Game 124: Take Me Home Tonight

So far this weekend, the Yankees and Red Sox have combined for 46 runs, 62 hits and approximately two and a half innings of compelling baseball. There have been exactly zero lead changes in the previous two games. On Friday, the Yanks were up 6-1 in the second inning and yesterday the Sox got ahead 7-0 in the 2nd and slowly pulled away from there. Looking at the 1-1 series record and a difference of 4 runs scored between the two teams, you'd think that there would have been more tense moments and big hits. But the vast majority of runs scored have seemed to be meaningless tack-ons or feeble attempts to chip away at insurmountable leads.

They don't have to be pitcher's duels, but the most watchable and gripping baseball games are see-saw battles where the momentum can shift with each pitch. The last two games were slopfests populated by mop-up men and bench scrubs in for garbage time, only enjoyable to one fan base at a time.Tonight looked like the best pitching match up coming into the weekend and now is the only chance to salvage an interesting game out of the trainwreck of a series.

CC Sabathia has won his last four starts, and has been especially sharp over his last 3. Starting with his last start against the Red Sox, he's gone 23 2/3 IP, given up 3 runs (1.34 ERA) 10 hits, 5 walks, and struck out 26. He's rounding into is legendary late season form and has been a treat to watch.

Josh Beckett was on a similar 3 game stretch (21 IP, 2ER) until it was rudely interrupted by the Blue Jays last Tuesday. Beckett gave up 7 runs in 5.1 IP but got off with a no-decision as the Sox scored 3 in the top of the 8th and won 10-9. He and Sabathia are tied for the AL lead with 14 wins but Beckett has fewer losses and a ERA two-tenths of a run lower.

Tonight's game will be the difference between the Yankees leading the division by 7.5 or 5.5 games with 38 left to play. Only 3 head to head meetings remain on the schedule after tonight and although the Yanks figure to make the playoffs with relative ease, it would be nice to win the division and more importantly get homefield advantage throughout the postseason.

What better way could there be for the Yanks to close down their longest road trip of the season than by effectively snuffing out the Sox' hopes at winning the division in an exciting, back and forth type of game? Take 'er home boys. It would be so money.

I can feel you breathing,
I can feel your heartbeat faster (faster)...

Take me home tonight,
I don't want to let you go to see the light,
Take me home tonight.

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.