I have this theory called "never take Wake out." I know sometimes the knuckler just isn't working, and he really needs to come out. But in general, when you've got a guy who can pitch indefinitely, even if he's only kind of effective, keep him in. Why put into motion a series of events that ends with a lot of tired relievers (who also aren't as good as a Wakefield at his most mediocre)?

And they bring in Alan "El Capitan del Queso" Embree? Sheffield hardly took the bat off his shoulders against Wakefield. He even said this after the game: "I have no clue how to hit a knuckle ball."

Dale Sveum with a classic performance tonight. First he doesn't send the runner on Matsui, who made a two-hop, up the line throw home (described as "perfect" by Murcer). Then on the next two plays, he DOES send the runner, getting both tagged out by a total of twenty feet. By the way, they're really spinning this Matsui center field thing, making it sound like he's an All-Star quality center fielder on defense.

Jorge Posada tried to elbow Mark Bellhorn for no reason. The Hell, No cameras showed the replay a hundred times, begging the announcers to admit that it happened. They didn't bite. Did Remy and Orsillo mention this? How could they not have? Then when Damon was thrown out at the plate, Posada did another little cheap shot.

Before Dumbo Tynan's God Bless America, Bob Shepard gave his usual speech about the moment of silence for the people who died defending "our" way of life. (Uh, MY way of life differs from yours, which is what this country is all about.) But when did they add "bow your heads in prayer"? What the shit? Church and state, beotch. You can't make me pray. I'm surprised they don't have him say, "And now, bow your heads and pray to our lord Jesus for our fighting white men who died defending America so you can take up all the box seats that you just give to your secretary's brother-in-law who couldn't care less about baseball because you made a fortune bilking good people out of their money..." You get the picture.

The end of the game was the classic example of A. the ump being influenced by the crowd, calling a third strike on an outside pitch to hear the crowd roar, and B. the home team's network not showing a replay, using the excuse of, "Well, the games's over, there's no time for that."

Overall, this loss wasn't too horrible. We'll stop leaving runners on eventually. We hit the Unit pretty good.

This whole thing about the yanks going from last place to second place in May, man, I've been listening to these announcers, and it's really quite an accomplishment. It totally makes up for blowing a three-nothing lead in the playoffs to the team that their fans' whole lives were based opon being superior to. Totally. In fact, this makes that not even have happened any more.

Now I'm watching the Steinbrenner interview. I didn't realize it was 90 friggin' minutes. I will review it in my next post.