Forty and Counting

I may have turned thirty this year, but my Yankees have advanced to the World Series for the first time since 2003...around here that's a drought, but try telling the Cubbies that.

Corrie and I spent the weekend out in Beacon at Cousin Josh's (I showed them how to set tile...more on that later), and they were gracious to let me watch Game 6 against the Angels on their large television. I thought it was pretty nice of them since they don't care for baseball, and Elizabeth, being from Massachusetts, has a special dislike of the Yankees (and Jeter specifically, which isn't rare among Yankee haters out there).

It didn't help that sporadically I was screaming and cursing at the screen as Corrie tried to calm me and get my blood-pressure back to safe levels. I posted here a while back about watching the screen at MLB.com and itchily awaiting the colored circles to show up...I was notified by my good friend Ryan about specific websites that stream games like that for free. I found one and settled in last Thursday at my lappy screen to watch Game 5 on a live stream for ex-pats living in France.

I was a few minutes late and missed the Yankees starting pitcher give up four runs in his first thirteen pitches. He settled in, and I came and went from watching the game, getting aggravated that the Angels kept being successful throwing so much off-speed cheese (I swear I've never seen so many off-speed pitches in a series before). One time I came back and the Yankees had scored six runs in an inning, and were a few outs from advancing to the World Series. Burnett, the starter for the Yanks, came out when he shouldn't have, gave up a hit and a walk, then they brought in Damaso Marte, and I almost had a heart attack...the papers here love this lefty Marte, but in all the times I've seen him pitch in bars during this season, I don't think I've ever seen him get a single person out. Of course he gives up a run, and they bring in the struggling youngster Hughes, who coughs up the lead, and the game, and they had to travel back to the Bronx for last night's game, while I was ready to drink a bottle of whiskey, which probably wouldn't have helped my blood-pressure.

So I watched last night with Corrie and Josh and Elizabeth, who thanked me for being cool with there constant stream of trash talking, bad-Yankee-voodoo, and joking remarks. In between hilarious comments I tried to enlighten them on the strategy, the rules, the way to effectively pitch to certain batters, what happens when there's an error (Kazmir tossing it away? Yikes, these guys just couldn't get out of their own way)...I don't think they're fans now, but it was fun to watch with people you care about. Even Corrie got to give some lessons on things, having learned from the lessons I gave her.

But, the "Forty" in the title of this post alludes to this being the fortieth pennant for the Yankees--their fortieth trip to the World Series, more than twice as many as the next team, the Dodgers, who have eighteen World Series appearances.