Finally, Some Baseball on tap

For some reason, off days during the post season feel longer and more drawn out than those in the actual off-season.

Aside from the off-days which provide for cross-country travel, the other off-days seem an absurdity, especially when one considers that baseball is a sport that is predicated on the ability to play every day.

Really, even with the delay caused by the WBC, there's no good reason we should not have at least already started the next round by now.

Ah, well, at long last the Yankees can try again for a trip to the World Series tonight.

It is only a game six, but I don't think there's a single fan out there that would suggest the mood is anything less than a game seven atmosphere. There are too many reasons to not go to a game seven that might actually make this game the biggest must-win game of the season.

Now, just in case you're worrying, that's no reason to get negative.

After all, the Yankees are back in New York, they have their most experienced postseason pitcher on the mound, a rested bullpen, and CC Sabathia in their back pocket.

This is 2009, not any other year that might be entering your memory.

The Yankees have every conceivable advantage tonight; it's up to them to make it matter.

At long last, we have baseball.

Make the Turnpike Dream a Reality

Okay, not that "turnpike" and "dream" should ever really be used in the same sentence, but here we go.

End the ALCS tonight.

Don't let it linger, don't let it go back to New York.

There will be at least two more games at Yankee Stadium this season, but I don't want those two games to be played this round.

Close this out, and once and for all excise 2004. Excise it from our conscience, excise it from our memory. Get rid of it, and everything it symbolizes.

We want to remember what it is to feel that glory.

We want to vicariously join you in that dog pile, to know euphoria.

We've been waiting since Tuesday, since April, since, well, you know.

We don't want to wait any longer.

Jersey beckons.

Just in case you weren't pumped up enough

***

The Jersey girl in me is positively squeeing at the possibility of a Turnpike Series, and a chance for some North Jersey domination.

[Congratulations to the Phillies on their NLCS win. The best NL team is going to the World Series and you can't ask for more than that.]

You Yankee fan, you're either amped up or dead

You wait all season for this: October baseball. It is the promised land.

Today, as one tweeter put so well, is like Christmas except you don't have to buy anyone presents or go to Church (unless you count Yankee Stadium as Church, in which case you want to go).

This is where the Yankees belong on game one of the 2009 postseason: In front of a raucous crowd of 45,000(+) fans, on a cool October night, with CC Sabathia on the mound and every single person living and breathing baseball.

Some will call us spoiled, we only had to wait one year, but even one year without baseball in the Bronx in October is one year too many. So tonight, we celebrate the return, however shortly-awaited it may have been.

You might be cheering from the stands, from the bleachers, from a bar or from your living room, but you will be cheering, because this is what it means to be a Yankee fan.

You'll be cheering every Sabathia strike, yelling epithets after every first pitch swing by a Yankee batter and still confused that Jose Molina will be starting playoff games in a five game series.

You've actually looked at plane tickets from JFK to Minnesota, even if they cost more than all you currently have in your bank account.

You're ducking out of work or class early because you just can't fathom missing the first pitch.

You can't think about anything but baseball.

You're a Yankee fan, and you're either amped up, or you're dead.


****

Some deity out there has smiled unnaturally on me, and I'll be at games one and two. If you're going and would like to say hi, send me a tweet or an email and I'll do my best. I can't provide live coverage of the games, but I will come back bearing photos, I promise!