It’s about a two-hour drive from Santa Barbara to L.A., where I went for Easter dinner at my friend Rhonda’s (the same friend who hosts Thanksgiving every year). Before I left the house, I watched the Yankees jump out to their 3-0 lead over the O’s, saw Garcia’s remarkable performance, wondered why he couldn’t stay in to pitch the seventh, and groaned when Joba gave up those two runs.

“We’d better go,” I said to Michael, looking at my watch. “There could be traffic. We don’t want to be late.”

He agreed and we turned off the TV and listened to the game in the car. There we were,  cruising down the 101 Freeway with no traffic whatsoever, when Mo blew the save.

“Can you pull over?” I said to Michael. “I have to barf.”

Just kidding. I didn’t say anything. I was too stunned. Yes, I realize that Mo goes through these little spells, especially early in the season, but they’re not fun to experience.

And then came the rain in Baltimore.

“What if they don’t resume play for hours?” I said, knowing we’d be at Rhonda’s soon. “I don’t want to miss a single pitch.”

“Out of our control,” said Michael, who can be annoyingly sensible at times.

The rain delay turned out to be fairly short, as rain delays go, and the game resumed with Cano at the plate in the top of the 11th. The only problem was that we had just pulled onto Rhonda’s street.

“We can’t go in!” I hissed as we neared her house. “Let’s just park and wait until it’s over. Nobody will see us.”

“The game could last for fifteen innings,” Michael pointed out. I think he was hungry. Rhonda always has a feast and he probably had visions of Easter lamb dancing around in his head.

“I’m not going in there until the final out,” I said. “We’ll be fashionably late.”

We parked.

You know the rest. The Yankees scored three, thanks to our bats and the Orioles’ sloppiness – and both Boone Logan and Buddy Carlyle (two of the best baseball player names around) took care of business in the bottom of the inning. Nice win for the boys.

“Can we please go now?” said Michael.

“But there’s the post-game show and I want to  -”

He ignored me and drove. I was so happy about the result of the game that I bounded inside when we arrived at Rhonda’s. I was all geared up for the usual insults about the Yanks from Mary Ann, the Dodgers fan and Yankees hater, but Rhonda smartly seated us at opposite ends of the long table.

There she is by the window, looking at me and wishing she could work in a crack about my team. No such luck. Instead, I smiled and waved, secure in the knowledge that my team, unlike hers, hadn’t just been taken over by Bug Selig.