Friday, May 21, 2010

Yankees Own the City -- and Citi Field

Ballgame over! Yankees win! Theeeeeeee Yankees win!

Yankees 2, Other Team 1.

Great performance from Javier Vazquez -- in a National League park, right, Bud Abbott? "Naturally!"

Kevin Russo, not exactly a household name outside his own household, doubled home a pair in the 7th.

The bullpen was masterful in relief of Javy, including a great job by Joba Chamberlain, who really needed to give us a great job and did.

The Mets made it interesting in the bottom of the 9th, on back-to-back 2-out doubles by Jason Bay and Ike Davis, the Met fans' Great Ike Hope, but Mariano got the increasingly pathetic David Wright to ground out to end it.

The Yankees are now 4-0 all-time at Citi Field. Or, should I say, Pity Field. The Mets at their new home ballpark, all-time, are now 54-48. Not a very good home record, is it?

They built their Citi on something less than rock and roll, didn't they? So the Yankees don't just own New York City, and the entire New York Tri-State Area, they own Citi Field, too!

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Additional good news for the Yankees: Tampa Bay lost, and Boston lost.

Additional bad news for the Mets: The team that beat the Red Sox? The Phillies.

Interleague play allows Minnesota vs. Wisconsin, a rivalry that's pretty hot in the NFL, college football and college hockey, but was never really much in baseball, because the Minnesota Twins and the Milwaukee Brewers were hardly ever both good at the same time between 1970 (when the Seattle Pilots became the Brewers) and 1997 (after which the Brew Crew got bumped over to the National League).

Well, tonight, somebody forgot to tell the Brewers that you gotta come out of the clubhouse to play the ballgame. The Twins scored 7 runs in the bottom of the first at Target Field, and haven't looked back. The Twins led 15-0 before the Brewers closed to within 15-3. I know both States are football-crazy, but that's a football score.

Interleague play also allows a "rivalry" that really wasn't much of one from 1954 to 1971: Baltimore vs. Washington. The Orioles beat the Nationals tonight.

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The Red Bulls lost to the Columbus Crew last night. Thierry Henry is still just a rumor to us.

But the schedule for the New York Football Challenge, at Red Bull Arena in Harrison, has been released:

Day 1, Thursday, July 22: Red Bulls vs. Tottenham Hotspur – 8:00 PM
Day 2, Friday, July 23: Manchester City vs. Sporting Lisbon – 8:00 PM
Day 3, Sunday, July 25: Tottenham Hotspur vs. Sporting Lisbon – 1:00 PM; Red Bulls vs. Manchester City – 3:30 PM (one ticket for both matches)

The Challenge Winning Team will be the side with the most accumulative points scored from its two games. Points are scored as follows:

- Individual game winner – 3 points
- Drawn game – 1 point
- Goals scored – 1 point per goal

With the Newark area's large Portuguese community eager to see one of their motherland's "Big Three," the house will be rocking during Sporting's two appearances. And I really, really hope that the Red Bulls get Henry signed in time to face the fucking Spurs. And he can also show Emmanuel Adebayor of Man City what a former Arsenal player should play, and act, like.

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