Joy in Mudville (Thanks, A-Rod)

The baseball playoffs are over, ladies and gentlemen. The New York Yankees have lost again in pathetic and embarrassing fashion, and so yet another baseball season has fulfilled its purpose. Special thanks to Anaheim, Boston, Chicago and Cleveland for playing the other bit parts in this wonderful saga. Houston and St Louis? I suppose you can play the rest of your series if you want, but don't expect any TV cameras to show up at the park. Anaheim and Chicago? What, do you glory hogs want all the attention? Turn on your TVs, guys: the winner has already been decided. It's Not The Yankees. It's America, Greece and half of Finland. It's the human spirit, clean drinking water and sunshine. It's apple pie and bondage films. It's good.

So how did it happen this year, who slew the pinstriped dragon this time around? Not those plucky Red Sox, let me tell you that. No, they stumbled over their own helium-inflated bobbleheads and couldn't find their way out of the first round this year. Hell, they couldn't even find their way out of the clubhouse for Game 3, Chicago was declared the winner after an entire stadium waited two hours for the Red Sox to get done with their marathon tournament of Grand Theft Auto: Red Sox Nation Special Edition. But really, it was more than we ever really expected from this cavalcade of drunks and closet homos. Gotta love the Sox.

It wasn't the White Sox, either. Those ragamuffins won 99 games this season based solely on the element of surprise. They dyed their uniforms red during spring training and spent half the season fooling teams into thinking they were playing the Red Sox. Most of their opponents just gave up, figuring they didn't have the magic mojo to compete and they didn't want to risk having postseason-Jesus David Ortiz think they weren't cool.

Heck, it wasn't even Anaheim. Nothing against the Angels, they're scary like the bad part of L.A. I don't think anybody on that team even speaks English. The only two white guys left, Erstad and Kennedy, even look scared. They're both wondering where in the hell Disney went and who lowered the team bus.

Nope, it wasn't any of those teams. It was A-Rod.

A-Rod drove in as many runs in that series as I did, and I did it without looking like a dipshit on TV in flannel pajamas. I also did it without committing any fielding errors or repeating any Bull Durham clichés to bored television reporters.

The crowning moment in A-Rod's defeat of the Yankees came in the bottom of the ninth inning during the decisive game five against Anaheim. The whole season was on the line in that one at-bat and A-Rod sucked like Linda Lovelace on acid. He was the Bad News Bears, the whole team, all rolled up into one man-sized suckwad. He swung at a pitch my dead grandmother could have hit for a triple, but instead grounded into a double play so automatic the Angels' infielders weren't aware it had happened until it was over. During the play, shortstop Orlando Cabrera and second baseman Adam Kennedy never once broke stride in their conversation about why Cuban women suffer from such terrible gas, and first baseman Darin Erstad caught the ball in the middle of eating nachos.

A-Rod sucked so hard the guy sitting next to him on the bench lost his jock strap out through a toe-hole in his sock. A-Rod sucked so hard that barbers across the nation immediately retired his haircut, for fear of being associated with his godawfulness. A-Rod sucked so hard in that inning that it made his girly ball-slap from last year's ALCS look down right manly and heroic in comparison. After the game, A-Rod would admit that he played like a dog the entire series. Now my golden retriever is ashamed to leave the house.

Thanks, A-Rod.

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