Phil Hughes pitching - what a treat!

Granderson back - thank the heavens!

Swisher home run - boy do the bleecher creatures love him!

Robbie grand slam - crazy exciting!

Extended "wave" through the crowds - went around 5 times.

Great seats - field level, right along the right field foul line! And they were padded!

Totally made up for the May 1 game....

Photos to come soon

Not much of a blog post ... except to say I'll be there early enough to catch batting practice. What a great way to start my holiday weekend! I will take lots of pictures of my Bronx boys. Looks like Javier is pitching tonight (thank the heavens -- please make it so!) which means tomorrow is probably CC!!! WOOT WOOT!!!!

 ... No offense to Javy but I have already seen him pitch in the House this month. I do not need a repeat performance.

Honestly, I have no idea how they do it.

I have the good fortune of having many non-native NYC/metro area friends, people who have lived elsewhere and have moved here. As someone who grew up within an arm's reach of Manhattan, I often wonder what it must be like to pack up everything they own and move to a strange (and in our case, immense) city and completely start over. I marvel at their ability to surrender to that huge "unknowing".

The part that strikes me the most, though, is that most of them bring with them their preferences for their home teams. And so I have friends who are Phillies fans, Twins fans, and yes, *yes* even Red Sox fans. I have even dated a Red Sox fan. ...That was strange. And clearly did not last very long.

So in a city that is all about its home teams, I wonder how they can endure the constant barrage of Yankees and Mets coverage. One friend, who is a Twins fan, recently blogged about going to every single Twins game last week in the Bronx, and how dejected he had become ~ except for the last game which made him feel a glimmer of hope. (He's also blogged about how hostile Yankees fans can be, which I think is unfortunate. I mean, I love my Bomber boys but why spread the hate?)

When he blogged about the last Twins/Yankees game, he predicted that it would mark a turnaround ... and he actually gloated about the Yanks' loss. At first I felt the fire of defensiveness course through me (how dare he insult my team and my city) ... but then I thought, sheesh. How awful must it be for him to be living here (for work) and to be so cut off from his home team?

That would be like me moving to Boston. I can't even begin to *imagine*!!!

Now we are two games behind Tampa Bay.

And then I hear that the Tigers pitcher plunked Jeter's pinky.

Zoinks.

Are we headed for a bad energy cloud?? Mercury has gone direct which means things should be smooth sailing. I wonder what is up.

Guess it is time to do a little astrological research on the players. Who's got their Saturn in a funk? Who's got a nefarious Neptune? Who's got a villanous Venus?? Inquiring minds need to know.

But there is one small blessing today: Thank the heavens my friend from Detroit stopped texting me about Johnny D. The pain was becoming unbearable.

Yeah, yeah, yeah -- I am reading the message boards for YES and the Yankees etc. etc. on Facebook about last night's game and yeah yeah yeah, I hear you about his "weak" arm and being a streaky hitter. All of that might be true, who am I to say.. I've never played professional baseball so I can't properly judge.

BUT!

I still lament the fact that Johnny is no longer with our team.

It KILLS me when I get text messages from a friend living in Detroit who has to share with me every time Johnny is at bat, every time Johnny is hitting a home run. For the TIGERS. Do you know what that is like? It's like watching an ex-boyfriend date another chick, that's what it is like. Burns a black hole deep within my (broken) heart.

Why do I feel such strong emotions on his loss, you ask?

In keeping with my blog's mission, I am not going to cite statistics on why his loss might affect the Yankees ~ I'd like to be more straight up.

I miss him because he is freakin' handsome as all hell.