

Hopefully, we are not interrupting any meditational exercise or anything.

Can the umpires rotate around the diamond every batter like the players do in volleyball? When we get a semi-competent one, they can stop and we will take our chances with that one.

Can we also institute a licensing procedure? And none of those multiple choice tests like at the DMV.

15 minutes in and we have an umpiring issue!

There is no way Blanton is throwing at A-Rod but four umpires huddle and in their "defective" wisdom decide to warn both benches which then presumably puts Sabathia in the position of being ejected if he makes the same mistake!*

Can't major league baseball provoke them into quitting in mass like they did years ago?

How would you like to be a AAA umpire watching this at home?

*Did you see those Philly fans behind the plate clapping long after A-Rod got hit?

How do you miss that one?

If you are a right field umpire, you practically have the day off BUT you absolutely must make the one or two calls that come your way. Otherwise, you are the definition of "dead weight."

How do you not see that A-Rod's home run hit a camera sitting above the fence?

Not the time to be filing your nails or doing any kind of personal grooming out there.

(Since I am nice, I will not even mention that McCarver said it hit the fence after seeing it live and after one replay)

Kids will come to the door tonight......

....in various states of costumage apparently not realizing or even caring THAT THERE IS A WORLD SERIES GAME ON TONIGHT!

Oh well, anybody that knows anything about us knows that the kids essentially run things around here. I don't pretend to be in charge.

All goblins welcome here.

Happy Halloween, y'all!

Not really Pedro!

In what appeared to be a pretty lively World Series press conference, Pedro Martinez displayed some very severe delusions of grandeur by saying this regarding his alleged status as a Yankee Stadium icon:

"I don't know if you realize this, but because of you guys (the press) in some ways, I might be at times the most influential player that ever stepped in Yankee Stadium. I can honestly say that."*

My retort:

Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe Dimaggio, Mickey Mantle, Reggie Jackson, Yogi Berra, Derek Jeter, Don Mattingly, Mariano Rivera, Kevin Maas (just making sure everybody is awake out there), Phil Rizzuto, Ron Guidry, Billy Martin, Goose Gossage......

The list goes on.

When I was a young lad growing up on the mean streets of Metro Detroit suburbia, I had a hardcover illustrated book on the history of baseball. I loved the book and probably read it cover to cover hundreds of times. You still see it in libraries. I am guessing that books like this were not widely distributed in the Dominican Republic.

*Those sportswriters must have been asleep. The obvious follow up question should have been, "Well then how come you are not on even one of those thousands of Upper Deck Yankee Stadium history cards?" They blew it! They could have nailed him!

Game 1

1.Numerous empty seats behind first base, third base and behind the dugouts; well kind of everywhere close. Is this game "sold out"? These seats are always empty. Have the Yankees "sold out" a game all year? I know that the Yankees are mega-profitable but when you have all of these empty seats for a World Series game, you really need to look at your business model. Don't look so good, you know.

2.If these six umpires blew that easy double play call on Cano after conferring for all that time, major league baseball should have been prepared to do a Ronald Reagan/air traffic controllers thing.

3.Cliff Lee* should have caught that lazy pop-up behind his back. Why not? Not much different than what he did.

4.Charlie Manuel is wearing a batting glove and he is not on the playoff roster that I know of. What gives? Maybe he's got a sponsorship. Does he wear that at home? It looks pretty white. I doubt it.

*That's gotta hurt in that photo above. The left arm "ain't" doing a natural thing there. No injury though. He signed the card.