Bad Ernie!: No Cookie For You!

About fifty minutes before game time last night, I get a call asking me if I want to go to the game. My friend had scored free tickets. How could I turn that down? Due to traffic and other such delays, by the time we got to the park, it was 5-0 Chicago. Ugh. Gonna be one of those nights.

Oh, and it was. Ten runs were all but handed to Chicago. The Yankees reclaimed first place. The southsiders slapped our mommas and kicked our dogs. AND Bobby Jenks pitched. There was just nothing redeeming about the night. Then, with a runner on and two outs in the bottom of the ninth, we had the heart of our lineup coming up. My friend and I scripted it this way: Ernie walked, Youk gets HBP, and Ortiz hits a grand slam. What really happened? Ernie took three pitches and struck out looking.

Deep breath.

He STRUCK. OUT. LOOKING.

I have three rules of hitting. I've mentioned them before, but for the sake of this post, I will repeat them. One - Do not swing at the first pitch unless you're Nomar or someone equally as likely to get a hit. Two - No swinging at 3-0 counts. Make the pitcher throw strikes. Three - DO NOT STARE AT STRIKE THREE! Backwards K's drive me crazy. If the count is 0-2, and the pitch is close... SWING, darnit! If you strike out swinging, at least it feels like you tried. Sometimes, you don't have the luxury of waiting for the perfect pitch.

So that was my rant for the night. On the plus side, Tek had a great night at the plate. This had to have been his first three-hit game of the season. A home run and two singles, I believe. Tek is now batting .235. Starters batting less than .235? Drew (.228) and Crawford (.234). I am providing no commentary on this, I am just stating facts.

My friend and I are contemplating keeping a spreadsheet of which players earn how many cookies per game, and tallying it up at the end of the season. I don't know if we'll actually stick with it, but cookie earners from last night's game are Crawford (1), Varitek (12), and Ortiz (6). Cookies are assigned arbitrarily, depending on who we feel has earned them or needed them. For example, I gave a cookie to Carl, even though he clearly didn't earn it. I thought he could use a pick-me-up. Let's see how many cookies get earned on the field tonight, as we begin the quest back to the top of the mountain.