With no Mets game Monday night, and the season premiere of Six Feet Under filling only an hour, I needed something else to watch. I flipped and I flipped and I flipped some more. Nothing on, not really. Until…
WHOA! Look at that! That's hot!
I don't remember ordering the Spice Channel.
Of course it wasn't porn. It was YES, which is like porn for Mets fans. It's a fantastic public service for us, especially when our team, tied for second and one game out of first at the moment, isn't playing. Instead of sending us to bed frustrated, YES takes care of our needs, if you know what I mean.
I tune in and the Yankees are playing the Brewers, which already seems a little unbelievable, but these things aren't known for their plot. It's the action we tune in for.
The score is tied. The Yankees have the bases loaded with one out. (The runner on first is called A-Rod — great porn name.) Their muscular stud who in a previous movie had to beg over and over for forgiveness for getting so large is up. And he grounds into a double play, 4-6-3. Inning over.
YES!
Next scene: A Brewer named Junior steps to the plate. He's facing — and I'm not making this up — The Big Unit. I don't even wanna know what that's all about. The “announcers” are going on about how intimidating The Big Unit is. All of a sudden, Junior swings and takes The Big Unit “downtown”. The Brewers lead 4-3.
YES! YES!
Final scene: It's the ninth inning. The Yankees have a runner on second with none out. Their first batter, an ingénue rookie, strikes out. Their second batter, a “veteran” who's “been around,” grounds out to short. Their last chance resides in the supple hands of their leading man, “The Captain”. He's portrayed as the handsome hero (who casts these things?). They tell us he always looks trouble straight in the mouth and always come through.
But not this time. The Captain lines out to right. Game over. Yankees lose.
YES! YES! YES!
I'm in a total state of ecstasy now. I can't believe how great this is. I figure I've enjoyed YES as much as I can.
But wait! There's more!
There's a whole show after the game about the game the Yankees just lost. And in it, there are these men in suits who go on and on about what went wrong. They send this woman with a microphone into the locker room to ask all the Yankees (who are taking off their uniforms) how badly they're feeling. And the Yankees oblige, shaking their heads, acting distraught and growing annoyed.
I can't believe I'm getting excited again.
This show goes for like an hour. The Yankees stare at the floor, make excuses and generally seem humiliated. It's really exciting. I don't think I can take anymore.
But after all that comes the money shot. One of their announcers appears on the screen and delivers what has to be the steamiest line in the history of this channel:
“In the back of their minds, the Brewers probably didn't think they belonged on the same field as the Yankees.”
YES! YES! OH YES!
That's what I was waiting for. That's what makes the YES Network a porn channel for Mets fans.
And just when you think you've gotten all the pleasure out of it that you can, they rerun the whole thing all night.
NEW YORK YANKEE COLLAPSE-O-METER
Through 57 Games
WOMACK TO WOMACK EDITION
1965: 26-31 (Final Record: 77-85)
1982: 28-29 (Final Record: 79-83)
2005: 28-29 (Final Record: ??-???)
“I'd hate to think that at this stage of my career I was being traded even-up for Dooley Womack.”
–Jim Bouton, 1969
“I've played on a lot of bad teams…”
–Tony Womack, 2005
Marvelous, my brother — Emily and I were giggling and knee-deep in the Schadenfreude as well. Of course if they now start winning again I'm going to fill your e-mail box with superstitious, how-could-you grousing and whining….
For even more sexual healing, take a gander at the standings. At current writing, 17 teams–including, of course, THE METS–are better than the Yankees. YES!, folks… 17 teams the Yankees don't belong on the same field with.
All together, now… YESSSSSSSS!!!!
Porn (so I am told) only lasts so long. You have to enjoy every minute of it.
I continue to regret nothing.
In the meantime, I must confess that I am “different”; in that, on Metless eves, I enjoy a wholly other kind of thrill. I dipped into the 700's…and unearthed a little number called “The Chipperless Braves”, and went to sleep with a satisfied grin on my kisser, and not a tense muscle about.
And now I'll spare you all the line about Cox- but it was more tempting than you can imagine. The line. You know what I mean. Shut up.
Can't spell Yankees without hankies. Well, actually, you probably can. But fans and haters alike certainly can't watch without 'em…
ROCKER SUCKS COX
–t-shirt seen at Shea, 6/30/2000
I have to admit I have always scoffed at Greg's obsession with the sports pages and the lack of Mets news in them. But this (Wednesday) morning, after enjoying yet another evening of YES joy after Pedro demolished the Astros last night, I caught sight of the Post. Pedro on the front and back, dominating the paper. And, in that little blue stripe of oblivion that has so long been the Mets' domain, was the sweetest part of all: “Dismal Yankees Beaten by Brewers.” Ah. The newspaper geek's version of porn.
A few years back I stopped my Newsday subscription because of that. I actually called them and said “I live in QUEENS. My newspaper is the QUEENS edition. Yet every single day it's the freaking Yankees on the back page, win or lose. And in basketball season it's the Knicks, while the Nets are relegated to a paragraph buried among the high school lacrosse results. When you decide to hop off the bandwagon, lemme know.”
It doesn't take a whole lot to piss me off, does it?