Apocalypse now

Yesterday's Yankee game was one for the books.

According to today's Times, the Yanks have never before surrendered 14 runs in a single inning. But they did yesterday. And ended up with possibly the most humiliating final score I've ever seen (22 to 4).

Throughout yesterday's game, I kept calling my father up and saying, "I can't believe what just happened. I just can't believe it!" (I called him so many times that he insisted I stop.)

Let's make it official, Yankee fans: You're in for a very long and painful season.

Of course, a part of me secretly delighted in how badly the Yanks lost it yesterday; it had the kind of morbid fascination of a train wreck. And I think that a good sportswriter should start shopping around a book, "2009: the Year the Yankees Fell Apart." (Heck, I'd buy it.)

It's not just the fact that the current Yankee roster is (Jeter and Posada aside) pathetic. It's not just that Girardi appears to have no idea how to lead this team. It's not that they have serious pitching problems. (The most immediate question: What to do with Chein-Ming Wang? I think the answer is pretty obvious: Send him down to the minors. Who the fuck cares if another team picks him up if he's pitching this badly?)

I think that this opening week at the new stadium bodes extremely badly for the franchise's future prospects.

One of the things I always detested about the Yankee's business model was the fact that they essentially bought their success.

Unlike a scrappy team like, say, the Oakland A's, who had limited budgets and would sift through the second run players to find the schlubby, but undervalued players, the Yankees never really had to do that. Alex Rodriguez is hitting 50 homers a season? Steinbrenner could afford the $275 million price tag.

But if you look at the Post's blog item I posted above, after the discussion of what to do with Wang, there's a photo of all the empty luxury boxes. My father went to the game on Friday and he said that there were a lot of empty seats. For the second game in the brand new stadium that's a very troubling sign.

Given how bad the economy is, I thin the Yankees are going to lose money hand over fist if their team sucks, too. And how are they going to buy their next winning team if they have no money?

The Yankee thread unravels...

The All Star Game (so far)

So far?

Boring.

You do, however, get a certain guilty pleasure in seeing just how fat/old the great ballplayers of your youth get. (Dare I say "schlubby"?) Most of them have not let themselves go -- but a few have. Tony Gwynn looked like he put on a ton! (Sorry Tony. Somebody had to say something.)

Golf. Schlubby or studly?

I have to admit, I'm a little torn on this one.

Golf is such a lazy man's game, you'd think that a schlub would do well with it.

You not only get to dress incredibly badly, you're actually encouraged to dress like a slob. You get to drive around in those little golf carts. It's one of the rare sports where you don't need to work up a sweat (or be that physically graceful) to do somewhat decently.

Count that in favor of it being somewhat schlubby.

(Also count in its favor Happy Gilmore. I think Happy definitely qualifies as a schlub.)

However, in my heart of hearts, I just don't believe it falls into schlub category.

For one thing, it's sooooo Waspy. Any game that Dan Quayle and George Bush excel at is one that we should just stay away from. (I think it's too respectable a sport, when you get right down to it.)

And, guys, am I the only one bored silly watching this junk?

A few years before he died, my grandfather once tried taking me golfing. We went to a driving range, he set up a ball and he let me swing away.

After what I thought was a decent swing, my ball dribbled about three feet from the tee -- and I looked down in utter embarrassment. Even though I continued wacking at the ball for the better part of an hour, I never did much better. I hopelessly sucked at golf. I couldn't wait for the day to end.

Maybe this is personal; maybe I should be more open minded (and I welcome any emails telling me why golf is the cat's meow) but I'm ruling this one studly.