The Hangover starring Ramiro Pena

1. We are terribly sorry for our disappearance. We have been watching. We have been pumped. We just haven't been writing. There's really no excuse. We won 100+ games, clinched playoff birth, clinched the AL East and leveled the season series (that began 0-8 we might add) with Red Laundry. There. just. is. no. excuse. So, we won't offer one and we'll just say we've been overcome by happiness and we promise you, we've been watching. We're in an incredible place and we are optimistic about October. Carsten Charles Sabathia looks inhuman this season, Jeter majors in October and we just might be able to combat the inevitable "A-Rod will choke" media frenzy. Got momentum? This may just be our year again.

2. Sweeping the BoSox at home to clinch division couldn't have been spielbergly scripted better for a Yankee fan. But, the one thing we took away from this last series (besides a bubbly soaked broom) is just how much of a team this roster has become. Game 1, Joba showed up. He was rewarded by offense. Game 2, everything was clicking. Down to Brett Gardner's steal of third - not a pinstripe didn't offer up something positive, most specifically Cano and go-johnny-go. CC's new grip on the fastball looks like it has batters scratching their heads. Can he be stopped? We hope he has been fed a month in advance. Game 3? Pettitte goes hot in the 4th and Melkman, Tex, Rod and Matsui all deliver in various ways. If it's not one, its a dozen others. No one is cold and everyone's communicating. It's as collective as it can possibly be.

3. The Hangover lineup beat the Royals last night. Yes, we know. The Royals. But our reserves still played like they cared. Pena got a homer and we have secret bench weapons. We won't settle. We're still brushing up for the postseason. PS. Swisher, hair off the dog or tomato juice. It helps.

4. We've noticed a lot of Red Sox team shrugging and self-depreciating fan talk. You may not have played great, but you weren't awful. Dice K was shutting us down for quite awhile and Byrd held us off until the late innings. If anything, we were playing better than you were playing bad. This is not to say it won't be a showdown if we meet in the ALCS. We know what you can produce offensively, but our pitching especially was on point and you know it.

5. Derek Jeter, don't think you don't deserve a special shout out for passing Lou Gehrig in all time Yankee hits. You remain the most clutch, poised, classy thing on this team and there isn't a game that goes by where we don't notice another single up the middle or defensive move that has our tongues wagging. You're money, baby.

AL EAST Division Title? Don't Mind If We Do.

October Feel

In honor of the 4 game series beginning tonight in El Bronx, we have written a little play. Here's to our boys in pinstripes. Let's play like we've been playing since the break and take it straight to division. No prisioners.

Visiting Locker (Yankee Stadium)

Penny: I got some Tropiciana-couldn't strike out a ray if my life depended on it - i need to lose weight just in my face- please don't put me in - ever again- god its like Nam flashbacks- blueeeeeeeeeeees

Smoltz: Don't worry, Brad. Terry put me in. I am 2-4 with a terrible ERA. HEAR ME ROAR. Joba is half my age and just hitting his stride....I've only pitched to the Yankees like twice. Shit guys...someone pull a Tonya Harding so I can go back on the DL and live out shoulda-retired- career there.

Big Slumpi: Dude..chill out. I have something you could take...you just have to.... wait.

Smoltz: Why? DUDE HAND IT OVER, did you hear me? i might throw my back out. i am. not. good.

Big Slumpi: I am waiting to find out what I tested positive for so I don't admit to taking something no one knows about - you know "digesting the information"- if it's what I think it is, it's only one of the three I was taking anyway...

Smoltz: I don't have time for this bullshit, I'm calling Manny.

Papelbon: Doesn't really matter what you do out there, I blow saves like coke.

Sawx Bullpen: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Big Slumpi: Coke! Could that have been it? I did do a line off Manny's back and sprinkled some on a donut once to block Roids in testing. I'll just say I did coke!!!!!

Youk: How does Jeter get all those hot girls? Has anyone here touched a female?

Ellsbury: You're screwed, man. I am the only one on this team that even resembles a human.

Youk: Harsh. Victor's alright...where is he?

Martinez has wandered off into the Yankee locker rooms. He is now talking salary and trying on pinstripes.

Red Sox: WTF?!!!

Damon: Guys, he knows we resemble the 2006 Yankees and that can't be a bad thing. Enjoy your eight games. We're about to make it rain out here until the post-season. We're talking a real monsoon. Now, get out.

CC: Yo, and papi, hands off my ribs.

Guess Who's Back, Back Again

We haven't become Mets' fans, don't worry. There's just been a lot going on. Between the passing of Michael Jackson, goodbye parties and getting out of the city here and there, we've been a little preoccupied. Can't say it won't happen again but we will double down on the rest of the season. We also preferred returning as we tied up the AL East rather than on the heels of an Angels sweep. 3 games back at the AllStar break - things could have been worse. About a month ago, many of our baseball enimies said we'd be seven or eight games back at the break. Bets were proposed. We should have taken them. We could really use that money for Stadium beers. Alas, its all tie with a pie. We thrashed the Tigers, locked in four straight W's since the break and will most likely handily tackle Baltimore. Interesting that the Sox beating us eight times still hasn't done much in their quest for the Pennant. Hasn't pushed us down. If anything, it makes us wonder where we'd be if we won half those games. We wear embarrassment like Armani. We squeeze lemons into blue moon. We keep winning games. We're 18 games over .500. We haven't tasted a record like this since the final days of the 2007 season. Just the kind of fire we wanna get cooking as the Pennant race heats up. Sabathia would like a marshmellow with that. Since we not-so-subtly-missed the halfway point of the season, it's about time to give out a few token awards.

Hottest -ass-while-dishing-out-a-season-high-eight-strikeouts (nice cutter): Andy Pettitte

Clutchest Performance-despite-having-to-save-Papelbon (blech): Mo during the ALLSTAR game. Enter Sandman, exit AL victory. No sweat. Just like Obama.

Most Homers Hit While Being Distracted by Kate Hudson : take a guess.

Best-reaction-yet-to-a-pie-in-the-face: Godzilla.

Hottest BallPark during a monsoon filled Summer: New Yankee Stadium as our boys have won the last 24 out of 33 at home.

And finally....last but not least...The "Even Though His Numbers Are Slipping if you Trade Him We will Burst into Yankee Management Offices with Torches" Award: Melky 'tiene leche?' Cabrera. Seriously, higher ups. Do NOT touch him. Paws off.

The point is. We're back. We're better than ever. We're going to the game tonight (we've adopted a strict no rainout policy so bring your waterwings, O's). And its time to get down to business. Clear eyes. Full hearts. Can't lose.

It ain't over till October.

Will the Real Yankee Fans Please Stand Up?!

Its a cold and dreary Friday morning and yes, we're dejected. One nightmare and two heartbreakers later, we're 0-8 to Red Laundry. It's not pretty. Thrilled we are not. But, when the anger and styrofoam cups of beer wear off, we're also realistic. Beating the Sox is more about personal pleasure and redemption at this point than anything else. It's about proving a point. It's about backing up fiery rhetoric in 46 message e-mail chains. We're two games out of first with 102 games left. Not exactly a shoddy position to be in come mid-June. At the end of the day, we know all that matters is our respective records and who wins come the leaves of October. It might be mental with the Sox. It might be the way our line-ups match up. It might be that we've played six games in Boston and only two in New York. It could be Youkilis's little at bat dance (timed to music, its pretty amusing). Maybe its the rain falling mainly on A-Rod's plain. Hell, we do not know. With most of the eight games close, we know its within our grasp. We know we're better than what we've presented on Fenway field this week. And, as much as we want to plead with the MLB to switch our August games with games, starting say tomorrow, we know thats not how this operation works. We have to regroup and focus on winning the rest of our series's in June and July. We've got to live with the trash talk from the greater MA area until we get another shot in August. Even then, we'll have to swallow the fact that we dropped eight straight games to them and that this hasn't happened in 100 years, blah blah blah. That stuff does not matter if we show up playoff ready. Instead of ranting and raving about the Sox, we're going to take issue with an animal of a different color (because frankly red is making us sick at this point).

We want to talk about Yankee fans in NYC. Rather, fans in general in this city of ours. We watched two out of three games in bar situations. The facts are these: a lot of our present company were Sox fans. The NBA Finals were on both nights and the Stanley Cup one. We understand that we chose who we came with and that attention at bars is divided. Those other games are in the post-season. Finding Yankee fans, however, for one of the greatest rivalries in sports was like searching for a tiny unicorn. Crickets. Where are you people? A 102 fever couldn't keep us from one of the games and we had to look behind corners and barstools to find someone NOT wearing pink Sox gear or I-banker getup in Hell's Kitchen. A group of Mets fans cheered against us even though we were rooting for them against the Phillies. When we clapped for getting a Yank on base (yes it was the little things in Tuesday nights game that mattered), a guy actually informed us we were down 7 runs. Yes, we know. We've been here all night. Sorry, we didn't know that meant we were supposed to become mute. Now is when they need us more than ever. Fair weather we are not. Then, theres the people who aren't even Sox fans. No, they just hate the Yankees so they choose to root for you to fail. We get the Yankee hatred. We weren't born yesterday. We even get why. Personal reasons are personal reasons. It's still not classy to only root for a team to fail when you don't care for the other team playing. Do we want the Red Sox to win all their other games? Not exactly, but we don't travel up to Copley Square and get in fans faces when they are playing the Twins. To all the random haters: We actually do care. Our emotions are riding on the team bus so the fact that you get enjoyment out of our misery is worse than all the things you probably hate the Yankees for. The real Yankee fans in NYC need to get off their oversized couches and show a little team spirit. Regardless if we can't win a game against the Sox all season (which we will), they need to GET UP. THIS IS YOUR TEAM PEOPLE. To the Mets fans that are rooting against us, please stop. Its not helping anyone. When we play each other fine, go nuts. Otherwise, remember: the Yankees have a New York infront of it for a reason. Let's enjoy a small slice of comradery. And to the people that get in our face when we're not even playing you, our guess is that your own team could probably use all that energy you spend being hateful.

So, we're gonna end this on a positive note because we too sometimes get a little too carried away. It sucks boys. We know you wanted this. We did too. Bad. Last night, really really bad. But, its the nature of the beast. You have incredible fight in you. We have lots of heart. Now let's go get first back.

The Joke's on You

For some reason we are much funnier when the Yankees are losing. We've been envisioning a post a la Seth Meyers' "REALLY?" bit from SNL asking the Yanks what they are thinking with Berroa on the roster. I mean really. But it doesn't really matter if Berroa comes in for Lexi in the 8th when we're winning 12-3. As far as we're concerned, Berroa can play every position when we're winning by 9.

For a few years now the Yanks have been the butt of every joke imaginable. A-Roid/ A-Fraud, Torre hating on his old players, the alleged broken curse (which we agree was Red Laundry just being bad for 86 years), paying big bucks for players who don't perform, and more recently, stealing taxpayer's money to build a stadium that they didn't need. But we haven't really heard these jokes lately, have we?

Apparently the joke now, is on the rest of baseball. We don't believe in curses or superstition, and while it's only been whispered so far, the way the Yankees are playing, no one would be surprised to see them win their 27th championship. Yeah, we said it. And everyone is thinking it now, so there isn't much to be said, is there? Got Jokes? No, but we've Got Melk.

Red Laundry has gotten a lot of people on their bandwagon lately, but they really are just the Susan Lucci of baseball. The woman was nominated 21 times for an Emmy. She was the talk of the Soap Opera world for 20 years. When was she going to win? She's got all the right stuff. Then something crazy happened, she actually won. There was buzz, and people got over it. To be fair Red Laundry won twice. But does anyone really care if they win anymore? Not really. Red Laundry is Twitter, and the Yankees are Facebook. It's new and exciting, all the celebs are on board, but in the end, it's never going to be cooler than Facebook. It doesn't have the history or the money that Facebook has. Papi Grande ain't got nothing on The Great Bambino.

Suddenly Torre is wishing the Yankees nothing but luck. We love Torre- love. You are a Yankees icon. But we read the book. Ouch, Joe. We agree that Lexi is fun to pick on, but give us a break. It was all fun and games out there in LALAland with your cool new car commercials and no rain delays until your old team realized it didn't need you. Now you're up late with Nam-like dreams of Melky in the bottom of the 9th. Do you think he'll still be wishing us nothing but the best when we have a better record than the Dodgers? We don't think so.

We haven't heard anyone complaining about how much we paid for Lexi anymore. We guess when you have almost as many RBIs as games you've played in and are hitting a home run at least once every 4 games, people start to think maybe you are worth $275 mill. We haven't heard too much complaining that he hasn't cashed in on his many bases loaded at-bats recently (but seriously, we wouldn't be upset with a GS this week). And Manny Being Banny has definitely shut people up on the steroid front. Does anyone even know that Lexi is dating Kate Hudson? Sure they do. Does anyone care? No, cause he's playing good baseball and everyone knows it. We haven't seen a purse on his arm in quite awhile and frankly we think it's going to remain that way.

So, maybe there is nothing funny about the Yankees these days. And that's a-OK with us.

Hate it or Love it, The Yanks on TOP

Since we last checked in, our boys have climbed to #1, first sharing the top of the AL East with Red Laundry and then breaking away to lead the pack. We only lead by half a game, but we are holding on tight.

Will Leitch of NY Magazine has an interesting story about Yankee potential. It has been quite the turnaround. Things probably couldn't have started off worse. We remember the mess that surrounded us upon beginning this blog. Everywhere around us there were bad omens. We half expected to see black cats crossing home plate. All that money and below .500?

We're not sure of the exact cause and there has been much speculation, but the bottom line is we've come a long way in a relatively short amount of time. Pies in face. Wins stacking upon wins like pancakes. Errorless streak that matches the all time record of 17 consecutive games. Looking down at the Jays, Rays and the team-that-we-will-not-mention. We wrote a letter to the them a few weeks ago that we feel has been more than backed up by what we've done on the field. We're ready for June 9. Is June 9th ready for us?

The question Leitch poses is a good one. We like it's ambition. Can we.....win the World Series this year? Everybody whisper. But, it's really not too early to ask. We are playing good baseball. Things have more than improved across the board. In all areas. On the other hand, in a 162 game season maintenance is everything. We need to stay up and keep it up. Key words: stable pitching, solid relief and no more than one batter having a big papi (code word for drought people). Tex busted out of his lump like he was aboard a rocket in May but will that be a summer long trip? There won't always be pies in the face and flair (though it can't be denied that we do love the dramatic) but we can't have things sour if we want a chance at Jeet's 5th ring.

The ridiculous record of the Dodgers aside, we are hanging in there with most division leaders. As we know all too well, however, things can change fast and the standings can be shaken up like a shuffled deck of cards. All we can is do keep on keepin' on. So, let's close out the Tribe tonight and we'll be at the stadium tomorrow night to personally welcome Tejas.

Happy June. Here's to a great summer streak. We take nothing for granted.