Well, it would seem that nearly all of my predictions for the playoffs this season were wrong.

The final nail in the coffin was the Tigers easy sweep of the Yankees last night. I’m hard pressed to remember a time when I’ve seen the Yankee hitters slump this badly in a post season series. They just weren’t hitting. Period. The first three games were all close thanks to the Yankees pitching, which did a fine job. They simply got no offensive support. It was a dreadful disappointment. I was glad to see Joe Girardi benching players (like Alex Rodriguez) who were particularly opprobrious at the plate. But no one else seemed to be able to step it up. About the only two people hitting consistently on the team were Jeter and Ichiro, and of course, Jeter went out with a broken ankle.

At this point, it looks as if the World Series will be an entirely central division affair, Detroit vs. St. Louis. I’d rather see St. Louis than San Francisco, that’s for sure.

And let me give credit to the Detroit Tigers. They were the team with the fewest wins leading a division when they came into the playoffs and they managed to beat some tough teams. Or at least, a team that was tough only a few weeks before.

Next season will be interesting with Houston moving to the AL west and the increase in interleague play.

Is it April yet?

I’d meant to post my scorecard from the Yankees game I attended a few weeks ago, and never got around to it. So I present you with my scorecard today. Note that after the 6th inning, I went to get some ice cream and the line was long so I didn’t get back to my seat in time to record a half-inning. At that point, I decided to give up. But most of the game is here, for those interested in seeing my slightly nonstandard method of scoring.

Here is Tampa’s scorecard:

And here is the Yankees scorecard:

Here are a couple more pictures from my Yankees Inside Experience. These pictures were taken by Yankees photographers and sent to participants yesterday.

Raul Ibañez and Your Humble Blogger

Outside the dugout at Yankee Stadium

So much fun! Going to a Yankees game will never be quite the same again.

On Saturday, my brother-in-law dropped me off in front of Yankee Stadium at 10am. I was there for my Yankees Inside Experience, which was a gift to me from my family for my 40th birthday. We were told to arrive at Gate 6 at 10:15am. There was a short line when I strolled up. The sky was blue and the weather was perfect, if maybe a little warm in the direct sunlight. At 10:15, they began letting us in. We registered, had our picture taken, and received a badge, after which we were assembled into groups of 30 for a private tour of the stadium. I made sure to dress appropriately for the occasion:

I was not the only one. There was no mistaking the fans who got to roam around Yankee stadium on Saturday morning before almost anyone else was there.

The tour took us through four main attractions in the stadium. We started with a tour of the Yankees dugout, which was pretty amazing. Our group threaded our way through the aisles down toward the field and then out onto the field itself. We got to walk on the warning track (which, as we learned, is not made of dirt, but of a certain mixture of sand and clay) and then down into the dugout.

Everyone took a seat somewhere in the dugout. I sat on the far left end (if you are facing the field) where Yankees manager Joe Girardi sits (or more often than not, stands) during a game:

People had a blast getting to see the dugout, which is apparently not something they do often on the tour. They did it Saturday only because the game time was a later-than-usual start: 4:05pm as opposed to a usual 1pm Saturday start. At first, I was just overawed by it: I was sitting in the Yankees dugout! Later, I tried to act a little more casual:

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One week from today, I will be in New York for my “Inside NY Yankees Experience,” a gift my family gave to me for my fortieth birthday. Earlier in the week, I received my itinerary and ticket for the game in the mail. The Yanks are playing Tampa Bay, in what is turning out to be a pretty close race in the AL East. I guess I picked a good game.

For anyone curious about what the Inside Experience involves, here is what my itinerary looks like:

• 10:15am: Guest arrival and registration
• 10:30-12:00pm: Exclusive stadium tour
• 12:00-12:45pm: Photo and autograph opportunity with a current roster player. (I kind of wonder if the player will really want my autograph. How many baseball players are science fiction fans?)
• 12:45-1:30pm: Lunch Buffet
• 1:30pm: Guest depart to their seats
• 4:05pm: First pitch

Since we are in September, there is now a 40-man roster, which means the player we meet could be the fellow just called up from single-A. Regardless, I am very excited about this event. My seats are behind home plate, looking up the third base line. My brother-in-law is also attending the game, although he was way, way up in the nosebleeds on the third base side.

While I doubt I will be live-blogging the game, you can expect a post and pictures afterward. And I’ll be doing my best to tweet the goings-on while I am there.

This past Friday, Kelly and I had a night out. The New York Yankees were in town to play the Washington Nationals as part of interleague play and we went to see them courtesy of a friend of ours who gave us the tickets.

And what tickets they were! Talk about being spoiled for all future games! The tickets were in the PNC Diamond Club. The seats were behind home plate, with a great view of the field. We had full access to the Diamond Club, which had a bar and buffet. Also, there were people wandering around to take our orders from our seats. And best of all, the food, beer and wine was all included with the seats. Our view of the field looked like this:

Yes, that is Jeter stepping up to the plate at the start of the game. We had just a blast. The two guys in the seats next to us were from Indiana and were both Yankees fans, which made the game even more fun. There were two women sitting behind us, and they were looking for the Lexus club, or something like that. Kelly told them she’d seen it at one point, and off they went. We later learned that one of them was Robinson Cano’s wife (I believe) and I forget who the other was. Whether or not that was true, I don’t know, but that’s what we were told.

Kelly took full advantage of the buffet, getting platefuls of all kinds of good foods. Even when we first came into the club, there was a big table lined with all kinds of candy and popcorn and Kelly had her fill of that, too. I had a hot dog, and later had some excellent chicken wings, and I don’t think I had an empty beer cup for the entire duration of the game.

And you can see that I attended the game in full “uniform,” so to speak. The Yankees ended up winning the game 7-2. I think we both had a really nice night out, and to top it all off, we came home to find both kids sleeping, which has happened only once before when they’ve had a babysitter. Of course, going to a game like this really spoils you to those games where you find yourself sitting in the bleachers, paying $8 for a beer, instead of on cushioned seats where the beer is free. But that’s okay. It was still a lot of fun. Plus, I’ve got my Yankee Experience coming up in September and I imagine that will be a lot of fun, too.