Taking a Break, Relaxing All Cool

This has really gotten out of hand. On May 8^th, the Yankees beat Texas 12-5, Derek Jeter looked like he was an actual baseball player for a game and the fact that they had lost 4 of 5 entering that day was no longer of concern. That’s how misleading one game can be though, because pieced together now the Yankees have lost 10 of their last 13. Posada’s flap included, it’s been a roundly horrible, horrible stretch for Yankees fans.

That’s why I’m taking a few days off. I need to recharge the batteries. Following this team as closely as most of us here do, this week has frazzled even the most composed fans. Eternal optimist Moshe Mandel is cracking. Matt Imbrogno is contemplating suicide, preferably via wood chipper. Old friend of the blog (yours, certainly not mine) Stephen Rhoads is scheming with several unscrupulous people to murder prominent Yankees. It’s getting ugly. When you know to the third decimal place how far Alex Rodriguez’s OBP has dropped (.336!!!) or that Nick Swisher’s SLG% is actually lower than Derek Jeter’s (.303 compared to .314) it’s time for a break. At this point, everyone is strung out, tensions are high. I feel like I’ve been on a weeklong bender: the whiskey is starting to dissolve the lining of my esophagus, my eyes are more bloodshot than Jim Brewer’s, I’ve got 5 dollars left in my pocket and pee stains all over my shoes. It’s certainly getting ugly.

So yesterday I took the entire game off. I think it was the first day all year in which I watched absolutely no part of the Yankee game. Sunday night I had imposed the Yankees embargo on myself but broke it briefly, just in time to see Kevin Youkilis usher even more fans onto the George Washington Bridge with lead shoes. Last night I watched no baseball at all, probably for the first time all season. No highlights, no SportsCenter, nothing. It didn’t feel good but it was nice to get away from the oppressive cloud hanging over the Yankees now. It’s like August in Georgia, the humidity is 3000% and no one can move.

That being said, I’m sure the Yankees will come out of this soon enough. I’ll probably start watching again before that happens; it’s too hard to stay away for long. I won’t touch the New York tabloids or Yankee centered media hysteria for a while though. Look, the Yankees have real issues that we knew about entering this year. The team is old, the pitching staff cobbled together like freshman trying to spackle the hole in their dorm room wall and the young talent a little too far away to help this year. When things are going bad I hate to hear the rosy and sunshine fans proclaim everything is a mirage. I also hate to hear the bridge jumpers’ lining up, claiming victory shall never be ours again and cyanide cider is our only option.

So those are my reasons for taking a break. I’ll recharge, read some draft stuff, concentrate on work for once and relax. I refuse to stress through more runners stranded on base, errors and sloppy fielding and batting practice fastballs from our pitching staff. To some degree I hope you’ll do the same and come out with your sanity on the other side of this thing.

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