Yankees Kick Dallas Braden Off Their Mound

Yankees 5, Oakland Athletics 0. CC Sabathia went 8, allowed 1 hit, and notched his 19th win of the season, matching last year's regular-season total. Curtis Granderson got 2 hits. Both of them home runs. And Jorge Posada hit one out off the Oakland starter.

Dallas Braden. Remember him?

Hey! Braden! You got blown off my mound! You twit!

I have nothing against the A's, but smacking Braden around felt good.

Attendance was 44,644. Damn good for a really hot Thursday afternoon.

The Yankees start a 3-game series tomorrow afternoon, hosting those pesky Toronto Blue Jays. Hurricane Earl permitting, of course. (An afternoon game on a Friday? I thought they only did that at Wrigley Field.)

The Yankees are a game and a half ahead of the Tampa Bay Rays now, one game in the loss column. The Rays were not scheduled for today. The Magic Number to clinch the AL East is 28. Which, of course, is the Magic Number the Yankees are really shooting for, their 28th World Series win.

The Rays start a series in Baltimore tomorrow, so they're likely to get at least 2 out of 3, unless Buck Showalter can work his magic. Then the Orioles come up to Yankee Stadium for 3 starting on Monday, Labor Day, so that should be at least 2 of 3 for the Yanks. By the close of action on Labor Day, the Magic Number should be down to at least 24.

*

Rutgers' football season is underway at this hour. They're hosting Norfolk State University, a "historically black" college in Virginia, at Rutgers Stadium.

I'm not there, but my season-ticketed father is. He's only half-there for the football, also half-there because he loves marching bands. Each of the last few years, Rutgers has played a Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference team: Historically black, Division I-AA (or whatever that's called now), and with a badass band. This is the 2nd time they've played Norfolk State, and they've also played Howard University of Washington D.C. twice, and they've faced Morgan State of Baltimore once. The league also includes Delaware State University, the University of Maryland-Eastern Shore, North Carolina A&T, North Carolina Central and South Carolina State.

R!

U!

(No, they tend not to spell out R-U-T-G-E-R-S. They just use the initials "RU" for "Rutgers University." Not "RSUNJ" or "RTSUNJ" for "Rutgers, (The) State University of New Jersey.")