Friday, June 20, 2008

Guess Who's Back?

It's seven games and counting for the New York Yankees as they prepare to do battle with the Cincinnati Reds this weekend. As one of two Yankee fans (and the lone denizen of the Dirty Jerz) on the G:TB editorial staff, I felt compelled to throw some love to my boys in the Boogie Down Bronx for coming to life and rattling off some wins against the mighty Houston Astros and Whale's Vagina Padres. There have been many agents responsible for this recent run, so we give thanks and praise to Johnny Damon, Mike Mussina, Alex Rodriguez, Hideki Matsui, Jason Giambi's moustache and Mariano Rivera, among others.

But the purpose of this rambling post, cranked out between the bleary-eyed coffee chugging and occasional loose stool excretions that come when one has too much scotch on their sofa while watching bad TV the night before, is not to laud the famous Yankee veterans.

It is to let the world know that I have come to terms with my man-crush on one current Yankee hurler.

He is neither slim nor shady, but Joba Chamberlain is my Yankee hero.

The wife of Rhymenocerous and I both are infatuated with the chubby former Cornshucker from Nebraska. We welled up at the stories of Joba playing catch with his wheelchair-bound, polio-stricken father, Harlan. Father would catch and throw with his one good arm. If Joba made a bad throw, he would be the one to run down the ball. He forced himself to be accurate. A legend was born. Joba overcame poverty with Harlan, playing with used equipment his father could find at yard sales to help his son pursue his passion. And Joba overcame weight issues, developing from a chubby high schooler who couldn't get the attention of his baseball coach into a fireballer at the community college level who earned a free ride to the University of Nebraska.

After blazing through three levels of minor leagues in early 2007, his first twelve months with the Yankees have been impressive by any measure. He relieved when they asked him to do so. He switched to starting after they asked him to do so. But more impressive than anything else, he has stood up and faced the pressure of being a 21 year-old rookie phenom in New York better than most anybody else. Each stint as a starter has been successively better than the prior one. Joba yet may develop into the first "must-see" young starter in New York baseball since a young man named Dwight Gooden started mowing down the National League in 1984.

So I'll let you Sox fans have your Papelboners. I'm content with my fuzzy lion on the mound.

G:TB salutes you, Joba. Just keep laying off the donuts.

14 comments:

TR said...

This was posted before I saw anything on Deadspin. Honest.

I wish I had worked my Jabba the Hut photo into the post, but it would've been gratuitous at best.

T.J. said...

I believe you sir...but I need to go work on your formatting. Good god man that's a lot of empty space.

Mark said...

Okay, I'll say it...Fuck the Yankees.

T.J. said...

Settle down tat boy.

T.J. said...

Here's hoping Stanford's Joey August makes it to the bigs...

zman said...

For a second I thought that was rhymenocerous in the lion suit.

Mark said...

Is there a reason that Stanford is still wearing uniforms from the early 80s?

rob said...

so nice of you to wait on this until i went to the beach w/o interweb access. i might have had a coronary to see my blog dedicated to praise of the evil empire.

that said, i've decided i can't hate joba, for many of the reasons you elucidated. he seems a good egg.

he's still no papelbon, though.

zman said...

The Sawks wore green jerseys last night in honor of the Celtics. This is the corniest gimmick I have seen in years, but I guarantee that Massholes across the Commonwealth will shell out plenty of cash for green Tekkie and Yook jerseys. It represents all that is annoying about life in the Hub. I'm positive the Yankees would not wear orange and blue unis if the Knicks won it all.

Mark said...

I'm positive you there's no chance the Yanks will even have that option for at least another 3-4 years.

TR said...

Like it or not, Robbie, Joba is a man who would get the G:TB seal of approval. And Papelbon would get one as well.

Beware another rambling post early next week, focusing on music...

rob said...

oh, please. like there aren't a legion of mouthbreathing fucksticks wearing neon green interlocked ny caps.

rob said...

also, fucking russia. fuck.

zman said...

There definitely are fucksticks galore in the tri-state area. My last trip to the Garden State confirmed that I can't move back. But tri-state fucksticks are fucksticks for different reasons.