Sure hope the Yankees have learned their lessons with the boxing match. The field is shredded and someone is going to get hurt. Payoff can't be worth it.

So Roy Halladay gets touched up, but Jamie Moyer baffles everyone in pinstripes. Gotta love baseball.

On being a Yankees fan

It's not hard.

As a Yankees fan, you expect a certain level of play, of player. Yes, we've had four players, five, more, that don't come around all that often, with the right style of play and temperament and so on.

But for all the good/greatness the Yankees have, there's one thing that drives me nuts, and it played out during the Astros series. Yeah, the Astros stink, the team's two best players want out ... but it's still an MLB franchise, worth many millions.

Yet the NY media treats the Houston delegation as if they're a bunch of country bumpkins who never dun seen no skahscrapper befer.

Suzyn (seriously, Suzyn?) Waldman asked the Astros beat writer to describe the pitching matchup of yesterday's game, 8-1 Phil Hughes, 23, rising star, and Brian Moehller, journeyman, a bit of a junkballer ... the implication, of course, being the Astros would see Hughes stride toward the mound and wet themeselves with fear, and the Yankees would laugh mightily at the silly mortal sacrificed to them upon the bloody mound-altar.

Well, in a rain-soaked game with a pretty sketchy strike zone (for both sides) the Yankees did win, they did score nine runs, but Hughes didn't exactly look untouchable, surrendering five runs of his own, including a two-run rocket to Kevin Cash, of all people.

The fact is, the Yankees have significant resources to scout, sign and retain talent. Not everything works, but they can fix their problems a lot easier than most other teams. It just takes brains and savvy and luck to turn that giant pile of money into success, which they've done more recently.

For all the supposed even-handedness of the Yankees broadcasters, the sideline/clubhouse reports are so grating, so pointless, so uninformative and so understandably irritating to outsiders and fans of teams that rise and fall, but mostly fall.

And another thing ...

If World Cup refs need a lesson in curse words, I'm free to teach them some, possibly all of them. In context, too.

Bad loss, but it gets worse

World Cup starts today. In a word:

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Also, Burnett can't give up a run or runs in the same situation a rookie escapes ... just can't. Of course, it's a different discussion if he doesn't mistake every first-inning batter for the catcher's glove.

Love and generosity

Also, I landed me one of those special design Yankees T-shirts.

Dis one ...

It's little out of my element, but I like it.

The Mrs. got the Teixeira shirt.

Dis one ...

Rain rain go away

I remember trying to play baseball in rain.

It is, to say the least, unpleasant, forget about difficult.

That said, the O's have to win that game. The Yanks looked disinterested and tired, and the O's starter was looking pretty good, 'cept for those squirter curves he was chucking toward the plate.

You get a couple guys on and the hottest hitter in baseball, you lead evaporates thanks to a chopper and the rest is history.

I wonder what it must be like to play for a team that finds so many interesting and inevitable ways to lose.

Anybody notice ...

That Strasterheimburg guy pitched for the Nationals last night.

I think he did OK. I didn't see anything on ESPN this morning that overshadowed coverage of two finals series and, puke, the World Cup, which I think the rest of the world cares about a little.

I bailed on the Yanks last night when it 12-3. I wake up to 12-7 final, WTF? How do you allow a team like the Orioles, hopeless and heartless, to creep back into that game?

Phil Use (welcome back Michael Kay) gave another solid performance, while John Sterling once again proved he has neither shame, nor dignity. A "Granderson slam"? Grandy Man Slam would have been worse, I guess.

Give Sterling credit. He has a great job, he knows it and he loves, even if he goes too far sometimes. I criticize because I'm jealous.

Or not. Window opened and closed real fast. AJ didn't have much.

No Michael Kay, no umpire impersonators. Gonna be a good night.

Blown call is one thing. Blown perfect game is completely unacceptable.

Where have you been?

I've been here ... you know, thinking about blogging, but not actually doing so.

Lappy blew out and the boss man doesn't necessarily like it when I post from my phone. So, I'm either late, or absent. Sigh.

Anyway, the Yanks are hot again, reassembling their lineup - is there a guy nicer or more polite than Curtis Granderson? Pretty good player too - and working out their pitching. Sabathia and Vasquez have been mediocre and less than good, Burnett has been up and done, but old dog Andy Pettitte and Phil Hughes - the probable ace of the staff - have been rock solid.

People get all worked up about Mariano Rivera. Yeah, he's 40, but 24-year-old closers get hit, too. The guy is healthy and smart and even if he's lost a few miles on his fastball, last night's performance was vintage.

Nick Markakis spun himself into the ground trying to dodge a heat-seeker and dribble a grounder. Ty Wigginton flailed at an outside pitch and did the same, although he didn't luck as chuckly as the Yankees did when he refused to be tagged out.

It took a while for the Yankees to get their act together last year and that turned out pretty well. This year, they're deeper and younger and more athletic.

If I were building the lineup, I'd have Gardner hitting ninth and Swisher hitting second. There's talk of Gardner being hesitant to run when Tex and A-Rod hit, but that wouldn't be a problem with Jeter and Swisher. Jeter shoots the secondbase hole naturally and Swisher has better plate discipline. Gardner on the move would be less of distraction. And at the plate, Gardner would likely feel less pressure to try to hit the hole if Jeter were on base.

Did I mention I love having Curtis Granderson on the Yanks? I do. It's just, please John Sterling, with the singing, please, stop.