If you needed any proof that the yankees are the luckiest team of all-time, I hope you saw the Matsui play from today's game. The yanks were up 6-0 with one out and the bases loaded in the eighth. Gordon had just come in to replace a struggling Sturtze. Natasha Hinske hit a fly ball, which Matsui caught in fairly shallow left field. Everyone prepared for a throw to the plate, as Hillenbrand was tagging up at third. Everyone except Matsui, that is. Thinking he'd just caught the third out of the inning, Hideki started jogging toward the infield. While his teammates yelled and waved their arms, Matsui just kept jogging, looking over toward the crowd, even pointing at which fan he wanted to give the ball to. At this point, Hillenbrand had scored easily. After what seemed like an eternity, Matsui, a second away from flipping the ball to a fan, noticed what everyone else in the park already knew. He quickly fired to third, as the runner at second decided to give it a shot. He was out, as Michael Kay made the call ("And it works out for the yanks!") and A-Rod gave a fist-pump ("We have achieved greatness, we are truly a superior team.")

If he had just gone one more second without hearing what I'm sure were really loud screams, he would've flipped that ball to the fan, and, since I'd watched Shannon Stewart actually do this in the Red Sox game a few minutes earlier, I guess the ump would have given everyone two bases (I don't remember how the ump's ruled Trot's gaffe). Or, had Hideki's snap throw not been right to the bag, the guy would have been safe at third. Either way, the Jays would've had a chance for more runs. Instead, the inning was over, and they went to the ninth trailing by five.

At least, for the second time in three days, they had to bring in Mariano when they really didn't want to. Then again, we had to bring in Schill today, in a game in which we had a seven run lead with two outs and no one on in the ninth.

But it was good to score eleven in a lineup that didn't feature Tek, Damon, Mueller, or, of course, Trot. And Manny's finally well into the 280s now. And yes, it is possible to hold all 100 Scrabble tiles in one hand. Just load it up slowly.