Thanks to the largesse of my daughter Molly, our newest friend Shawn Kelly and I (that’s us below, flanking Mister Balloonhead) got to go to see the Yankees and Orioles on Friday, June 20th. Shawn, who is very knowledgeable about baseball (although this appears to be way down on the list of things he knows about, following hockey and fishing and other topics) predicted that the game could be a pitchers’ duel, and for most of the game, he was right–Hiroki Kuroda no-hit the O’s for five innings, while Ubaldo Jiminez allowed the 
Yanks to load the bases in three innings while yielding just one run. Baltimore moved ahead, and the lackluster Yanks entered the bottom of the ninth trailing 3-1. But Brett Gardner got on, and after two outs, so did Mark Teixiera and Brian McAnn, bringing Carlos Beltran to the plate. Earlier, the perspicacious Shawn said “If Beltran can get up, we might have a chance.” And so we did. Beltran clobbered a high 3-1 pitch over the leftfield wall, and everyone went home singing New York, New York.
