The Waiting

The scheduled off day today makes yesterday's loss a little bit tougher to swallow. The first game only seems important because it's the only one we have at the moment. Right now it's 100% of the season, after tomorrow, it will only be 50%, then 33%, 25% and so forth.

It's easy to read the symbolism into everything that went wrong yesterday and project it out towards the entire season.

The Yankees are fucked! Sabathia is a choker! Teix can't handle the pressure! Jeter can't get it done when it counts! Swisher over Nady! Send Phil Coke back to the minors!

The reality is that with each passing game, chances are, each of those things is going to be exposed for the small sample size, impulsive overreaction that it is. Unfortunately, right off the bat, we have to wait an entire extra day.

It's only about 47 1/2 hours from the end of yesterday's game until the beginning of tomorrow's, that's not what it feels like. It's as if you planned for months to go on vacation, and you finally get on the plane. But you take your seat, it's in the middle, you're sandwiched between two fat guys, the food sucks, the in-flight movie is Beverly Hills Chihuahua (don't fly Delta), and then you get stuck in a holding pattern over Aruba.

I think I speak for much of my generation when I say patience is not our strong suit. Maybe it's not just younger people, but those of us who live by RSS and Twitter feeds, and are beholden to the 24 hour news cycle. The internet has gotten so fast that it provides instant gratification with each click. We can fast forward on our DVRs and "Mark All As Read". All of that immediacy makes it difficult to see the forest through the trees.

The baseball season is a long haul, and we all know that. But after a long winter of pining for the MLB regular season, it's tough to forget about the only meaningful game we've seen in over 7 months. But a short time's a long time, when your mind just won't let it go. As Yankee fans, I think we are just anxious to put all of last season and the playoff failures of the preceding four behind us (2003 wasn't a failure).


At least Tom Petty understands:

The waiting is the hardest part,
Every day you see one more card,
You take it on faith, you take it to the heart,
The waiting is the hardest part.

No. No You Are Not.

[h/t Awful Announcing]

Alex Rodriguez is not from the Dominican Republic. He was born in New York City in 1975. Both of his parents were born the DR and he lived there briefly when he was four years old, before moving to Miami.

Alex, the DR is one of the poorest countries in the world. The PPP per capita income is $8,116 a year. You made three times that PER INNING last year. In 2005, you said, "I want to say it out loud: I am Dominican". However, this is the extent of your charitable contributions to the country you claim as your own (which coincidentally occurred right around the time you wanted to play for the DR in the last WBC):

In 2005, Alex donated $50,000 to the Dominican Republic branch of UNICEF. This donation fully funded five-day care centers outside of Santo Domingo. These centers were able to purchase enough school supplies, food and personal hygiene products for each center for one full year. Approximately 1,500 children will benefit from this donation.

Listen, I'm not the most philanthropic person on the planet, but if I had career earnings of $197,431,586 with another $250M+ guaranteed, I think I could do a little better than $50,000 for the country I somewhat arbitrarily chose to identify myself with.

If 1,500 children benefited from your $50,000 donation, 30,000 would be helped by $1,000,000. One million United States Dollars is an astronomical sum to a person such as myself, but it is about 1/12th of the value of his home in Miami and 1/10th of what he was asking for his apartment in Manhattan.

Now would be a great time for some positive PR. Everyone is suggesting that he make donations for the Partnership For A Drug Free America, or similar organizations, but why don't you give some thought to putting that money where it might actually make a difference? I'll trade little Johnny in suburban Peoria taking a couple tokes for some kids in the DR getting "school supplies, food and personal hygiene products".

I've been to the Caribbean my fair share of times and although it is astonishingly beautiful, once you step outside of the resort, there is poverty everywhere you look. Most of those islands are very resource-poor and tourism is the primary industry which isn't running so hot right now. Do the right thing A-Rod. Are you going to say no to this girl?

[Yes, she gets color]

And to make up for how depressing that was...