After one of the shittiest nights of the season, we had one of the most fun ones. It started when my mom called me from Boston to inform me she left her tickets to the game at home. Thanks to modern technology, and since these tickets were from my 10-game plan, I was able to make the tickets appear in her name at will call without even talking to another human.

Now you gotta realize that when Pineda pitched against us last time, it was my mom who called me to tell me I needed to use my pull(?) to contact Farrell in the dugout and make him call out the pitcher whose name in Russian is "Pine? Yes." So it was cool that she was in the stands for Pine II: Twin Pines Mall.

The super_tar started out poorly, and I joked to Kim that maybe he'd come out for the second inning with pine tar on his person like last time. Only it turned out not to be a joke. There was pine-crapple, with a big brown splotch on his neck! Farrell emerged from the dugout, and it was proverbially on. We at home knew right away, but it was fun to hear the crowd start to come to life as they slowly realized what was going on. The ump headed for the mound.

After checking the ball and making Pine-Saul-on-the-Hudson twirl around, Remy joked "they found it," since it was already so obvious. The umpire took his finger and did a swab Clara Barton would have been proud of, and then methodically tossed the pitcher out of the game, to the shock of nobody and the delight of all. Piney Pineda was grabbing some pine and pining for some class. (That stuff the Yankees always say they have but never seem to actually have.)

I'D LIKE TO INTERRUPT THIS BROADCAST SO WE CAN ALL BOW OUR HEADS AND REFLECT ON THE FACT THAT THIS WOULD N-E-V-E-R HAPPEN ON A DEREK JETER CAPTAINED TEAM.

So anyway, now the world is in stitches and I'm thinking of that scene in The Bird Cage, which I couldn't help but upload to YouTube during the game. Kim and I just couldn't believe how obvious this guy was being. I mean, who looks at a person's face? And wasn't it funny how after last time, everybody (on both sides) defended him, saying it's for grip, but when they asked the man himself, he said it was "dirt"?

My one regret was that Farrell didn't wait until the guy had given up about five more runs before pulling the trigger.

Lost in all this would be the fact that Jeter continues to be shitty. On a slow grounder up the middle, he moved over, squared it up...and it went off his glove and through his legs. With AJ running (or almost anyone else) it would have been an easy out. But I had no doubt they'd call it a hit. Nobody makes an error in the 2010s, and certainly not Our Father. But then he made one that the scorer had no choice on, throwing across to first and coming up so short that Teixeira couldn't even scoop it. (That led to a two-run inning.) Then he made yet another one-hop throw to first, also not handled, but it was on a DP try and he did have a runner coming at him. Still funny though. Then he took a one-hop throw from the pitcher at second, couldn't handle it, and thought that this ball had gone up and to his left, when it was on the ground and to his right. While he tried to block a ball at his right foot with his left shoulder (below), he almost got taken out by a sliding runner.


So it was a pret-ty good night for us. Our 4-0 lead felt like 10-0, and eventually Koji wrapped up Lackey's gem. 5-1 was your final.