Torre, Turnpikes, And Taverns

As Joe Torre exited town two years ago, one of the lessons learned - or at least a memorable message he conveyed on his way out the door - was that the greater the expectation became to win year after year, and the greater the desperation became with each successive championshipless season, the less people appreciated the good things that did happen.

It's something I've tried to stay mindful of since Torre left. As badly as we as fans want our team to win, it's not a birthright, and it's not going to happen every year. Way back when, we began following baseball because we loved the game, because it entertained and amused us. It's easy to lose sight of that when the hunger to win becomes insatiable. But even a season like 2008 has something to take away from it. I suppose it's much easier to bang that drum in the aftermath of a World Series victory, but even without that 2009 was an extremely enjoyable year of Yankee baseball. I know I have my list of favorite moments, and I'm sure you have yours too.

While our health, and our families and friends are ceratinly the most important things to be thankful for this holiday, what brings us together here is Yankee baseball. And we have a lot to be thankful for in that regard too. Let's keep that in mind next time we're ready to go over the edge due to something Yankee related.

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Today is simultaneously regarded as both the worst travel day of the year and the best bar night of the year. All the folks traveling home for the holidays clog up the highways and skyways, but they also load up the local watering holes. You never know who you're going to bump into on Thanksgiving eve. I'll be passing up both the parkways and the pubs tonight, electing instead to host a little party tonight and hit the road for Jersey in the morning.

Whichever your choice for tonight, driving or drinking, be safe. And please don't do both. We'll send you off into the night with this one. Chances are you'll be encountering either Traffic or John Barleycorn later on.

We Didn't Think It Would Be That Easy, Did We?

Good morning, Fackers. That's not one of you on the left with your head down, is it? If it is, we'll just assume that the glass of white wine is there because your girlfriend got up to go to the bathroom. Either way, cheer up. It was a tough loss but let's just take a deep breath.

It's funny how no one picked the Yankees to sweep this series (well, except Iracane) but we still feel like they should win every time they play, isn't it?

The same thing happened against the Angels in the ALCS. We nodded along with all the predictions saying how the series could be "one for the ages" and knew the Halos were a formidable foe, but were still shocked when Vlad Guerrero hit that homer off of Andy Pettitte and when Nick Swisher popped out to end Game 5 (another miserable A.J. Burnett outing with an unlikely comeback) against Brian Fuentes. Similarly, we applauded the notion that the Fall Classic featured the two best teams in baseball and assumed it would be a great series. Unfortunately, for the series to be great, both teams have to lose some games.

Did anyone assume that we were going to take all three games in Philly? I highly doubt it, but after the Bombers took the first two, our expectations completely changed.

After the top half of the first inning, it was easy to imagine Cliff Lee finally realizing that he was human and A.J. Burnett pitching well enough to beat him. Even when Derek Jeter came to the plate in the 9th, it was hard not to picture him poking a hit through the infield and bringing the go-ahead run to the plate with no one out.

Unfortunately, both of those fantasies were squashed almost immediately by a homer off the bat of Chase Utley and a double play turned by he and Jimmy Rollins, respectively.

As for Burnett, he threw 56 pitches and exactly half of them were strikes. He faced 15 batters but retired only 6. He walked twice as many men (4) as he struck out (2). IIATMS ran down the gory details of his outing via pitch f/x. Judging by the charts, it becomes even more apparent that Burnett had all the accuracy and precision of a greased up fire hose.

There will surely be the temptation to point to the fact that he only had three days of rest as the reason his command was so poor but we've seen this plenty of times from Burnett on 4 and even 5 days of rest. In fact, we just saw it early in Game 5 in Anaheim. As much as we don't want to realize it, his dominant performance in Game 2 of the series was about as likely as his meltdown in Game 5.

But the Yankees knew what they signed up for when they inked Burnett to that $82.5M deal: Incredible stuff with so-so command. If they wanted a guy who they thought could be consistently average all the time, they would have went after Derek Lowe instead. So we take the good with the bad and move on.

Inspire The Ire: Eagles Enmity [Part I]

[For much of the 2009 season, the Eagles have been an afterthought to the Giants and their fanbase. After the Week 10 victory, the Giants were 8-1 and on the fast track to the #1 seed in the NFC, while the Eagles were 5-4 and trying to collect themselves for a second half run.

When they met in Week 13, the Giants clinched the NFC East despite a 20-14 loss. Maybe the Super Bowl victory took some of the edge off of our antipathy towards the team that traditionally takes top billing as the most hated divisional rival. Maybe it's because the Cowboys with all their "superstars" and drama became the primary targets of Giants' fan disdain.

As a result, we have decided to provide some kindling for the hot coals of contempt for the Eagles that smolder deep within each Giants fan with a special several-part Fack Youk presentation: Inspire The Ire: Eagles Enmity]

[Part I - By: Jay]

If you've gone out drinking on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, there's a chance you've been to Bourbon Street. If you've ever gone out drinking anywhere, you've almost definitely been to a place just like it.

It's your prototypical dive bar, with ladies undergarments stapled to the ceiling and kitchy signs and antiquey-looking trash hung on the wall like its some sort of R-Rated Applebee's. The playlist every Friday and Saturday night consists of the same cliched 80's songs like "Livin' On a Prayer", "Jessie's Girl" and "I Love Rock and Roll". In fact, they even do a cut rate Coyote Ugly imitation to "Pour Some Sugar On Me", where the female bartenders pour shots of some brightly colored vodka combination down patrons' gullets at a specific time every weekend night (I couldn't tell you exactly what time, for a variety of reasons).

I may or may not have stumbled out of there few years ago on New Years Day at about 9AM. It's the rare kind of place in NYC that actually has good specials like 50 cent (12 oz.) Bud drafts every Thursday and Friday from 9 to 11. The place does have some uses.

One of those uses is for watching football. They have a ton of TVs, and if you get there fairly early on a Sunday, you can grab a stool at the bar or a seat at a table with a perfect view of a TV with your team's game on it. They don't make their own food, so they allow you to bring your own in, and the Bud Lights are $3. If you want to watch some football at a bar and not spend a ton of money, it's a excellent option.

During Week 11, Sampson and I journeyed up to 79th & Amsterdam to catch the Giants play the Ravens. We got there sufficiently early and grabbed a high top table underneath a few TVs and across from the biggest screen the Giants game was being shown on. As it turns out, the Eagles game was on one of the TVs above our heads.

If you'll recall, in Week 11, the Eagles played the Bengals. As the Giants were running over the Ravens, the Eagles game got off to a slow start, and the Philly fans clustered around the TV were pretty quiet. After a scoreless first quarter, a wiry guy with long-ish hair wearing a Brian Westbrook jersey and a winter hat sauntered in. He looked like a pretty chill guy, like someone who might listen to Phish while driving around in his 1992 Jeep Cherokee Laredo.

Not so much. This dude was one of the biggest assholes I have ever viewed a sporting event at a bar in the presence of. As soon as he got there, he was screaming at the TV, calling out individual defensive backs like, "What the FUCK, Lito Sheppard?!?". He coined an amazingly uncreative nickname for Donovan McNabb, "Donovan McShit". He wouldn't fucking stop. Every play was "What a FUCKING terrible play call Mornhinweg!", or "Andy Reid, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!?!" He was knowledgeable, I suppose...

If you want to yell at the TV in the comfort of your own home, in the company of friends, by all means, go to town. If you are the angry type of fan who thinks they should be calling the plays, and you are smarter than everyone in the organization, let it out. Maybe if Andy Reid was my coach and Donovan McNabb my QB, I might be the same way. But Jesus-fucking-Christ, how little dignity must you have, to yell this shit at the top of your lungs in a bar in a city which your team is not even based?

Anyway, after the Giants game was over, the Eagles and Bengals were just heading into overtime, and the bartender switched the TV we were watching over to the Eagles game. Honestly, watching McNabb spike screen passes at Westbrook's feet and get called for a delay of game in OT, I thought, "Maybe this asshole has a point".

In an ending that I couldn't have scripted better myself, the game concluded in an orgasmically (for me) anticlimactic tie and Angry Winter Hat Dude stomped out of the bar and shot Sampson and I a sneer as we laughed out loud.

Guess where we are watching the game on Sunday. I really hope he's there.

Fuck the Philly, the Eagles, their fans, their damaged landmarks, their disgusting "cheese" "steaks" and everything about that godforsaken city except Ben Franklin, Cliff and Always Sunny.