Damn you, Dontrelle Willis

Yesterday Nick and I went to the Mets-Marlins game. For the Marlins, we have Superman, aka Dontrelle Willis, pitching. In the other corner we have Zorro, aka Victor Zambrano, pitching. Amazingly, the Marlins didn't get off to a huge quick lead or anything -- but they did keep chipping away at our hero Zorro, with runs in the 1st, 3rd, and 7th innings, while Superman not only kept the Mets from scoring at all in a complete game (they only threatened once, in the first inning, when they loaded the bases with one out, and then Willis struck out Woodward and Wright), but he himself was also 1 for 2, singling with a walk, and scored that run I mentioned in the 3rd inning. That's so unfair, why do they get to have a pitcher with a lifetime .229/.262/.302 line?

There were these Hassidic Jews sitting a few rows in front of us, complete with kippahs and big curly sideburns and button-down shirts and nice slacks and all, except one of them also had a Beltran t-shirt on over his nice clothes, and another one had a Mets hat on over his kippah. Hee. It's so very New York.

After the game we debated what to do, swing dancing or going to Philly for the Braves game or what, and eventually what we decided on was that we were going to go find some really good Italian food because I haven't had real eggplant parmesan in foreeeever. So we walked all through the Upper West Side -- well, we crossed campus and then walked Broadway from 120th down to 88th or so -- and eventually ended up at a place called Carmine's. We watched the first few innings of the Phillies-Braves game while waiting for a table, and then we got more Italian food than you can shake several sticks at. The eggplant really was fantastic, and Nick, in his utter non-wisdom, also ordered rigatoni, because he is dumb and didn't realize that the portions were going to be huge. Well, we have lots of leftovers now, or more like, Nick will be eating rigatoni for lunch all week.

Walked back after that. It's nice being in a city full of people. Nick and I debated what to watch movie-wise after that and he made me watch the pilot episode of Firefly. It was pretty good, though I dunno if I'll ever get around to watching more of it unless some other people are watching it or something (were the Tacoma people? I forget).

Hmm, it's time for us to go over to the Bronx and see a Yankees-Orioles game. Whee!

I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy

Wheeee, Yankees game. Unfortunately I didn't have pre-knowledge of which way Yankee stadium faces and unfortunately I got us tickets in the upper deck on the third base side, which means we didn't have shade for the first three hours of the game. Three hours of sun and no sunscreen and no hat == extremely sunburnt Deanna and mildly sunburnt Nick.

It was a really long game, actually, and a huuuuuuge slugfest.

By the way, before nickjong can out me to everyone, I rooted for the Yankees today. I mean, I actually got up and shouted things like "LET'S GO YANKEES!" and clapped and stuff. See, the thing is, when you go to a game that is of two teams that you dislike, it's just a lot easier (and less risky) to root for the home team, I figured. So, I became a temporary Yankees fan. Don't tell Josh or Ficus, okay?

Don't worry, I didn't root for A-Rod.

Anyway, that said, it was a really entertaining game, much moreso than Sunday's Mets game, which was short and not very sweet. Today's was a long, drawn-out game involving a lot of scoring and a lot of pitcher switching (12 pitchers overall were used, and 21 runs overall were scored). The Yankees got off to a fast 6-0 lead, but then the Orioles chipped away at it for a few innings until it was 8-6, at which point the Yankees exploded for 7 runs in the 8th inning. It was crazy, and Jason Giambi hit two home runs, one in the first inning and one in that crazy 8th. One of his home runs was pretty funny -- he hit this huuuuuge blast into the outfield stands, but it was called foul -- so he gets back up and two pitches later blasts an even further one into the outfield stands, this time unmistakably fair.

Matsui hit a home run and they put "Gonezilla" on the scoreboard, along with the katakana for home run.

So apparently Quantrill and Stanton are gone. There's this new kid, Wayne Franklin, wearing Quantrill's old number, 48, so I was really confused when he was warming up. The very first batter this guy faced was super-star Brian Roberts. What a way to start off! He struck him out, though, which was promising, but unfortunately the next inning he got two runners on which brought it to 7-6 and thus charged him also with his very first blown save. Whee!

It's funny, but the worse the pitchers are, the more entertaining the game is, I think.

Anyway, this game lasted until like 5:30pm, which was ridiculously long (it started at 1). After it, Nick and I went to his sister and brother-in-law's house in New Jersey for a 4th of July BBQ with a whole bunch of his family. They had a lot of food and I probably hugely dishonored them by only eating a couple of things and then refusing everything else. Oops. We hung out for a while talking, and everyone was pretty cool, and then we went to see some fireworks. Then we braved the traffic and came back to the city.