Before I move over to the new digs at my web site, I thought I’d go back to my first post at MLBlogs. It was from August of 2008 and it looked like this.
In May of 2007, when the Yankees were in last place, I couldn’t take it. All the losing was killing me, keeping me up at night, making me snap at complete strangers, giving me a really bad headache. One night, after a humiliating interleague loss against the Mets, I stormed into my office and wrote an article about divorcing the Yankees. The grounds? Mental cruelty. I didn’t have a blog then, so I vented to the New York Times, which published my article. (You can read it here.) As a result of that article I landed a book deal for a nonfiction account of what it really means to be a fan. It’s called “Confessions of a She-Fan” and it’ll be out in February.
Now that I’ve finished it, I’ve been feeling desperate to be in a community of Yankee fans – people to commiserate with and celebrate with. Writing books is a solitary business. You basically sit in a room all day by yourself, wondering why in the world you didn’t pick another line of work, waiting for your publisher to call with news about something (your manuscript, your cover, your sales). I’m hoping that blogging will fill the void and distract me from checking my hourly ranking on amazon and the occasional snarky review.
Yes, it’s late in the season, but today’s game was a revelation. I’d almost forgotten what it felt like to beat a team not named the Mariners or Orioles. I’ve been second-guessing Girardi all year – from not starting Kennedy because it might rain, only to use him in relief…to resting Damon when we desperately needed his hot bat…to giving non-answers to questions about players injuries. But he looked like a genius today, juggling the bullpen and sending Giambi up to pinch hit. Taking the finale against the Red Sox wasn’t as satisfying as sweeping them would have been, but it was sweet nevertheless.
Do the Yankees have a prayer of making the postseason? I gave up on them last year and vowed I wouldn’t do it again. But it’s looking bleak. Seriously. A.J. Burnett and Roy Halladay loom this weekend. My heart tells me the Yanks can pull off a miracle comeback, but my husband says I’ve been drinking the Kool Aid.
My heart was wrong, as it turned out. The Yankees didn’t make the playoffs in ’08. Funny how I was so worried about A.J. Burnett as a Blue Jay; now I’m worried about him for a whole different reason. And it’s weird reading about Ian Kennedy; it’s almost as if he never existed.
Will the 2011 Yankees be non-contenders like the 2008 Yankees or will they have the playoff magic of the 2009 championship team? Obviously, I’m hoping for the latter.
As for blogging, I’ll be doing it win or lose. I blogged during the wildfires here in California. I blogged while Michael was in the hospital having surgery. I blogged when I should have been writing a book. There’s no reason to think I’ll stop now.
