Wonder Twin Powers Activate!

So, my friend Nicole sponsored a trip to the CoPa yesterday (thank you!), and a few strange adventures occurred. First of all, it was such a beautiful day. The sun was out, there was not a cloud in the sky, and I even needed to apply SUNSCREEN. You must recognize that this beautiful day was an aberration of eric proportions for this Spring-that-never-was. It was glorious.

Get a load of this. The first game that Nicole and I attended this year was on April 12. At this game, Josh Hamilton broke his shoulder sliding into home on that notorious play. This time, Eric Chavez broke his foot sliding into third. Coincidence? I think not! We obviously have the mysterious power to fracture bones of the opposition with our very presence at the park. We were thinking that we should be sure to attend a White Sox game next.

It was Paws' 16th birthday celebration (sigh). I'm not gonna lie to you. Mascots creep me out. I spent the day trying to avoid the myriad mascot representatives that were brought in for the festivities. We had a close call by the escalators, but I managed to escape without being accosted. Muddy and Muddona were there from the Hens, the Pirates' Parrot, Sparty, and some really scary looking clown were there among some mercenaries like the Bell Tire tire and the Comcast remote (come on). Paws got a new car driven out by his father! See photo evidence below. All photos in this post are courtesy of Nicole Maitland and may not be reused without expressed written permission.

Nicole is a big Will Rhymes fan. She was none too pleased with Flea getting pushed out of the big club by Mr. Sizemore. She has begun a grass-roots campaign with the slogan "Bring Back Will." She vows to send this cryptic message to Jim Leyland himself every day until Rhymes regains his footing in the bigs. Needless to say, her slogan got a lot of play yesterday, since Sizemore whiffed three times.

I have found the one person in the world who does not like Curtis Granderson. Nicole insisted on calling him Traitor throughout the game, despite my protests that he didn't ask to be traded. She wished a lousy performance on poor little CJ, with mixed results. Curtis was one for three, with a single, walk and a strikeout. I felt bad for Grandy. He didn't really deserve to be bad-mouthed like that.

Boesch had himself quite a day at the plate, single, home run, three RBI. He also reached base on one of the THREE Yankee errors. Funny stuff. I take anything the other team gives me. Sloppy play? Yes, I take it. If you want to turn the game into bush league stuff, I am happy to oblige.

Burnett had a no-hitter going into the sixth, but we promptly jinxed it up by mentioning it loudly and repeatedly, and generally acting like idiots. It worked, so don't question our methods. Thank you. We did fool a guy sitting next to us. He looked over and asked if we were Yankee fans. We laughed and said no. He later realized we were serious fans and discussed some baseball matters with us. He and his girlfriend left early to "beat traffic." Might want to just catch it on FSN next time, my friends. Why bother hauling it all the way to park to bail before the game is over? I'm sorry. That's stupid.

Kid Rick was not at his best, but managed to eke a quality start out of it, and Jim Leyland ran him out there for the seventh after he had already thrown 106 pitches! I was agape, and terrified. It worked out fine, however, and my fears were unwarranted...I guess. The outing ended up with Porcello throwing a career high 120 pitches. /shudders

Finally, some guy dove into the Yankee dugout during the game and was promptly jumped on and pinned down until a phalanx of security arrived to escort the guy to Tigers jail. I've already written once about how Joe Girardi is an emotionless automaton, but Nicole checked ESPN's account of the incident during the game and it said that Girardi did not appear to have much of a reaction. Big surprise. The guy's a droid, I am convinced.