I Bet Tadahito Iguchi Believes in Dinosaurs

Two nights ago, I watched the the Yanks' classic and then suddenly terrifying game from a bar on 14th street that, interestingly, combined a medieval motif with a beer pong table (a better idea than you think... kind of). I missed last night's game altogether and tonight's is looking unlikely too; as my father would (and probably will) say, where are my priorities? Well, this is what happens when you have close friends in town who selfishly think that, just because you only get to see them twice a year, you're supposed to miss late-season baseball games just to hang out with them. The nerve.

Watching Wednesday's game, it struck me just how profoundly unlikeable Randy Johnson really is - to the extent that, though I obviously wanted him to hold the lead, I really didn't care whether his no-hitter was broken up or not. By contrast, we have David Wells' perfect game and, even moreso, David Cone's, which I still find stressful to watch even now, though the outcome of each at bat isn't exactly in question. I was also reminded of Mike Mussina's heartbreaking gem in 2001, against the Red Sox, in which he took a perfect game into the 9th inning with two outs and two strikes before Carl "the Bible never says anything about dinosaurs" Everett, of all fucking people, got a clean hit. I'm still bitter, and honestly, if I were Mussina I probably would have had Everett killed. The point is that while massively talented and therefore interesting to watch, the Big Unit truly seems to be an enormous prick (pun unavoidable), and I'll be glad when he's off the team. I of course reserve the right to backtrack on this later if he starts pitching better.

Meanwhile, tempting though it may be, I don't want to make too much of the Red Sox's sweep at the hands of the always-intimidating Kansas City Royals; the same thing happened to the Yanks last summer, after all. The Red Sox, like last year's Yankee team, are flawed, but they're a lot better than they've been playing the last few weeks, and I imagine it's only a matter of time before they snap out of it.

Now, when I get home tonight and turn on Yankees encore, I want to see that insipid rally monky being torn limb from limb.