FREEDOM!!!

Watching the Yankees in the playoffs while the Mets sit at home is an exercise in restraint, mostly. Generally, I have to deal with all sorts of jeers and snibes and whatnot. And every time the Yankees stumble, or I say something derogatory (which happens often) about the wonderful Yankees, I'm generally lambasted with taunts of all kinds, calling me bitter, or jealous, or a hater, and that's about it, since Yankee fans are generally neither humorous nor imaginative with their insults. This year, I've just kept quiet. I know most of my Yankee fan friends are waiting for me to say something, waiting to let their frustrations out, but I've decided not to give anyone the satisfaction.

This year, I'd decided to simply ignore the Yankees in the hopes that they would eventually go away. I hadn't watched much of any of their playoff games. An inning here or there, at best. I saw virtually none of their series against Baltimore, therefore I wasn't subjecting myself to Raul Ibanez pulling wins out of his ass. But if they were able to squeak by Baltimore, a spunky, but lesser opponent, how would they fare against a powerful opponent like Detroit, who could hit and pitch, and may have been peaking.

Well, the result was that the Tigers humiliated the Yankees, sweeping them in 4 games where the Yankees scored in only three out of 36 innings and never once led in any of the 4 games. Still, I kept to my strategy, only breaking it to watch the final outs of the 2nd and 3rd games, and the 9th inning of this afternoon's finale. Each time, ex-Yankee Phil Coke came in and slammed the door, and celebrated by screaming and stomping around the mound in celebration. Today, he took his glove and fired it to the ground, perhaps the best glove toss since Jesse Orosco. So Schadenfreude reigns for the Mets fan tonight. It's now safe for me to open my mouth and come out of hiding. The Yankees are gone, and Baseball is Free.

The Yankee fan, of course, would probably complain that they had no chance after beautiful Derek Jeter got hurt, and A-Rod spending more time picking up women than hitting the baseball, but the fact is that when the entire Yankee team went in the tank offensively, credit has to be given instead to the Detroit Tiger pitching staff. Tiger starting pitchers allowed 2 runs in total, the other 4 runs the Yankees scored came off of Jose Valverde. The Yankees hit a miserable .157 for the series and Tiger pitchers threw to an 0.66 ERA in this washout. It doesn't matter what team you are. When you hit like that in a postseason series, you deserve to get swept. It's the Mets fan's good fortune that it happened to the Yankees this year.