Poor Yankees Finally Catch a Break

Los Angeles must be feeling pretty lowly right now.

Which means, the switch to “Lakers Jersey Season” was officially made.

In a feat not seen since 2003, the Yankees proved zero critics wrong and are the Phillies opponent in the 2009 World Series, beating the Los Angeles Angels 4 games to 2 in the ALCS.  Good for them.

Ruben Amaro is happy.  The Phils GM was rooting for the match up in the October Classic, preferring the team travel somewhere close by, as opposed to across the country, throughout the series.

The Yankees are probably happy.  They get to invade the World Series with the best regular season record in baseball, unlike those 116-46 Mariners from 2001.  At this point, if A-Rod’s batting next, your best bet is to just nuke the stadium.  And their starting pitchers include the guy with the greatest postseason record of all time and the Cloverfield monster.

And I’m happy.  I’m happy that the argument will never be that we faced the weaker team who just got hot.  I’m glad that its going to be a personal series.  We’ll be invading each other’s homes.  Insulting each other’s relatives.  They’re from the same town as the Mets for Christ’s sake.

Powerful lineups and productive pitching.  There’s an Utley for every Jeter and a Lee for every Sabbathia (Who, if you remember, didn’t fare too well almost this exact same lineup a year ago).

Don’t get me wrong.  I would have loved to see the Yankees keep losing.  So would the Angels, presumably.

But unlike all those years when it was Yankees-Braves or Yankees-Mets and we just watched in bored horror as the Bernie Williams Machine processed another victory and pipsqueak Jeffrey Maier became a hero overnight, this will be personal.

Here we go.

POST GAME BITCHING

• I for some reason scribbled down “‘Mike the Butcher’ would be a terrible nickname for Mike Scioscia” during the game.
• My original headline idea for this was “History Repeats Itself as Yanks Battle Redcoats.”  “That paints the Phillies as the bad guys,” Roommate informed me.  Stupid Roommate.
• How is Yankee Stadium even going to TRY and make fun of Vlad Guerrero for not knowing the count?
• Speaking of Jorge Posada, he grounded into three double plays tonight.  “Child’s play,” said Eric Bruntlett.