Journalism 101! Lupica's Taking Us To School!

Today's journalistic tool is: Exaggeration!! Yes ladies and gentlemen, you can make anything feel like game 7 of the World Series if you just exaggerate every detail of it! You can create urgency where there really isn't any, and capture the hearts and minds of your readers!! Case in point, this article.

This was the way the season was supposed to feel, and a lot sooner than the bottom of the 10th on a Sunday night against the Red Sox, at the end of a long baseball night, at the end of a long Fourth of July weekend of baseball.

Ahhh yes! The way it's supposed to feel!! What? Exciting? It's a 162 game season. It's a marathon, not a sprint. This game was no bigger than the one before it, or the one after it. Although it's nice that you were able to tune in Mr. Lupica. I'm sure actually watching a baseball game must have interfered with your viewing of "I Love Money" on VH1. That's that new reality show with a bunch of losers who failed at dating Brett Michaels, Flavor Flav, and some chick who looks like Divine Brown (You know, the chick Hugh Grant paid for sex.)

There were supposed to be plenty of nights like this, just not because of a dirty uniform out of Holly Hill, South Carolina named Brett Gardner.

There have been plenty of nights like this. You'd know if you actually watched baseball. But again, it's a lonnnnnng season, sort of like one of your run-on sentences, that goes on, and on, and on, and... Zzzzzzz... umm... what was I saying?

Not because of an at-bat by the new kid at the top of the order that lasted eight pitches and felt like it lasted 80 in the bottom of the 10th.

Oh yeah? A new kid? Where'd he come from? Ohhh, that's right. He's one of those shitty, butt-fucking "Yankee Prospects" that you ripped into YESTERDAY!!! Remember that joke? About how the Brewers got Sabathia? Because they have REAL prospects? Not YANKEE prospects? HAHAHA!! Funny joke.

Aside from that, notice the literary device at work here. Eight pitches... and felt like 80!! Such urgency, such importance!! And yet the meaning is completely lost when you think about it. An 80 pitch at bat would take about 2 hours. Bottom line is... Gardner did good. He worked the count... just like the guys in the minors said he would. He fouled off some tough balls... just like the guys in the minors said he would. And he got on base... just like his .990 OBP in the minors said he would. I think his OBP in the minors was .990, I'm pretty sure, so lets go with .990.

The Yankees had not gotten any closer to the Tampa Bay Rays, not really, had not fixed the back of their starting rotation, or scored all the runs they should have scored.

See? You thought this was going to be a feel-good story. It's not. Even after reading the whole article, the point is right here. The back of the rotation is still shitty. The offense underachieves and the Yankees are still like 72 games behind the Rays... so HA HA... FUCKING... HA... you bastards!! The Mets may completely suck, but they're right in the thick of the race in the NL Least... otherwise known as the second WORST division in baseball, trailing only the NL West.

Still: the place was as loud and happy as it has been all season, all because of Gardner had hung in there long enough, fouled off enough pitches, to beat one of the best closers in this world.

This is a meaningless fucking sentence. Everybody who closes for a major league team is "one of the best closers in the world." Armando Benitez was one of the best closers in the world for a time. Papelbon has blown 4 saves already this year. He blew 3 all of last year. If you took your mouth off his prick for five minutes, you'd know that Mike.

Here's my list of closers I'd want to get the last 3 outs of a big game for me. Maybe you agree, maybe you don't. Mariano Rivera, Joe Nathan, Francisco Rodriguez, Joakim Soria, Jonathan Papelbon, Brad Lidge, Bobby Jenks.

There you have it. He's 5th on the list. He's in the upper 17%. Big fucking deal.

It was supposed to be pretty good, the greatest closer of all time against one of the great righthanded hitters of all time. Except it was "no mas" from Manny of Washington Heights all the way.

Ahh... the greatest closer of all time. Now we're talking about Mo. But of all the obscure references to make in this at bat... "no mas"? This is a reference to the "No Mas Fight" otherwise known as Roberto Duran vs. Sugar Ray Leonard. Duran quit the fight, saying "No Mas" during in the eighth round.

The baseball equivalent of "No Mas" would be if Manny worked the count to 1-2, said "no mas" to the umpire, and then walked back to the dugout in mid-at bat. This reference makes no fucking sense, aside from the fact that Manny is a Latino. It's little more than a race-baiting reference. It's a poor attempt at wit that lacks any semblance of logic or sense in it's placement or usage.

Strike one, looking.
Strike two, looking.
Strike three.
Looking.
Ramirez never took the bat off his shoulder

Well thank you for telling me that he never took the bat off his shoulder. Up until you clarified that, I was wondering what happened on strikes four and five of the at bat.

But then Wilson Betemit had no chance, none, against Papelbon, striking out.

And again, fundamental misunderstanding of the sport of baseball. According to his career stats, Wilson Betemit has a 32.8% chance of getting on base in ANY AT BAT, regardless of who the pitcher is. That means that Papelbon has a 67.2% chance of getting him out, which he did. To say that Betemit had NO CHANCE against the guy is just Lupica's way of trying to shit on a Yankee. Of course he had a chance. You've got a chance to win the lotto too... it's just not a very good one.

That kind of game at the Stadium. That kind of night. The kid who wasn't supposed to be here won one that wasn't supposed to ever feel this big.
And again Mike... I keep having to clarify this for you. Yankee history is not made in the first week of July. It's made in October. You know, October... the month of the year when you get to play golf with your friend Jose Reyes? It's the month that comes after September. You know which month September is, right?

It's the month that your favorite team's owner wants to play "meaningful games" in.