Something Bad is Happening + a Phil Collins Video

I can't watch baseball these days without feeling those old bad sports feelings of defeat, despair and the hopelessness of all and any life against death-inducing time. I don't know why. Things are okay. The Yankees can't beat the Red Sox, but that doesn't really matter. Mariano Rivera has lost two games in the last three days, but that doesn't really matter. Derek Jeter is passing into legend before our eyes, but that doesn't really matter. The Yankees could still win the World Series. They're not the Mets. Things could get worse, but they don't necessarily have to [this year]. And still, things aren't good right now. I just know that things aren't good.

This video doesn't logically relate to the way I feel, but it is still somehow the way that I feel:

It's saying: "I don't understand what's happening. I don't think it's anything good. At one point, things were fine. This is not that time."

The Saddest Blog Post of the Year

Absolutely unbelievable. The Yankees are down 3-1 to the Rangers, can't hit, look defeated, don't want to do anything. Cole Hamels lost today. EVERYTHING IS BAD AND NOTHING IS GOOD. I REFUSE TO PUT ANY PHOTOS IN THIS POST BECAUSE I AM UPSET.

The Past is Always With Us

As much as my heart beats truly and eternally for Derek Jeter & Co., I tend feel pretty pessimistic whenever they play the Red Sox. Going into last night's game, the Yanks were 0-5 against the Boston uglies in 2009. Before the game, a flurry of Yankees PR-type stories flooded my Twitter feed, promising that tonight would be different. But alas, the past is always with us and nothing ever changes.

Derek Jeter watches as Nick Green's homerun ball sky-rockets overhead...
who the f' is Nick Green? Yeah, that's kind of the point.

Mark Teixeira sings a sad, sad song into his silent bat

Unaware that a baseball game is being played,
dimwitted A-Rod attempts to eat his face

A.J. Burnett gave up three earned runs on five walks and five hits in less than three innings. He also kicked the dugout water cooler on his way out of the game. He was mad. I was, too. Josh Beckett, on the other hand, allowed only one hit in six innings. The Red Sox won 7-0 after the surprisingly attractive Nick Green hit what was probably the first and last home run of his professional career in the 7th inning. ESPN noted that Boston hadn't beaten New York six straight times "since the year the Titanic sank." Good Lord.

Tonight, the Yanks will rise again to die another death at Fenway. I refuse to watch or listen. What, really, is the point? "Can't [escape] the past? Why, of course you can!" That's what Gatsby should have said when he broke that clock at Nick Carraway's house. The statement is equally tragic and more correct. As we know, it all concludes with unreachable green lights on distant docks, black hills rolling silently across the Republic, the end of wonder, and boats borne back ceaselessly into the voracious, all-consuming, insatiable past.

THE WORST

Oh, Manny.

Last night, I dreamt that Robbie Cano had been killed in a car crash-gunfight combination. The Yankees tried to cover up the news by reporting that he had been killed in a plane accident, which, okay, is the kind of thing that only makes sense in dreams. How did my brain know that today would be such a baseball downer?

Absolutely bummed out to the max...but, well, I guess at least NO ONE DIED.

Today Was Not a Good Day

Of course it had to happen, but did it have to happen so soon? As all sports fans know, you win some, you lose some; the violently elating highs come with the agonizingly soul-depleting lows. Yankees fans have it a bit worse, though, as every unintentional walk, pop-up fly, and fumbled throw home accumulates into a jumbled chorus whose main overtone sounds suspiciously like coins rolling down the drain (or, rather, giant piles of gasoline-soaked dollar bills burning in an eternal, raging hellfire). Moreover, a large percentage of non-Yankees fans are actually Yankees haters. When Yankees fans watch their team tank, they do so knowing that thousands and thousands of their fellow-baseball-viewers are cheering their misfortune with unsportsmanlike glee.

This hatred is not unwarranted. That the Yankees are frequently called a corporate baseball Death Star makes perfect sense. This is all fine and great and funny when the team is winning, but what good is a nickname like "The Evil Empire" when, despite the enormous salaries and celebrity players and palatial stadiums, you repeatedly lose games to teams that you should be CRUSHING? Man, do the Yankees get me down, sometimes. Tonight, after they failed to beat the Orioles (a good looking team, I'll admit), I cursed C.C. Sabathia's billowing pajama pants and Johnny Damon's terrible arm and left the bar and walked around the puddle-soaked streets of Williamsburg with no destination and no desire to be anywhere or do anything. Okay, that's an exaggeration. What really happened is that Maddie and I were drunk and couldn't decide what we wanted to eat. Then, when we got home, I suddenly knew what I wanted to eat and that thing was Jell-O! But the corner store didn't have any and it was way too late to go to a proper supermarket and let me tell you, friends, I felt lower and angrier than I've felt in weeks.

I know that, traditionally, this blog has been a place of love and of love-hate and of the special kind of joy that accompanies pure hatred, but let's pause momentarily to acknowledge a dark truth: SOMETIMES BASEBALL MAKES LIFE FEEL SO MUCH WORSE.