Separate Ways

Last week’s poll scored 8 votes! Alright! Good job, readers! We love the enthusiasm. We wanted to know how to make the All Star Game more exciting. 4 of you thought that we should scratch the actual players and have the mascots face off instead. Seems like we’re not the only furries here. 2 of you want us to battle the players that we’re always picking on in the Thunderdome. We’re wagering that you really don’t believe this and are simply huge Mad Max fans. We don’t blame you. We’re huge fans of the trilogy as well. It was, in fact, cinematic poetry. 2 of you bitter and jaded people (want to be friends? It feels like we’d get along really well. Facebook us. We’ll go out some time) think that we should just cancel the whole thing and go to a strip joint.

If you’re a Yankees fan, you know of AJ Burnett’s inconsistency issues. Actually. Come to think of it. If you’re a Blue Jays and Marlins fan, you’re probably aware of that situation as well. His most recent start against the Rays, where he went buck wild on a pair of doors in the Yankees clubhouse, was the straw that broke our camel’s back. The time has come for us to have a serious conversation with AJ about our relationship with him.

Dear AJ,
We’re sad that it’s come to this, but we’ve hung on to this relationship for far too long. We’ve endured the emotional abuse you’ve dealt us continuously with your inconsistent pitching because we cared and had faith in you. Your curve ball, when executed properly, had us at hello. We knew that you could make an excellent #2 man from the moment you took the mound.

Unfortunately, our time together hasn’t always been good. We’ve had a lot of ups (remember Game 2 of the World Series when you struck out 9 Phillies and gave up only 1 run?) and downs and we wish we could say that our ups negated our downs, but right now they can’t. If we look at our last 10 games together, your record is 3-6. That is not sexy. That does not make us want to meet you on the couch after a hard game and snuggle up against you. Don’t blame it on the offense. You can hardly blame a total ERA of 6.27 over this 10 game duration on the offense. That’s all you, baby.

Don’t get us wrong. When you’re on point, you’re everything we fell in love with at the beginning. In your last start against Oakland, you lasted 7 innings, only giving up 5 hits and 2 walks! We love that dominant side of you, AJ. Why can’t you be like that always? Why must you toy with us by pulling away?

We love your sense of humor also. You’re the man who initiated the tradition of shoving a whipped cream/shaving cream pie in the face of whoever won a game with a walk-off run batted in. Your energy and enthusiasm charmed us and reminded us of the love that we shared...all three of us. But when you do things like slam your hands against the double doors of the clubhouse because you’re upset, it’s hard to reconcile the AJ we love with the AJ we despise. What’s worse is that you lied about the injuries sustained during that charade. When did you start lying to us? You’ve never lied to us in the past. We trusted you! We knew that you’d never be unfaithful to us and now you’ve changed everything. What’s a pair of girls to do when presented with these issues?

Which brings us to the reason we’re writing this letter. AJ, this is hard for us, especially when you clean up sexy for the post-game interviews and we find ourselves still attracted to you. We love you, but we can’t go on like this. We’re not happy. The Yankees aren’t happy. You’re not happy and that’s really what’s important to us. Your happiness. We’re not saying that we can never be together again, but for now, it’s just not working. We need to move on. Lick our wounds and put the pieces back together. You can keep the stereo and the wine rack (who needs a rack anyway when we’ve drank all the wine, watching you pitch?). All we want is Winkie. We know that we picked him from the litter together, but he spends most of his time with us while you’re on the road. We’ll allow you to visit him because we know that he’ll miss nuzzling and licking your tattoos., but we should warn you that he’s a little perturbed with you right now. He peed on the television after you were pulled in the 3rd inning on Saturday, which is weird because he’s usually pretty good about going in the litter box that you bought him.

Tonight, you’ll face the Royals. We want you to know that we’re wishing you the best. Simply the best. We know that you’ve got it in you to be great. So give us a whisper and give us a sigh. Give us a kiss before you tell us good-bye. Don’t you take it so hard now and please don’t take it so bad. We’ll still be thinking of you and the times we had. Don’t you cry tonight. We still love you, baby.

Love Always,
Your Traveling Baseball Babes
Lisa & Serena

PS- Please hand Joba Chamberlain a paddle and tell him to canoe himself over Niagra Falls because his BS is really starting to piss us off.

Baseball notes: Andy Pettitte was pulled in the 3rd inning of Sunday’s game against the Rays due to a grade 1 left groin strain. He’s expected to miss 4-5 weeks! This is AWFUL news to hear after breaking up with our boyfriend, AJ! Bah!

Lou Piniella (Mamadukes’ Sweet Lou) announced that he’d be retiring at the end of the season. His career boasts 18 years in the majors as a player and 22 years as a manager. 66-year old Piniella has made it clear that wanting to spend more time with his family was a major contributing factor to his decision, saying “I’ve been away from home since 1962. That’s about 50 years.” You’ll be missed. Our sadness over his departure earns him TBB Super Hero of the Week status. We feel that the picture we chose was an appropriate commemoration of Piniella.

Last night, AROD hit his 599th home run off of Royals’ pitcher Robinson Tejada in the Yankees’ 10-4 win at Yankees Stadium. Fans in attendance at tonight’s game featuring a AJ Burnett/Brian Bannister match up hope to witness number 600. We’ll be wishing him good luck from happy hour tonight. He’s probably not going to need it since we won’t be there jinxing it for him.

Only the power ballad genius of Steve Perry can truly convey our feelings for AJ Burnett properly. “You should have been gone knowing how you lost the game. And we should have been gone after all the runs you gave up. Oh we thought we must’ve been dreaming. And he had to be someone else. And we should have been over. Oh, AJ. Our love holds on. Holds on! Holds on! Oh, AJ!”