Yankeetorial: Last night, in the cosmic image of Raul Ibanez, did we fans everywhere just uncover the secret to life?

Last night, I watched eight innings from under the couch. Finally, I'd made spiritual peace with the loss, with the end of the season, with the incredible waste of time and energy that baseball represents, with my mortality, with my inconsequential status in the universe, and with the fact that I would never again taste a Yankee championship - yes, folks, I was broken down to the point of Yankee fan primordial ooze - ready to sign on with Jesus, Yahweh, Joe Smith, or L. Ron Hubbard - when I saw what nobody ever thought we would see in this lifetime:

A pinch hitter for A-Rod.

Listen: This so stunned the juju gods that it boinked an outage in the Rizzutonic grid, causing the impossible to happen. In that one moment, out of chaos, a great Yankee was created. Yes, Raul Ibanez goes up there with Bucky Dent and Aaron Boone and, yes, even with Jeet and Mariano. He goes into the pantheon.

Folks, this was Fleischman and Ponds' cold fusion. This was alchemy. This was finding the Higgs boson, the God particle, wrapped in pinstripes. Our long march to Cougar Town is almost over. We may get through the hardest part of the playoffs - the TBS torture rack - alive. Can you imagine no more Conan ads, bits so bad that you wonder why you ever thought he might be funny?

But there is a moral here. Break out of the mold. Wear your underwear outside. Pick the flowers, howl at the moon, punt on second down, kiss your 80-year-old librarian on the lips. Folks, the secret to life was just handed to us. Run with scissors. Stop making sense. Be crazy. It's not the jail that confines us. It's only the way we respond to it.

A pinch-hitter for A-Rod.

I thought I'd seen everything. I hadn't seen anything. Excuse me, now, I have to clean up some puddles under the couch.