I'll be in the right field bleachers tonight for Trot's return. Will be nice to see that ol' number 7 in front of me. Oh, wait, we've got that now--but I'm talkin' about the real number 7. I still can't believe Drew dared to ask for it, or that the team gave it to him, while 21 sits in a dusty closet.

I hope seeing the visiting right fielder cheered louder than him will motivate Drew to, you know, be good.

Pics of the nine inning love-fest to come later.

Was yesterday fun or what? I saw the last few innings of the Yanks on mlb.tv. Proctor came in with a one-run lead and walked in the tying and go-ahead runs. Then, with the Yanks down one in the ninth, with two out, Derek Jeter came up. What a great feeling that is for me, being able to absolutely root for Jeter to come up as the potential game-winning run, knowing how sweet it will be if he fails, and that if he comes through, oh well, what are they, a dozen back? Michael Kay, with no other hope for the season, opted to go for the Emmy with Jeter up. He acted like it was the seventh game of the World Series. It was a fairly long at bat, I'll give him that, but was it "epic"? No. But that's what he and Singleton kept saying. Kay went as far as to say "neither man wants to lose." They really were trying to give the casual fan the impression that all things between pitcher and hitter, home team and road team were equal, and they both fought hard, but only one would be allowed to come out on top, unfair as that seems. And this was after Posada pinch hit, prompting Kay to say that the crowd of 53,000 roared its approval. Let me just set the record straight. This was a game in May between a first place team and a team that's a dozen games out. The crowd, which had dwindled to half its size--which wasn't as big as you'd expect on a sunny Sunday in late spring in the first place--, gave one last desperate cheer when they saw Posada, one of two Yankees who still knows how to hit. Then Jeter had a pretty good at bat against K-Rod, and flied out to end the game. That was it. No bullshit "battle of wills." Just the final piece of the Angels' sweep of a rundown bunch of Yanks, who promptly fled the country afterwards.

After all that, as if justice even needed to be served, we watched as Dustin Pedroia had the kind of at bat against Eric Gagne that Michael Kay wished he'd been watching. Only Dustin ended his by hitting a key home run, giving the Sox an insurance run that turned out to be crucial on our way to a sweep of Texas. We're now 11.5 up on second-place Baltimore, and 12 on third-place Toronto.