The Smelly Lounge

BEAT THE TIGERS!

Hmm. Feels funny without the Red Sox.

7:20: First pitch: Granderson fouls into the stands. Wang has the ball up! Danger! Danger!

Jim Leyland supposedly called the Yankee line-up "Murderer's Row and Cano." As they say, Nice, if true.

7:22: Granderson flies to Matsui. Okay, now I'm panicking. Get the ball down!

7:23: Comebacker to Wang. Okay, I feel a little better.

7:25: Sean Casey, Mr. Nice Guy, grounds to Cano. Easy inning.

7:25: Okay, I'm worried. No stupid Fox tie-in yet, no ESPN cross-promotion, not one reference to doing something completely useless on a Cingular cell phone. Where's Kiefer Sutherland? Where's the "War at Home" guy (you know, the chunky one who screwed things up with Martha Plimpton in Beautiful Girls)?

7:29: Jeter singles to left. I'm feeling foolish, knowing that, over on ESPN.com, Bill Simmons is doing this same thing much better, and before an audience of thousands. Astrogirl, SunDevilJoe, RobbieBoy, Cannil, Langston, Chumley Felix: Welcome. You too, John "Alan Trammell is God" Harvey. You notice I've gone for a smaller, more intimate room. One of the great losses of my life was missing out on those smelly old Vegas lounges where Redd Foxx would walk in and do a set at 3 a.m. for a half-dozen drunks, the one broke tourist hiding from his wife and the one guy trying to pick up the girl who looked like Peter Boyle. Gentlemen, welcome to the Smelly Lounge.

7:30: Buck gives us the obligatory "Melky/Phillips/Moose came through when Matsui/Sheff/Wright blah blah blah" rendition. Watching on MLB.com, on ESPN, and now on FOX, I've probably heard about 15 different broadcast teams perform it. Buck is nicely brief. And: Nice to get the refrain out of the way early.

7:35: Commercial. Tommy Lasorda pulls a pouty Red Sox fan out of the restroom by pointing out that she can root against the Yankees. LOL, as the kids say.

7:37: Ordonez doubles off the wall. Wang. Ball. Down. You. Now.

7:40: Is there any conceivable reason that Wang walked Guillen to get to Pudge? Anybody?

7:42: Pudge swings through; Posada comes up with the first big play of the night by throwing out Ordonez at third.

7:47: The Moment, part one of who knows how many. A-Rod at bat, runner on first . . .

7:50: . . . full count . . .

7:51: . . . And A-Rod hits a screamer that Polanco jumps to catch, nearly doubling Giambi off.

A-Rod now reminds me of what Jim Murray once said of boxer Floyd Patterson: "He's the employee who's always spilling soup on the boss's wife."

8:02: First and third, one out, Polanco at bat . . . and . . . YES! Double play, Jeter to Cano to Sheffield, into a split.

8:04: The commercial for Borat comes on. "Borat" finishes the ad by saying, "If my movie isn't successful, I will be executed."

The fair Tammie asks me, "What's that about?"

Me: "This new movie."

TFT: "Yeah, but what'd he say?"

Me: "That if his movie isn't successful he'll be executed."

TFT: "Oh. Then we'd better go."

Me: "No. I mean we can go, but that was just part of the movie."

TFT: "So who is he?"

Me: "He plays an Iranian, I think?"

TFT: "And he'll be executed?"

Me: "Only in the movie."

TFT: "So we'd better go see it."

Me: "We can see it if you want."

TFT: "So he doesn't get executed."

Me: "No, it's part of the movie he's executed."

TFT: "So we'd better go see it."

Imagine five more minutes of this.

8:14: Abreu doubles to right-center, sending Damon and Jeter home. I turn to TFT and say, "Wow! Nobody out! And here comes Sheff, Giambi, A-Rod!"

TFT: "A-Rod batting sixth? Wow. What did he do?"

Me: "Nothing. I've got it figured out. Torre's going lefty-righty, to throw off the kid."

TFT: "But why put A-Rod down?"

Me: "It was either sixth or fourth. Maybe Sheff matches up better. They may be trying to relax A-Rod."

TFT: "Is Torre giving him a time-out?"

Me: "No."

TFT: "Did he smart off?"

Me: "I really doubt it."

8:18: Sheff sends Abreu home on a single. 3-0.

8:19: Giambi . . . into the bleachers. 5-0.

8:21: A-Rod singles, in maybe the most gratifying at-bat of the inning. A city exhales. Two hard-hit balls, one hit.

8:35: Torre, from the dugout, goes into his, "Well, we're playing well and the guys are seeing the ball well, I like my chances," just as Jeter goes to 3-for-3. Torre resists the urge to laugh and say, "Christ, who am I kidding? Robertson? Next inning the grounds crew will have to drag the warning track."

The only good thing about Berman working the Cards-Padres game today is that he'll be far away from Bristol, and thus unable to say: "DEREK! JETER! MAYBE THE GREATEST CLUTCH PLAYER OF HIS GENERATION!"

8:38: On a hit-and-run, Abreu dives out of the way of a hit-and-run, hanging Jeter up. We've heard the Abreu-is-soft stories since he came over from Philly. Yah think?

8:45: Monroe homers. 5-1. I'm waiting for McCarver's dissertation on Wang's sinker and it's not coming.

8:50: Palonco doubles in Inge. 5-2. Reason for concern.

8:52: Casey doubles in Palonco. 5-3. Real reason for concern.

9:02: I love this stuff. As Leyland is interviewed in the dugout, Giambi is hit--and it requires every ounce of self-control fro Leyland not to turn and scream. God, but does he need a smoke. A-Rod is up . . .

9:03: And becomes Robertson's first strikeout victim. I'm not kidding; tonight seems to be designed for A-Rod's humiliation. First, Wendlestadt waits so long to ring A-Rod up that A-Rod is actually set in his batter's stance for the next pitch when the fist comes up. Second, Wendlestadt's ring-up seems one especially designed for tonight--literally, a punch directed at A-Rod's head, like something out of the Three Stooges. Right now, in the movie of this Yankees season, A-Rod is played by either young Ray Milland or young Tony Randall. (Just to round it out, Jeter is played by Cary Grant. Giambi is Alan Hale, Jr., the Skipper from "Gilligan's Island." Mo Rivera is Jack Palance from his Shane days. Wang is Bruce Lee. Torre is Gary Cooper. Cano is Denzel Washington. Matsui is Jackie Chan. Melky is Cantinflas. Sheff is . . . who? Marcel from Pulp Fiction. Jorge is Ray Romano. Damon. Okay, Damon has me stumped.)

9:10: Three-and-oh to Guillen, Wang throws a sinker that sinks to the middle of the plate, belt-high. Thankfully, Guillen is taking all the way. And then the ground-out.

9:19: More Rivera talk. Yeah. If Rivera can't work two innings at all . . . troubles.

9:20: Another Denzel shot. Damn, don't tell me he doesn't have something coming up on Fox! Does he guest-star on "Prison Break"? Sit down with Chris Wallace to discuss Mark Foley? Anything?

9:21: Jeter doubles, going 4-for-4 and sending Damon to third. A-Rod's single is looming bigger and bigger, if you look at it a certain way.

9:23: Two-run RBI by Abreu, scoring two runs. 7-3. Robertson leaves.

9:34: And now Wang leaves. My absolute favorite TV crowd shot: a standing ovation for a hometown pitcher as he leaves after a strong start. Yes, even better than the gallery shot at the Master's after a closing putt (think Nicklaus's eagle on 17 in '86, Lefty's birdie on 18 two years ago). It is amazing how many TV producers frame the shot from the crowd's point of view, and show only the player. Unbelievable.

9:38: I could see why Torre took out Wang--Monroe had hit a home run off him already. So Myers comes in . . . and gives up a home run to Monroe. Out goes Myers, in comes Proctor . . .

9:42: Base hit for Polanco. Wang had thrown ninety-three pitches. Now, 2-0 to Casey. You're kidding me.

9:44: Casey sends Polanco over to third. Tying run to the plate. Wang looks like he could come back in and pitch. This is potentially Pedro '04 in reverse.

9:46: Ordonez flies out, on the sort of chest-high-fastball-to-coax-an-easy-pop-fly pitch that Proctor had tried to get away with all inning. Wang unwinds by practicing flips off the parallel bars. And now . . .

9:47: The Yankees' tenth man, Ronan Tynan, comes in to freeze out the Tigers' pitcher by singing all 15 stanzas of "God Bless America." This is followed by "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." After 9/11 The Yankees' post-season seventh-inning stretch was stretched to such length, Ron Gardenhire of the Twins complained in 2003, saying his pitcher (Brad Radke, as I remember) stiffened in the chilly Bronx autumn. When the teams repaired to Minneapolis for Game 3 of the series, I half-expected the Twins to trot out "This Land is Your Land," followed by readings from The Best of Al Franken, followed by Garrison Keillor walking to home plate to say, "It's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon . . ."

9:53: Lead-off walk to Giambi--but oddly, no pitch-runner. Preserving Giambi's bat, just in case? Or in recognition of Giambi's tippy-toe steal a few innings previous. And now, oh, A-Rod . . .

9:56; . . . hits his third hard ball of the night, his second straight at a Twins' defender. One for four. Thank God for that single.

9:58: Posada, a loud single. Matsui, who erased Giambi on a fielder's choice, goes to third. This batting order is something else.

10:02: Cano misses a three-run dinger by thismuch. On to the eighth.

10:04: Okay, are we supposed to pretend that William Shatner, with that thing on his head, is the same Captain Kirk from 25 years ago? No? Good.

10:05: In comes the start of Torre's Hands Team. Phillips to first.

10:06: And a big post-season hello to Kardiac Kyle Farnsworth. Hello, lead-off walk. TFT, with memories of last-season's five-run, two-home run, one grand-slam, late-inning Astro comeback against Farnsworth when he played for the Braves, thinks she recognizes a familiar face.

TFT: "Isn't he the one who . . ."

Me: "Yes."

TFT: "Who last year against the . . ."

Me: "Yes."

10:15: One on (his lead-off walk), two out. Pop-up to (who else) Jeter. Kardiac Kyle . . . a scoreless eighth!

10:20: Derek Jeter. I say, "You know, 5-for-5 would be cool," whereupon Jeter deposits the ball over the centerfield fence, some 415 feet away. Yankee Stadium goes into full meltdown. M-V-P. De-rek Je-ter. You know it's a good night when you start envisioning the next day's Daily News headline: CAPTAIN COURAGEOUS! No. M-V-POW! Maybe. CAP'N CRUNCH! Ah, been done.

10:30: Mo works a scoreless ninth, allows one hit. Actually, a crazy, 26-hit game. The Yanks should be happy they escaped. And that Jeter was on their side.