What’s wrong with me?  The first Yankees game of the season and I wasn’t pacing the hallway at 4 pm waiting for it to start.  I didn’t have that knot in my stomach.  I wasn’t talking like the Ultimate Warrior.  Actually I wasn’t really thinking about the game at all.  It was such a surreal day for me and I couldn’t think of a better word to sum up the Fenway experience last night.  Surreal.

Yesterday, being May 1, was supposed to be the start of a beautiful Spring-like month.  Unfortunately Mother Nature decided she needed to cool us off to the blustery 45 degrees.  To make matters worse the wind was honking!  It must have been a steady 20-25 mph all day long and when the game started, dear Old Glory was horizontally pinned towards the infield.  I looked over at my buddy Duggo and said “They’ll be lucky to get one home run tonight”.  As luck will have it, we got to see a little from the one man the Yankees were hoping to contain this season.  Papi.

Perhaps I wasn’t paying attention to it, but all of the hype surrounding the return of Johnny Damon was way over the top.  Even NESN tried to wrangle your heart strings by having an opening of Marcus Orelius proportion.  Note to NESN, when you are showing Yankee/Sox highlights and you need to show a Varitek home run DO NOT show one against the Royals.  That was shoddy work.  I’ve always wondered what drives an adult to make a sign and bring it to a ball game.  Chances are the player you made it for will never see it and worst of all, there are probably a few people sitting behind you that wanted your head on a platter.  I’ve never had a sign person in front of me, but if the person is older than 16 you can bet your bottom dollar that I’m ripping that to shreds.  Sign people rank lower on the loathing pole than the cell phone people and higher than glove people, but all are worthy of some form of pain that is equal to or worse than the pain they inflict on the surrounding fans.  On top of the signs there were t-shirts galore.  One actually made me laugh.  “Looks like Jesus.  Throws like Mary.  Loyal like Judas.”  OK, maybe I laughed out loud. I kept my promise of being non-committal about the whole thing.  I neither clapped nor booed nor did I make a joke about A-Rod, Damon, manicures, Bellini’s and Sex in the City Season 4.  I buttoned it up for once.  He doesn’t deserve the attention, but he didn’t deserve those boos either.  The reaction was not surprising, but it was dumb.  Booing Damon says that you’re not happy with Coco.  You’re kidding right?  Who doesn’t love Coco?  He’s the best damn player they’ve got on the DL right now!  This coming from the guy who didn’t want Coco Crisp (because of my man crush on third basemen) and since Coco wasn’t playing last night all of the attention was on Damon.  If Coco were playing then he should have received a standing ovation.  That’s a much better dig then the obvious booing, but the bandwagon jumpers possess little creativity and are completely incapable of thinking about doing that.  Still, a “Coco’s Better” chant should have come up.  If I were there it would have.

The return of Doug Mirabelli, who arrived exactly 3 seconds before the first pitch, only added to the circus.  At least he received a standing O.  Some guy actually had a sign that said “The savior has returned.  Welcome back Belli”.  Who do you think qualified for worst sign of the night?  Even if Clemens came back that sign wouldn’t apply.  Yep, the players aren’t the idiots anymore.  The fans are.  During his second at bat I said to Duggo “He would bring the house down if he could muscle one over the Monster Mirabelli style” and low and behold on the next pitch he crushed one…and the wind knocked it down.

WiMo played center field.  That had the potential to be another circus sideshow and it was, but in a bizarro world.  WiMo actually played well out there.  What the heck was happening?  WiMo was the subject of another random comment that flew out of my mouth, which was “WiMo would solidify his legend if he took a grand slam.  The reaction would be crazier than Mirabelli hitting one.” And once again on the next pitch WiMo got a hold of one, but even Gigantor himself couldn’t fight that wind.  It was that tough.  Are you noticing a pattern with my Nostradamus like characteristics?  Pay attention to what I say.

Just when you think it couldn’t get any more out of the ordinary here comes the battle Yankees fans (OK at least Brian Cashman and George Steinbrenner) were waiting for.  We were going to witness round 1 of Mike Meyers vs Big Papi.  Remy and Orsillo were waxing on and on and on about how Meyers was signed specifically to get Ortiz out.  They mentioned how Joe Torre admitted to having no solution for the awesomeness of Big Papi.  I was convinced Meyers didn’t have the grapes to pitch to Papi and would walk him.  Heck, walking the only batter you are going to face is sure better then letting him get a hit with two men on.  Even if you were going to throw strikes, the wind was at least reassuring you that a home run was an impossibility.  With a 3-1 count he served one up and Papi missed it by a centimeter.  So logic says throw the same pitch?  Well not my logic, but obviously Meyers brain (or Posada’s, but we’re not sure he actually uses one) thought it would be a good idea and Papi thanked him with a grade A USDA prime bomb.  It was hit so hard that on a normal night the ball would have landed halfway up the bleachers.  It was flat out crushed and to muscle it through that wind was beyond impressive.  I’d say home run #11 for Big Papi makes it into the top 5 this season.  Right now it stands at numero uno and game uno goes to the Sox.