September 2006 Archives
The second go 'round for me at the Yanks-Royals game was much better and we were three hitless innings away from witnessing history. As it was though, Johnny Damon was indecisive in the field on a pretty nicely hit ball by Dejesus and it resulted in a triple(should have at most been a single and 2 bag error in my opinion). It was great though, the Yankees fans were a plenty at the game and we were surrounded by them.
It was definitely nice to see the Yanks pick their real squad out there last night and we definitely got to see some good action. The first night I just walked up with the kids looking for some general admission seats, possibly some bleachers, and ended up snagging a pair of plaza level seats down the third base line for $15. We were closer to the left fielder than third base and about five rows back in the second section of the field(section 133 row EE). Last night was a little better but we had bought these tickets a few months ago for $23 each. We were down the third base line once again, about ten rows off the field and two sections closer to third base than the first night. In my opinion both nights worked out perfectly. Jenn and I stayed the entire nine innings which would have been close to impossible with me and the kids the night before.
Last nights play of the game for me (besides Posada's bombs) was the ball Nick Green booted a grounder right to Andy Cannizaro who promptly whipped the ball across the diamond to first(andy phillips) for the out. Clearly at that point of the game all the big timers were gone. Jeter, Damon, A-Rod, Giambi, Abreu and Posada all took a seat at the end.
Thank you Yankees!
If you have Quicktime(or a media player that plays .3G2 files), check this out...I will mess with this later on but it is pretty funny if you have the time to download.
I didn't realize how demonic this first picture looked until I previewed it...A little scary but I assure you that Taylor is not choking him. And another sidenote, the clothes combination was done by Taylor herself. You gotta pick your battles sometimes.
I decided at about 6:20pm last night, as I was leaving the parking lot of Prairie Life Center where the kids have swim class, that I couldn't pass up going to the Yankees-Royals game. Figuring the Yankees would continue their offensive onslaught from the night before. Who knew that my children's first live Yankee performance would help reach the most shutout games in one night of MLB since 1972!!! Unfortunately it was the Yankees that were shutout. One night after shredding the Royals dreadful bullpen, they made them look like true baseball pitching loyalty. But give the Yanks credit because from the start they were facing pitchers like Jorge De La Rosa (ERA 7.04) and Todd Wellemeyer (ERA 4.26). I will have to say that they really were smoking the ball around the field at times, it just so happened that the ball went right to Royals players.
My favorite worst play was Bobby Abreu's botched fly ball...Not from his bat, he was the botcher. With a man on first, John Buck hits a pretty easy fly to right which Abreu drops, the runner was clueless and was still returning to first when Abreu picked the ball up and lasered it in to second base at which time Robinson Cano decides that he wants to play hot potato and drop the throw. Luckily Moose, who was not so sharp coming off the DL, got the next guy to ground into an inning ending double play.
A few quick comments on the sports activity from last night and this morning. First, Did anyone else stay up forever to watch Agassi battle Baghdatis?? It was the most frustratingly exciting or excitingly frustrating match to watch as both players went from playing high level tennis-to-trying too hard not to lose-to-can I just get off this darn court. I was watching because I always get hooked into the US Open, there always seems to be something precious happening throughout the tournament. Last year's Agassi run was incredible to watch, Connors improbably run a few years back, some long exciting matches from Todd Martin come to mind...Always something. It was certainly heart wrenching though. Going from the point where he was in complete control of the match to down a break to start the 5th game...MAN, brutal. When Baghdatis started cramping, I thought he was done but he hobbled up and proceeded to RIP a return winner on Agassi's next serve, WHAT?!? Then Agassi went into 'don't screw up' mode and made some errors or gave Baghdatis some easy opportunities to go for the winner. In the end Agassi pulled it out and I can definitely see him bowing out next round, he limped off the court looking physically beaten...I hope he finds a way to continue this run, somehow.
On to the USA basketball loss to Greece. So much for all their attempts at restructuring the program. I guess we really should accept that we don't have the best in the world anymore, we are no longer the Dream Team. I certainly did not wake up at the ridiculous morning hour to watch and the previous games I watched confirmed that it would definitely not be worth it. How do you take some of the best individual players in the world offensively and mold them into a great basketball team. Well, I don't think it is possible with the guys they have. Lebron, Carmelo and Dwyane Wade are all very similar...They can get to the basket against almost anyone. But when they don't have the role player (like Steve Kerr, John Paxson, Jeff Hornacek) to kick the ball out to, what do they do?? They kick it to another slasher who will try to get to the basket. How about a dominate inside presence? Or some defensive stoppers? I like Kirk Hinrich on the team, and I think he performed pretty well in this game (4-7 from three with a couple steals) but certainly not enough.
Bring back MJ, Magic, Charles, Bird, Robinson, Malone...please replace the AND1 USA team.
