The lyrics to the Robin Thicke song, “Lost Without You” come to mind to describe how much I’m missing baseball season already this year. It seems like just yesterday I was sitting behind home plate, beer in hand, watching Joba Chamberlain spike a flag into the dirt in celebration of the Yanks just winning the World Series. A month has passed and it seems as though I may never hear Frank Sinatra sing “New York, New York” again.
Tonight, my NY Jets destroyed the Indianapolis Colts’ perfect season to keep their playoff hopes alive, which means I’m planning the tailgate bash of the century for their last regular season game at the old Meadowlands stadium. So, obviously, I have other things to think about. Yet, I can’t seem to get the Bombers off my brain. Anyone who knows me, knows that I live for the NY Yankees and Jets, but for some reason spring training can’t come fast enough this year.
With my Spring Training vacation plans in the works, the Yankees are making it so that I may not recognize our team when I arrive in Florida. With the trading block open for business, I was prepared for some of my guys to be gone next year. We would all love to have the same team re-signed for one more year to give the World Series another shot, but that’s just not how baseball works. However, the trades thus far have been baffling to me and most other hardcore Yankees fans. I have faith that Cashman knows what he’s doing, but I’m not sure that, without anything up his sleeve, he’s making the team better.
Halladay goes to the Phillies which almost guarantees that they have a shot at going to the World Series for the 3rd year in a row. Lachey goes to Boston. The Yankees who are criticized for buying all of their winning rosters get who?
Our major pick-up this year so far is Granderson, who I agree, will probably make us better. He’ll probably hit 30+ home runs next year, but if we’re planning on replacing Johnny Damon, he’s no 2nd spot hitter. His OBP is nothing compared to Damon’s and when he’s not smashing those 30 homers, how many times is he going to strike out? Or get walked?
Next, our World Series MVP Matsui gets traded to the Angels, in order to free up our DH position. Ok, I get that we can then rotate the rest of the team into that position and Matsui is getting older with bad knees. However, where the hell did the Angels come from? I was sad to see Matsui go, but I understand why they traded him. Until we picked up Nick Johnson. Really, are you kidding me? Nick Johnson? We already had him and got rid of him. Now we’re paying him $5 million to be our DH. Matsui went for $6.5 million- he wasn’t worth and extra mill over Nick friggin Johnson, come onnn Cashman.
The next trade is really what has kept me up at night, though. Melky Cabrera gets traded to the Braves for Javier Vasquez (along with one of our top pitching prospects and some cash.) ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?! Does anyone remember screaming and throwing things at the television when Vasquez was pitching for us the last time? Because I do. Forget “Pride. Power.Pinstripes.” “Been There, Done That. You Sucked.” should be the Yankees motto this year. Granted, Vasquez supposedly got better. His ERA is sick and his numbers are impressive, but he is a National League pitcher. Melky had an unbelievable year this year as the “Walk-Off King,” and his arm is arguably the best in the league. Because he had such a great year, it’s understandable why they would want to trade him. Because if he didn’t follow up, we’d probably be stuck with him. However, for us to trade him, a top pitching prospect, and cash for Vasquez is a complete insult.
I hear that Swisher might be the next to go, and if Damon doesn’t stop drinking Boris’ Kool-Aid, he might be gone too. So, we will be left with virtually no outfield. Cashman, what are you planning??
Although I don’t see the bigger picture yet, I’m sure the Yankees know what they’re doing and I’m counting down the days until I hop on that flight to Florida. Because “I’m lost without you. I can’t help myself. How does it feel? To know that I love you [Yankees].”
Monday
Conspiracy Theory
This is a throwback for those of you suffering from finals madness right now...
"No Sleep til...(duhn duhn) Brooklyn," the immortal words of the Beastie Boys, and the catchphrase that best sums up finals week, not just at F.I.T., but all over the world. Students are stressed out, sleep deprived, and carry trendy bags under their eyes. Sound familiar? Of course it does, every college is the same. In fact, now that i think of it, it's the whole college setting that breeds lunacy, finals week just adds to the excitement.
Growing up they brainwash you to think that a college education is necessary if you don't want to be yet another homeless person on the streets of New York. So, your senior year in high school, what do you do? You apply to college! Because if you don't, guidance counselors, teachers, parents, and everyone else on God's green earth is breathing down your neck to get those transcripts in the mail or else...you won't have a future. You will never amount to anything.
As graduation approaches, you actually feel like you made a good decision because you can't wait to get the hell outta school, not to mention your hometown. You're sick of the same old people and the same small minds. So, August rolls around and you go off to college, and the insanity begins. They throw you into a mock real world setting with a bunch of strangers, some of them old enough to be your mom, some young enough to be your little sister, and some stupid enough to be your dead dog. Next, they load you up with 18 credits and TONS of work. Textbooks become your mortal enemies. They sit mocking you while you attempt to read a bloody passage that's in the foreign language of "educated." And don't even think about money, that becomes a thing of the past. All of a sudden you are fantasizing about the change you found in the payphone today instead of your significant other. Looks to me like we college students become quite close in comparison to the homeless of NYC.
Now of course, college isn't all school, expensive books, and professor's dirty looks. There is a plus side- partying. Now not only are we subject to cheap, disgusting cafeteria food (FIT failed health inspection not once but twice), but even our nightlife is a reminder that we are poor, college students. Keg upon keg is filled with Beast, the cheapest possible beer you can find. Once your drunk enough, it tastes like hell with an airconditioner, so you really don't mind all that much. But there are some times, in which you are about ready to lick the sweat off of one of those homeless people just to get a taste of a nice, cheap vodka that you still can't afford. So, please tell me how people consider college to be the best possible option?
At the close of every semester, students are fried zombies, missing hair from stress, ready to jump from a window, and shaking from two weeks of IV caffeine drugs, but we are stupidly happy. We look foward to the month off. It's not worth it though, because the break ends too soon and we are thrown into the same routine again in the spring.
So, finally after four hellish years, you graduate. By the time you get out of college, you are so traumatized that you actually think the four years of college were the party capital of your life. If you call snorting lines from a textbook while the strobe light of your computer screen glares in your face, and the lovely bass sound of your fingers drumming on the desk a party, then count me out. But, it's still exciting because you have a college degree, so it's easy to finds a job, right?? Wrong. Not to mention you'll probablly be paying off the loans from school for the rest of your life.
I am still clueless as to why it is necessary to get a college education, so I'm thinking along the lines of this being yet another one of the government's schemes that we aren't supposed to know about. The technical definition of conspiracy is, "The act of joining in a secret agreement to be unlawful or wrongful or an act that becomes unlawful as a result of the secret agreement." The government's secret agreement is that college is a means to fry people's brains so that they are too oblivious to realize what is going on in the world around them.
Upon graduation, students are legally insane. They are too brainwashed with thoughts of their major, getting a good job, and money. They are unable to function beyond these thoughts. Therefore, they have no time to think about what's going on in the world around them. Let's go back, waaaaaayyyy back, to the days of the Depression. Everyone sat around their radios and admired what FDR had to say. They hung on his every word. These days, you couldn't get anyone to watch the President on television, unless it was the resurfaced, pornographical video of Bill and Monica. What's wrong with this situation? I'll tell you what it is; it's the damn need for college education that everyone has beaten into their heads from the time their head appears in the birth canal. And, frankly, it pisses me off...
**Several hours later**
After peeling my face from the keyboard, I got to thinking. Maybe there really is no government conspiracy. I mean finals week is approaching. Maybe this is a product of finals week lunacy. It has been a long, caffeine saturated, sleep-free weekend.
"No Sleep til...(duhn duhn) Brooklyn," the immortal words of the Beastie Boys, and the catchphrase that best sums up finals week, not just at F.I.T., but all over the world. Students are stressed out, sleep deprived, and carry trendy bags under their eyes. Sound familiar? Of course it does, every college is the same. In fact, now that i think of it, it's the whole college setting that breeds lunacy, finals week just adds to the excitement.
Growing up they brainwash you to think that a college education is necessary if you don't want to be yet another homeless person on the streets of New York. So, your senior year in high school, what do you do? You apply to college! Because if you don't, guidance counselors, teachers, parents, and everyone else on God's green earth is breathing down your neck to get those transcripts in the mail or else...you won't have a future. You will never amount to anything.
As graduation approaches, you actually feel like you made a good decision because you can't wait to get the hell outta school, not to mention your hometown. You're sick of the same old people and the same small minds. So, August rolls around and you go off to college, and the insanity begins. They throw you into a mock real world setting with a bunch of strangers, some of them old enough to be your mom, some young enough to be your little sister, and some stupid enough to be your dead dog. Next, they load you up with 18 credits and TONS of work. Textbooks become your mortal enemies. They sit mocking you while you attempt to read a bloody passage that's in the foreign language of "educated." And don't even think about money, that becomes a thing of the past. All of a sudden you are fantasizing about the change you found in the payphone today instead of your significant other. Looks to me like we college students become quite close in comparison to the homeless of NYC.
Now of course, college isn't all school, expensive books, and professor's dirty looks. There is a plus side- partying. Now not only are we subject to cheap, disgusting cafeteria food (FIT failed health inspection not once but twice), but even our nightlife is a reminder that we are poor, college students. Keg upon keg is filled with Beast, the cheapest possible beer you can find. Once your drunk enough, it tastes like hell with an airconditioner, so you really don't mind all that much. But there are some times, in which you are about ready to lick the sweat off of one of those homeless people just to get a taste of a nice, cheap vodka that you still can't afford. So, please tell me how people consider college to be the best possible option?
At the close of every semester, students are fried zombies, missing hair from stress, ready to jump from a window, and shaking from two weeks of IV caffeine drugs, but we are stupidly happy. We look foward to the month off. It's not worth it though, because the break ends too soon and we are thrown into the same routine again in the spring.
So, finally after four hellish years, you graduate. By the time you get out of college, you are so traumatized that you actually think the four years of college were the party capital of your life. If you call snorting lines from a textbook while the strobe light of your computer screen glares in your face, and the lovely bass sound of your fingers drumming on the desk a party, then count me out. But, it's still exciting because you have a college degree, so it's easy to finds a job, right?? Wrong. Not to mention you'll probablly be paying off the loans from school for the rest of your life.
I am still clueless as to why it is necessary to get a college education, so I'm thinking along the lines of this being yet another one of the government's schemes that we aren't supposed to know about. The technical definition of conspiracy is, "The act of joining in a secret agreement to be unlawful or wrongful or an act that becomes unlawful as a result of the secret agreement." The government's secret agreement is that college is a means to fry people's brains so that they are too oblivious to realize what is going on in the world around them.
Upon graduation, students are legally insane. They are too brainwashed with thoughts of their major, getting a good job, and money. They are unable to function beyond these thoughts. Therefore, they have no time to think about what's going on in the world around them. Let's go back, waaaaaayyyy back, to the days of the Depression. Everyone sat around their radios and admired what FDR had to say. They hung on his every word. These days, you couldn't get anyone to watch the President on television, unless it was the resurfaced, pornographical video of Bill and Monica. What's wrong with this situation? I'll tell you what it is; it's the damn need for college education that everyone has beaten into their heads from the time their head appears in the birth canal. And, frankly, it pisses me off...
**Several hours later**
After peeling my face from the keyboard, I got to thinking. Maybe there really is no government conspiracy. I mean finals week is approaching. Maybe this is a product of finals week lunacy. It has been a long, caffeine saturated, sleep-free weekend.
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