I Must Be In The Front Row

Wednesday, August 2, 2006
Home Game 54
Yankees 7 Toronto 2
Subway Race Winner: WW
Cap Game: #2



There aren't many chances to catch a ball during the game in my usual seats. Sure, there's always batting practice, but I'm not doing that again anytime soon. So, I figured with my seat last night (first row, right behind the tarp) I would have a shot at something. Unfortunately only one ball came close. Bottom of the first, Jeter is up. First pitch he pops up to the down the first base line in foul territory. I can see the ball coming my way. As it's coming down I can tell it's going to land very close to me. All I can picture is getting thwacked in the head again. The ball keeps going past me, but I cower and cover my head anyway. It comes down 4 seats to my right and I hear a bit of commotion. I look up and see Alex Rios and his glove with the ball inside. (Thanks to Bronx Banter poster randym77 for the screen shots.) The fans gave the guy shit for letting Rios catch the ball. After awhile, I thought about it, and I was going to cut the guy a little slack because he was kind of small and Alex is a very large man. But after seeing the replay, the guy should've tried a little harder.

Can't say enough about Wang. Listening to the post-game on the drive home, Waldman was talking about how Guidry and Wang have been working well together. After a shaky second inning, Guidry was talking to him on the bench. He settled down in the third and was brilliant the rest of the way.

Jeter got the Yanks on the board in the 3rd, with a home run to center. In the 6th, A-Rod led off with a double to left. He really should have stopped at first, but he thought he could make it to second so he kept going. Catalanotto played the ball well, fired into second and had Alex out by a good 20 feet. But he made a nifty head-first swim slide and got around the tag. (I had mistakenly had my camera on the wrong setting and instead of getting a picture, I got this half-second video clip.) While it may not have been smart to make that turn for second, I like the aggression I'm seeing from A-Rod lately. And now that it seems like Torre will be batting Abreu third, I think Alex will be a lot more comfortable at the plate.

So, with A-Rod on second, Posada then hit a 2-run dinger to deep left, into the Blue Jays' bullpen. And that opened the flood gates. The Yanks batted around, scoring 6 runs. Cairo was the only Yankee without a hit last night. Both Wilson and Abreu recorded their first hits as Yankees. Wilson looks thinner than I expected him to be.

Villone came in to pitch the 9th, and unfortunately gave up a 2-run shot to Glaus to break the shut-out. But it didn't bother me too much. The Yanks win and stay ahead of Boston by a small margin.

Random Notes
– Before the game there was a moment of silence for Thurman Munson. Last night was the 27th anniversary of death. They also played a video tribute in the 7th inning. I wasn't old enough to remember when it happened, but I still get a little choked up whenever they play those old clips.

– A-Rod was wearing wristbands with Posada's number on it. I've heard of him doing this a couple other times. I'll have to keep and eye out to see if it's an every day thing.

– The MVP chants are starting for Jeter, much like they did for Alex around this time last year.

– A man and his son from New Orleans were sitting behind me. Nice guy. They were here on vacation and said that they couldn't go to New York without taking in a Yankee game. I like talking to out-of-towners that are here for the first time. Most of the time they have no rooting interest in the game so they tend to just appreciate the experience of being at the Stadium rather than get emotionally involved with the outcome.

– When the team was doing their post-game fist-knocking, 6'10" Randy Johnson held his hand way up for 5'11" Melky so he had to jump up to slap it. I don't know if they always do this or if Randy decided to have some fun with Melky. Either way, it was a funny sight. Something an older brother would do to a younger sibling.

In attendance record: 23-13