God I love when the Twins come to town. Make that 19 “W’s” in our last 22 against the Twinkies at The Stadium. Remember back on July 6th, after our second consecutive piss-poor performance against the Sox, when I said the Yanks were far from being done? Well, after six wins in a row (10-straight at home), two consecutive sweeps (over teams that were ahead of us in the standings at the time) and 11 wins in our last 14 games (10 of the 11 coming against teams with winning records), I think it’s safe to say “We’re baaaaack.” Hide the women and children, Beantown. We’re on our way. Not even Big Papi can save you from the Yankee buzzsaw now. Should’ve buried us when you had the chance, putzes.

The hands on the hips say it all: “I was the G-Men’s poster boy my first couple of seasons, and then I didn’t get involved as much as I wanted, and we were one and done in the playoffs a few times, and then I was still pissy after we won a SuperBowl (one in which I sat out with a broken leg), but now things are better ’cause I get to play with Reggie Bush.”

While this sounds like a trade made in Madden Heaven if you’re living in N’Awlins, it’s gotta make you question whether Shockey ever truly embraced being a G-Man. After 9/11 he came back with that ridic tat that screamed “U.S. pride” — and even more so “NY pride” — but now he plans to trade in the Big Apple and a SuperBowl ring for a pair of floaties… what, to soon?

Stephon Marbury, Gary Sheffield, and now you can add Jeremy Shockey to the list of bush league cry babies who are unworthy of calling New York “home.”

I don’t know what I’m more pissed about: the fact that our playoff hopes just took another big hit today, or that I traded Kevin Youkilis for Jorgie a couple weeks back in one of my fantasy leagues. Considering Jose Molina’s defensive prowess won’t have nearly the same impact on my fantasy squad as it does in real life (and that I’m jockeying for 1st place and stand to pocket 300-bones if I win the title), I’m gonna go with the latter. Either way, all that posturing B-Ca$h has been doing about how we don’t necessarily need to make a trade for another bat, and how our offense will come around, and blah blah blah just went out the window faster than a freshman at NYU…

Thankfully for the Yanks, the only thing(s) more pitiful than their offense are Huston Street and Lenny DiNardo.

At the end of the day it’s comforting to know that, despite all his shortcomings, Brian Cashman was able to identify our most glaring need — a sub-.220 hitter who strikes out twice as much as he walks to go along with fellow black holes Robbie and Melky — and was able to fill the gap without even having to trade one of our prospects. Just another masterful stroke by B-Ca$h. It’s moments like this when you wonder how anyone in their right mind can even be down on him these days.

I just can’t believe Red Sox fans. Whether it be MFH — or any other more despicable members of the Nation — I can’t get over what a bunch of f@#kin’ crybabies you all are. You’re winning World Series left and right, one of your guys even wins the All-Star game MVP in our ballpark, and yet you still find room to whine about petty bullsh*t? If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the year was 1998 and you guys are doing all this complaining just to get some much needed attention. I mean you’d think being at the top of the sport would be enough get you guys off the rag, but apparently it isn’t. Plus, the blame here clearly falls on Papel-boner. Seriously, what was he thinking bringing his wife to parade in Midtown? It’s like taking your kid to the ball room at Mickey D’s and then suing the joint when he comes down with E.coli poisoning a week later. What did you f@#king expect?

And let’s not paint Papel-boner as an innocent bystander here, ’cause his words (if anyone in Sox Nation even bothered to read them, which clearly they didn’t otherwise they wouldn’t all be standing around shrugging their shoulders, mumbling “What, not our guy.” ) spoke for themselves:

“If I was managing the team, I would close,” Papelbon said. “I’m not managing the team, so it don’t matter.”

“We’ve both earned that right; us, by winning the World Series and having the opportunity of having our manager there and our team being represented, and Mariano by what he’s done for this role, we’re in Yankee Stadium and blah, blah, blah,” Papelbon said. “It’s not that easy. Everybody thinks it’s a cut and dry answer, but it’s not.”

And when you say “blah, blah, blah,” Jon, do you mean “being the undisputed, greatest closer in the history of baseball… having the 5th lowest postseason ERA in history… having the most career World Series saves (9, next closest is Rollie Fingers with 6)… and owning the most career postseason saves (34… the next closest is Dennis Eckersley with 15)?” There’s a fine line between being a “competitor” and being an arrogant, self-delusional prick. I’ll let you all decide where Papel-boner falls here.

And last, but certainly not least, please spare us the etiquette classes, thanks. It’s not like you’ve all distinguished yourselves in the class department over the years. I mean which is more unbecoming of civilized baseball fans– making idle threats against a ballplayer’s wife, or tipping over/keying every car in Kenmore Square that had New York license plates when the Sox won the Series in ‘04? Yeah, sorry to be break the bad news to all you ignoramuses, but I guess most of you “card-carrying” members of Sox Nation wouldn’t know any of these dirty little secrets considering you’ve never spent more than 24 hours at a time in Beantown. If you wanna b*tch and moan when Joba puts a 99-mph heat-seeker in Youkilis’ ear next weekend, be my guest. But until then, shut the hell up.

There have been some messed up things done by fans of both teams during the long history of the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry, but earlier this week Yankee fans went for a new low, threatening the life of Jonathan Papelbon’s pregnant wife during the All-Star parade. Come on, Yankee fans. It’s open season on the Sox closer (even though all he said was that he wanted to close, not that Mariano sucks or didn’t deserve to), say anything you want to him, but don’t make death threats to his pregnant wife. You don’t go after the family. That’s classless.

By the way, how did it feel to have a member of the World Champion Boston Red Sox win the All-Star MVP in Yankee Stadium?

Since last night was one of the few times I’ll have left to spend at the current Stadium, I figured I’d treat it as a field trip and try to pick up a thing or two during the Derby. Well, here’s what I learned:

1. Kevin Youkilis’ kid has the biggest Jew-fro I’ve ever seen. Somewhere Jonah Hill fears that the clock has started ticking on his ownership of the ugly-guy-who-everyone-finds-hilarious-simply-because-he’s-funny-to-look-at typecast role.

2. Drunk chicks should not be allowed at sporting events… unless they sign a waiver to keep their mouths shut and agree to “act out” only by taking their shirts off. Do I love women? Absolutely. But believe me, nothing is more annoying than loud, drunk chicks at sporting events that they know nothing about. They spend most of the night screaming things that make no sense… only to spend the rest of the evening looking around to see if any dudes found their idiocy amusing (which no one did). And any time a popular rap song is played (which happened pretty frequently last night), they start flailing their arms around like they’re in a club and try grinding with any guy within five feet of them. And if that fails, then they bop their head up and down and start flailing their arms again. Listen, if you want to dance around and get so drunk that you wake up tomorrow morning and forget the fact that you slept with a random dude the night before then hail a cab and take it about 130-blocks south of here, bimbo.

3. The “De-rek Je-ter” chant after Reggie threw out the first pitch was freakin’ awesome. My buddy told me that you couldn’t really hear it on TV, but it served notice that no matter how many Red Sox are in the All-Star game, we Yankee fans are determined to turn this thing into our own exclusive party.

4. Evan Longoria getting booed was pretty cool too. That’s what you get for beating the Giambino in the final vote and stealing his rightful place in the Derby. Now go find your husband Tony Parker and catch the first flight back to Tampa, bastard. Hmmm, that reminds me…

5. There weren’t any Yankees in the Derby. Ah, so that’s what everyone’s been b*tchin’ about the last few days. I didn’t think it would matter that much, that is until I sat in my seat and realized I had to root for Josh Hamilton (No joke, everyone within five rows of me was talking about Hamilton was their guy well before he pulled a “2005 Bobby Abreu.” More on that in a minute.) And not that that’s the worst thing in the world necessarily, it’s just that for 99% of the people in the Stadium, this is the first time we’ve been forced to root for someone NOT wearing Pinstripes. Sacrilege, my friends. Though this brings me to my next point…

6. Notice how subdued the crowd was last night? This is what I love about New Yorkers, and Yankee fans in particular– we don’t care that this is supposed to be some big, historic event. If there aren’t any Yankees (or Mets, if you’re so inclined) involved, then we aren’t going to feign an interest in something we couldn’t give two sh*ts about. Will we sit and watch it? Sure. New Yorkers are all too happy to turn anything into a social event. But you won’t see us going all ‘99-Fenway-Park like Boston did, celebrating like they had won the World Series every time Mark McGwire ‘roided balls onto I-90. Well, that is until we realized that…

7. Josh Hamilton will be the next great Yankee. Everyone was rooting for this guy and how could you not? His comeback story is more-than-inspirational and it also helps that he’s the best player in baseball not named A-rod (and considering he hasn’t even played one full season yet, I’m thinking it won’t be long before that title is his to own exclusively). But when he hit the Bank of America sign behind the bleechers, put a few more balls into the Black Seats, and had us all chanting “HAM-IL-TON!”, he might as well have been wearing Pinstripes right then and there because we basically embraced him as one of our own. I don’t know when Hamilton becomes a free agent, but after last night, this is a match made in heaven. Hopefully whoever takes over for B-Ca$h after this season realizes this as well.

Don’t worry, pal. I’m almost positive you won’t get booed or anything like that tonight (wink-wink). And I thought Youkilis and Papel-boner were going to be our main targets?! Just consider yourself lucky if you make it all the way out to 2nd base without getting hit by a Duracell.

you’re watching the State Farm Home Run Derby from New York, and you see that commercial with Joe Torre loving LA, and you see him on a surf board and wish that Jaws would come up and have that jiggly-necked bastard for lunch… but then you remember that he managed the Yanks to 4 World Series titles in 5 years (it would have been 5 in 6 if he didn’t have the f*ckin infield in with Mariano pitching to Gonzo in Game 7 in ‘01)? Yeah, last night, I was at that place…

It’s times like this when you see all the schmucks, creeps, and jerks running around the world, doing their dirty deeds, and you wonder “Why Bobby Murcer, God?” There’s not much else to say other than this is going to be really tough to get over. Most of you who read this site — along with myself — weren’t old enough to see Bobby play, but as I’ve said before, Bobby’s impact on Yankee fans went well beyond the mere fact that he played for the Bombers; he lived and breathed Pinstripes to the point where — aside from our fathers — many of us owe our Yankee fan-dom to Bobby’s enthusiastic broadcasts and his genuine love of all things Yankees. Suffice it to say, if Dad didn’t make it home from work on time to watch the game with you, you could always count on Bobby to be there rooting on the Yanks “alongside” you. And while we may not have known him personally, Bobby’s perpetual effervescence, kindness, and humility were evidence of a man whose greatness as a Yankee player and broadcaster was surpassed only by his greatness as a human being. R.I.P., Bobby. To say we will miss you would be a tremendous understatement…

In the top of the sixth inning tonight, my buddy goes “Man, the Yankees are tough to watch right now.” Um, too bad he’s about a month late with that…

I don’t want to get a bunch of angry emails tonight/tomorrow about how I “derailed our mojo,” “jinxed us,” and blah blah blah, so I’ll just let Mariano sum things up: “They know we’re still around. They know that.”

This past weekend, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer played what may very well be the greatest match ever played at Wimbledon. For me, it absolutely was, and the reason is because it was the only tennis I’ve really ever watched, and despite the rain delays, it was kind of ridiculous. The speed with which those guys hit the ball and the way they dive and give up their bodies is worthy of admiration. Go on YouTube and find a video and watch a little bit of it, even if you don’t like tennis. It would be well worth your time… especially if you’re at work and the boss isn’t around.

When you watch two guys running around in little white shorts, you hope to picture something that makes you remember that you like chicks. So keep in mind that Lilo had a birthday party this weekend and it was a prom theme, and while she rocked a nice dress, her lesbian DJ rocked a tux, and I’m pretty sure it looked something like this:

And in sports news, the Brewers acquired CC Sabathia and the Cubs got Rich Harden. Not like the Yankees needed pitching per se, but a consistent bat that doesn’t sh*t the bed everytime some teammates start slumping would’ve been a nice change. I guess we’ll just wait and see what B-Ca$h does to F the Bronx Bombers before Turkey Neck Hank gives Ca$h the boot.

Finally, A-Rod’s wife filed for divorce. She’s banging Lenny Kravitz and A-Rod has a geriatric fetish tossing it into the aged roast beef that is Madonna. Being the starting 3rd baseman of the Yankees should warrant him better a$$ than that… amateur.

so how is Jose Reyes NOT an All-Star this season??? I guess a .294 batting average, 21 doubles, 10 triples, 9 homeruns, and 29 stolen bases aren’t exactly All-Star-caliber stats. Maybe National League manager Clint Hurdle is giving the Mets some payback for firing one of his bench coaches? Or maybe All-Star reserve Christian Guzman is having a better season with a .315 batting average, 25 doubles, 2 triples, 5 homeruns and 3, yes 3, stolen bases? (And for the record, no he is not.) Forget about an appearance in the mid-Summer Classic– if Jose was named Derek Jeter, we would be talking about his MVP candidacy. And speaking of Mr. Jeter, he has a .282 batting average, 16 doubles, 3 triples, 4 homeruns and 5 stolen bases. But after all, since he is Derek Jeter, he’ll be the American League’s starting SS next Tuesday while Jose will be running around the Dominican Republic picking up ugly white chicks.