Trafalgar!

The whole time I was in Portugal, I refused to follow anything about our favorite sport.  Mrs. Calabash and our friends were not really fans, so I didn't want to make a big deal of seeking out the one bar without a soccer game on and staying up all hours.

In fact, I really wanted to do a sort of baseball cleanse from a team and a season that had become frankly toxic (stuffing myself instead with roast pig and fine port).

I even forbade anybody mentioning reports of scores, forcing myself to wait until I got back to read the Times accounts, and above all, this blog.

I have to say:  you guys are kicking it.  This is better than ever, now that you don't have all those endless pieces by that long-winded guy.  Oh, wait a minute...

Love the nickname of "Mama Win" for the Warbler.  Also loved Duque bringing in "Carpenters and Kings," one of my favorite bits of doggerel.

And I love the Trafalgar references.  "Yankee fans expect every man to do his duty."

It is to be hoped that no one actually has to die to bring this across, as Nelson did, shot down by a French sniper from the masts.  But if worse comes to worse...

(And incidentally, wasn't that close to what happened with Stanton in the last series with Boston?  If that had happened in Yankee Stadium, it would have been labeled a war crime, and blamed on the character of all New Yorkers.  Just sayin'.)

Come what may, I love you all.  Also, I want you to know that I did not shave once in Portugal.  I now have a pathetic, scraggly, MLB-type beard, that is itchy as all get out.  But I will not get rid of it until the Yankees lose again.  In the meantime, I offer up my discomfort to the JuJu deities.