Kevin Baker's book is here!

Kevin Baker's book is here!
"... an exemplary sports book..." Kirkus Reviews

Sunday, June 7, 2015

Life is good, all is well, everything is beautiful, and I love each of you.

Nothing makes a game more watchable than a six-run first.

It adds drama to the night, knowing the opposing starter is toast and their bullpen is down to stems and seeds. It provides a mental cushion. You can root for the padding of stats. You can watch hockey between pitches. (Or even Cirque de Kardashian.) This must be what it's like to live in Colorado, where you can walk to the corner store for a bag of Cheetos and some Astro-Brain Super-Kush. Six runs in the first. Thank you, sir, I'll have another.

It's like I'm on the happy gas respirator. Don't wake me. Tanaka is back. Pineda is getting a rest. Warren is hot. McCann is hot, A-Rod... hot, Tex... muy caliente. Even Beltran and Stephen Drew! Didi is playing well. (That's four words I never expected to write.) Soon, Ellsbury will be back, plus the human Brigadoon himself, Slade Heathcott. Meanwhile, in Scranton, we've got Severino, Mitchell and Long throwing well. Don't be surprised if Aaron Judge is soon the tallest Railrider. Gary Sanchez is on a HR spree. Last year, around now, he was on class detention. Whatever's in the pipe, gimmie more!

Six runs in the first. Five in a row. First place. Six games up (win column) on Boston (which - uh-oh - is starting to get pitching.) Seventy-two degrees. It stays light until 9 p.m. No bugs, no rain, no earthquakes (upstate NY), no drought - (I leave the water running while brushing my teeth; take that, LA celebrities!) - no worries. And the days are still getting longer.

Listen: Ten million years ago, God didn't personally scoop out the New York landscape, so we could be sitting here someday, watching Wally Whitehurst and Sidney Ponson. This is what He - or at least Abner Doubleday - intended. Six in the first. Thank you, sir, I'll have another. Thank you, sir, I'll have another. Thank you, sir, I'll have another...

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