Orioles 10, Yankees 5

Perhaps ask Obama if he's got another "Reset" button around. Can we have a do-over and start the season over tomorrow?

The old legend of living in Brooklyn is that one could walk down Flatbush Avenue and hear--through a series of open windows--an uninterrupted Red Barber narrative of that afternoon's or evening's Dodger game. The modern version of this phenomenon exists in every available media form, as witness today. To start, the first few innings on the YES network, during which CC Sabathia seemed determined to earn all 10 trillion dollars of his contract in his first thirty pitches, and succeeded in two wild pitches, one that hit the brick backstop so hard it bounced back like a raquetball, and I thought seriously for an instant Posada could have cut down the runner at third. With a little help from Jeter, CC fought his way out of an inning, at which time two possibilities arose: 1. "Baltimore missed its chance, CC is about the settle down; 2. It's only a matter of time, he's staving off the inevitable."

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Door Number 2, which I witnessed via the internet at work. Then, more damage the hard way, in one of those insidious Sports Flashes where Golden Throat starts off, "The Yankees scored two more in the sixth . . . (Cool! Too more in the sixth!) . . . but still trail the Birds, six to three."

Okay, just die, Radio Guy. And calling them "the Birds" isn't fresh, it doesn't show you're smart, so shut up! Shut shut shut shut shut up!

Off to Minute Maid and the wooden scoreboard. I should tell you our seats this year are at an odd angle, so the innings and the runs in each inning do not quite measure up. When the Yankees scored to come within 6-5 in the seventh, I thought it was in the eighth. When they scored zero runs in the eighth, I thought, therefore, the game was over.

So only when the Orioles scored four runs in the bottom of the eighth did I realize it was the eighth . . .

. . . which meant the game was not only not over . . .

It was worse than not over, it was not over plus a crucial portion of the 2009 Yankee squad, the keep-a-deficit-close portion of the bullpen, had officially crapped the bed in the first game of the season.

All this, meanwhile, was while Astros v. Cubs, Oswalt v. Zambrano, was unfolding.

First inning: Alfonso Soriano hits the ball 350 feet into the runway behind the Crawford Boxes. 1-0.

"Okay," Astro-Girl says, "Royo got it out of his system."

Second inning: Aramis Ramirez hits the ball into the Crawford Boxes.

"No problem," Astro-Girl says, "Now Royo really got it out of his system."

No matter. Zambrano plus Astros plus lead equals boat race. True, Astro Kaz Matsui made a baserunning error that was totally excusable were Kaz a) eight years old, and b) eight years old. I wondered aloud, "Does Jose Cruz need to learn how to say, 'One out' in Japanese?"

Ah, too depressing. Robby-Boy picks us up:

Well I pulled my kids out of school at 1:00pm for a "family function" I had to tell the office secretary.

We popped the corn and watched the first pitch. Jeter leads off with a gutty 2 strike single. Then we watched C.C. have ZERO control over his fastball.

Posada goes deep and has a great play at the dish!

Gardner looks really good in center, Godzilla looks to be in his old forum but alas C.C. digs us to big of a hole to climb out of today.

But it is baseball and there is always tomorrow, or Wed in the Yanks/O's case.