Albert Einstein once said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.
I found myself so excited when I got home from work tonight! I had had an exhausting day at work, and just after opening the door to my apartment, I bolted right for the couch. That was where I was planning to recuperate and find my second wind! For tonight was the start of the third series of the year between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox.
Like the two series before this one I was pumped! This is sports greatest rivalry! As a fan, if you can’t get yourself excited for this, what can you get excited for? But tonight there was added incentive! The games in the two series before were over before the ever really got started. The Red Sox had dominated the Yankees in every way imaginable. They had beaten the Yankees to a pulp. The Yankees had lost all of thier first five games to the Boston Red Sox in 2009. But since May 6th (the last time the two teams matched up) these have become two very different ball clubs. The Yankees have been on fire, winners of 21 out of 28. A-Rod is back in the every day lineup, Mark Teixeira’s numbers have skyrocketed, and the starting pitching has found its groove. Even the bullpen, as awful as it is, has not stopped the Yanks. As for the Red Sox, they are just two games over .500 during that time. (16-14) And have been nothing more then an average team over that time.
So certainly the match up was in the Yankees favor! Some sweet good old fashion payback! The dish best served cold- revenge! The Yankees, I thought, were sure to take two of three, if not a straight sweep of the dreaded Sox!
As I watched Pardon The Interruption on ESPN 2, I was counting down the seconds until 7:00pm. From 6:55 to 7:05 I was so impatient I could hardly sit still!
Then as Red Sox starter, Josh Beckett, finally delivered the first pitch of the game, Derek Jeter promptly grounded out to shortstop. It was obvious from the get-go that if the Yankees were to win, they were going to have to match Beckett’s dominance defensively. Yankees starter, A.J. Burnett, was going to have to be better then average. He was going to have to be almost perfect.
After one-and-one-half innings of play, the line score for booth teams was identical- filled to capacity with zeros. But in the bottom of the second it was obvious that A.J. Burnett had no idea what he was doing! A.J. was running up his pitch count, walking batters and drastically missing on location.
Then up came David Ortiz, the Artist formerly know as Big Papi.
I was thrilled to see Ortiz coming into the series with his .197 batting average! Ortiz has been a Yankee killer for a long long time! I have always found his tremendous success suspect. When Ortiz first came on the scene in 2003, he had been released from the Minnesota Twins. The Twins has found serious flaws in his hitting technique, and had outright released him. He was an out of shape, over weight DH, who couldn't catch up to a fastball, and couldn't lay off any pitch off the plate.
“Finally”, I thought!
Ortiz was once again starting to play like the Scube he was in Minnesota.
His skills had dropped so significantly, that Sox Manager, Terry Francona, dropped Ortiz to sixth in the batting order. And so as the sixth batter of the game for Boston, Ortiz came to the plate with one on and no one out. The fifth pitch of the at-bat was a four-seam fastball right over the plate. Ortiz drilled it to straight away center. Yankees Center Fielder Brett Gardner just looked up, as the ball sailed well above him.
2-0 Boston!
The game was over with one swing!
Ortiz might as well have hit a walk off home run!
How confident was I that the game was over?
Well, I actually posted this Blog before tonight’s game went final!
I was disgusted!!!
This is a darn conspiracy! I am sure Bud is in on it too! The Red Sox have the Yankees on a leash, in their back pockets! As a Yankee fan I find it aggravating, embarrassing, disgraceful, and downright repulsive!
After the Ortiz homerun, I started texting the Old Man with profanitites and exploitives that would make a truck driving sailor cry! I got off the couch and went out to jog the neighborhood by the fourth inning! And Tuesday night is not even my usual night to run! Blasting music on my I-pod and sprinting the sidewalks, I found no comfort for my vicarious frustrations.
Einstein was right!
Because tomorrow night, I will be back in front of the T.V. looking for a different result!
I am freaking insane!
