I guess I asked for it when I asked for the Designated Swisher Rule, but it looks like Nick Swisher is about to become the Yankees' everyday right fielder while Xavier Nady gets his elbow fixed. This could prove problematic if Teixiera's wrist keeps bothering him...everybody get your Stephen Colbert "WristStrong" bracelets on and try to keep Tex's wrist, well, strong.
Meanwhile, the Yankees ride a winning record into the Interactive Yankeetainment Experience, thanks to the combined efforts of the left side of their infield, Jeter driving in Ransom. Hopefully the ghosts choose to look the other way on the whole "crime against baseball and humanity" thing, and the whole so the team can continue to build on its reasonably strong start. The Curse of Clay Bellinger is enough to cope with...the last thing we need is an additional curse, no matter how understandable this one might be.
Well, remember, on April 18, 1923, the Yankees beat the Red Sox to christen Yankee Stadium, with Babe Ruth hitting the first home run. That's right, Babe Ruth hit the first, Melky Cabrera hit the last...as Hamlet would say, what a falling off was there. At any rate, 85 years from now, when they're tearing down the Interactive Yankeetainment Experience because it only has one Hard Rock Cafe and one high-priced steakhouse, whose name will be tossed about as the guy who hit the first home run, who notched that first strikeout, who killed the first rally by hitting into a DP (oh, A-Rod's not back yet, forget that one)?
Who will wax nostalgic about the good old days, when we had only one Great Hall to honor the same tradition we were simultaneously pissing all over, and we liked it? Who will tell the youngsters of 2094 what life was like when all it took to get a seat behind home plate was $2650 and a dream (i.e. between 100 and 200 times what it cost 15 years ago, mind you...is he team 200 times better?), plus the desire to watch the game through the screen, if you watched at all.
True grandeur is understated. It cannot be ignored, but it cannot be ignored because of its imposing presence, not because of its bombastic pretentiousness. Can the Interactive Yankeetainment Experience do quiet dignity? Or any kind of dignity? I guess we'll see. Yankee Stadium was, as the Jacob Ruppert plaque said, an "imposing edifice," even as remodeled, its stony portals, muted but monumental, standing watch over all who dared enter. The tall upper deck that must have felt, to an outfielder, like it had placed its many thousands of screaming occupants directly over your head, cast long, forbidding shadows and lent a sense of drama and urgency to all that transpired below. The minuscule foul territory down the lines made the Big Ballpark in the Bronx feel like an alleyway, no escape for those mere mortals who dared ply the corners of both infield and outfield. There was no need to bash fans and players over the head with the Yankee tradition. You simply breathed it, smelled it, sensed it. You were in the presence of greatness, whether this year's team was providing it or not. No goofy oversized letters were needed inside to tell you this was Yankee Stadium. The goofy oversized letters outside were the most flamboyant the old Stadium knew how to be, which by today's standards looked like a gray flannel suit, white shirt, skinny black tie.
And speaking of that, I need to go to work. Like, now.
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make ye free (of thy money, which thou shalt give to Steiner and the Yankees).
