Here's to the Yankees

Ah, summertime. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and Alex Rodriguez is back in the lineup for the Yankees. I couldn’t be happier.

If I had to choose one team to follow for the rest of my life, while disowning all other favorite teams from other sports, I would undoubtedly choose the New York Yankees. Call them what you will, whether it’s the Bankees (referring of course to their high pay roll), the Evil Empire, the Bronx Bombers, or the Damn Yankees. They are, always have been, and will always be the one team that I live and breath with.

Every win is a happy event in my day, every loss a sad one. This season started rough, with a small string of wins attached to a larger string of losses. Highly-touted off-season pickups were busts, with the former acquiring an ERA in the double digits and the latter barely hitting over .100. Things seemed to be spiraling downwards fast, and the season began to look not unlike flushing $50 million down the porcelain throne.

Then A-Rod came back. As was expected, the controversy shrouding him (a mixture of three potentially harmful/should not go near items: Madonna, steroids and hip surgery) preceded his walk to the plate in his first 2009 season appearance. All those things vanished with the first pitch. All that the nay-sayers had to do was look out past the right-field wall to see that their object of scorn had cracked a four-bagger, just like that.

As of May 19, the date of this writing, the Yankees are 21-17, having won a series against the AL-best Toronto Blue Jays and then pulling out the brooms for a big sweep of the Minnesota Twins. They’re quickly gaining on Boston and Toronto, and by this time next month will probably be in first place in the AL East. Mark Texiera, along with Johnny Damon and new catcher Francisco Cervelli, are all slugging away. C.C. Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Andy Pettite are pitching wins. Oh yeah, and A-Rod is back. And he is hitting. And he and the entire team will continue to hit all the way into October, when my Yankees end their nine-year drought and pull out a 27th World Series title.

With that, I say Here’s to the Yankees.

Photo courtesy of Jim McIsaac/Getty Images.