baseball, ho-hum

I haven't written much about baseball this summer. The Yankees are in town, so we went to see if the Devil Rays could exact revenge for being pounded 17 to 3 last night. Alas, no. A score of 6 to 5 sounds like it should have been an exciting game, and I suppose it was mildly exciting for Yankees fans, but it was more like watching two wrestlers trying to get a grip on each other. I don't mean Saturday Night Rasslers. I mean real wrestling, Greco-Roman or collegiate style. Real wrestlers can look immobile but every muscle is straining for some advantage and a three-minute round feels like forever. Tonight, nine innings felt like forever.

The game featured no home runs and several attempted but unsuccessful double plays. The double play is the prettiest athletic move in any sport -- when it works. The Devil Rays shortstop, Julio Lugo, committed two errors and brought the game to a fitting conclusion when he was thrown out at second base in the bottom of the ninth with Carl Crawford at the plate. Was he stealing, or was he just told to run with two out and got caught? I hope some fool of a manager flashed a steal or a hit-run signal because if Julio thought that up on his own, he's history or ought to be. The game highlights consisted of a few doubles and a Carl Crawford triple earlier in the game. Back to my wrestling analogy, it was a few take-downs and a few escapes but no pin. They just ran out of time, thankfully.

I can't decide if the Rays deserve praise for keeping the game so close or if the Yankees really are that bad this year. The Yankees pitcher, a Korean with a fan club sitting behind us, kept a tight lid on Rays batters. By the time he'd thrown 47 pitches our guy had thrown 85 and should have come out. The Rays went two for three in their last trip to New York and the Yankees are returning the favor here at home, with the possibility of going three for three.

Here's an interesting side note: For the entire game we had two pubescent girls screaming their heads off three rows behind us. I'm glad to see girls so excited about baseball but their voices didn't wear out until the ninth inning. All night long it was, "Go Yankees, go, WHOOOOOOOOOOOO." "Go, Matsui, you can do it, WHOOOOOOOOOOOO." I can't spell that whoop at the end the way it came out of their throats but it was primal and it was tiresome, another argument for staying home and watching the game on TV. But, the Red Sox will be in town next week. That should be more interesting, or at least the possibility of bench-clearing brawls should be greater, and duty will call us back to one more live game before the season wears down.