If my blog’s new theme doesn’t prove that I should no longer be allowed to make bets with my friends, I don’t know what does.

Shortly after meeting INPY earlier this year and becoming BFFs over SoCo and limes and our Dodgers-Yankees rivalry, we made a bet on the baseball season. Since INPY documented it on his blog, I’ll let his words speak for themselves:

[Arjewtino] and I have a little wager that I will now make public. He is a Dodgers fan, but I don’t hold that against him. (Not TOO much) It could be SLIGHLTY worse and he could belong to the tribe that is known as Red Sox Nation. (Gag) But, as a true baseball fan he knows of the storied history our two teams share…the anger, the WS run ins…all of it. And since the Dodgers are FINALLY picked to actually do well, we have put this little wager together;

It’s a head to head, Yankees v. Dodgers straight up who will have the better year. If, say the Yankees make the playoffs and the Dodgers don’t…game over. If they both make the playoffs it’s who wins more games/advances further. And if, by the grace of God we meet in the WS (as many are predicting) then it’s a straight up winner take all…

And what is on the line?

Loser has to (1) dress up in the jersey and the hat of the other’s team and allow photo documentation and (2) the Blog gets a makeover in the other teams colors and logos for a full week.

The season started out great for Big Blue as we (yes, we) won 10 of our first 14 games. We started May over .600 and in first place in the NL West as the Yankees played under .500 through June. By the time the All-Star break rolled around, the Dodgers were up 5 games on the Bronx Bombers.

INPY was nervous about the bet and admitted as much to me. Hell, he barely cared about it when he saw the Red Sox build a season-high 14-game lead in the AL East. To his credit, he kept fending off immature attacks from RSN yokels and promised his Satanic team would stage a comeback.

Sure enough, the Yanks’ season, and my chances at winning the 6-month-long wager, started to change.

By the end of July, the Dodgers were up on the Yankees by only a half-game. By the end of August, the Dodgers were down four games and playing like Alyssa Milano was manning third base. Seriously, Tommy Lasorda could have hit better with men in scoring position.

On September 16, the Yankees held a 4 ½-game lead over the Blue Crew.

My team responded to this deficit in typical Dodgers’ fashion: by losing 10 of their next 11 games. The Evil Empire, however, finished the regular season by winning 9 of their final 13 games and securing the AL Wild Card.

Final Line:

Yankees 94-68 (.580)
Dodgers 82-80 (.506); 12 games back

I am an when it comes to betting. I may win at blackjack in Atlantic City or at Roshambo against HAL, but when it comes to wagering my dignity against my friends, I have the willpower of The Princess around champagne and cupcakes.

Still, I felt it was a fair wager and there is some satisfaction in having seen the Yanks get spanked by the Cleveland Indians in the first round. We agreed that photo documentation was unnecessary since neither of us remembered actually saying those words when we made the bet but that the blog makeover was instrumental.

So here it is. Enjoy Arjewtino’s new look this week, INPY. Soak it in, relish the images of Jeter and the NY logo on my banner.

‘cause there’s always next year.

Thanks to Kathryn, a Yankees fan herself, for designing my banner.

Though my Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles were mathematically eliminated earlier this week, the 2007 baseball season will officially put an end to our misery on Sunday when the Blue Crew finish out their 162nd game of the year against the San Francisco Giants.

Though this season started out full of hope, with many fans and analysts picking a Dodgers-Angels World Series, only eight teams not named after Brooklyn’s now-disintegrated trolley system will continue into the playoffs. LA, currently 80-78, will go home and regroup for next year.

I’m not going to analyze the Dodgers’ season over what went wrong. I’m just going to think about a time when my favorite baseball team WAS magical.

It was 1988, a season that should not — could not — have happened. The Dodgers won 94 games in a year that started with a first-pitch homerun by Steve Sax and ended with Orel Hershiser on the mound in Oakland. That was a year when the names Mickey Hatcher, Tim Belcher, and Mike Scioscia took on mythical meaning. When the number 59 became synonymous not just with Orel’s record scoreless streak but became as ingrained in my memory as 755, 56, and .366.

Game 1 of the World Series, of course, featured the greatest moment I have ever seen.

Down 4-3 in the 9th inning against a powerful A’s team, Kirk Gibson came up to bat with the tying run on base. He could barely walk. He could barely swing. I was at home watching in my bedroom, sitting on the edge of my bed as my mom yelled at me to take out the trash, staring at my 13-inch TV hoping against hope Gibby could draw a two-out walk against Dennis Eckersley, then the best reliever in the game.

My best friend Blue was actually at the game. I saw every Dodger fan, more than 54,000 in attendance, on their feet. Gibby worked the count full and then hit the most dramatic homerun in Dodgers history, belting it deep into right field as Vin Scully uttered the lines that, to this day and even as I write them, give me chills:

“In a year that has been so improbable, the IMPOSSIBLE has happened!”

Wait ’til next year.

Photo Credit

I came upon a disturbing realization recently: I may not hate the Yankees as much as I thought I did.

The Brazilian soccer team? Definitely. Boca Juniors? Of course. ? Yup.

But the Yankees? I’m not so sure anymore.

My friend HAL brought up this nugget of revelation over a few Miller High Lifes at Bedrock the other night. While watching SportsCenter, I was blasting the Yankees for being so Yankeeish when he said:

“You don’t really hate the Yankees.”

“Yes, I do,” I said, stunned at the mere mention of such an unsettling theory.

“No, you don’t,” he continued, “you only think you do.”

HAL went on to explain that a sports fan can only hate –- really loathe -– one team per sport. Having never heard such conjecture, I pressed him to explain.

“You’re a Dodgers fan. You love that team, right?”

“Right.”

“How do you feel about the Giants?”

“Ugh. I wish they went 0-162 every year.”

“Exactly. There is no situation in which you would ever pull for the Giants. But the Yankees, you could.”

HAL was right. In the 2005 playoffs when the Yankees played the Angels, I actually pulled for New York because I was so disgusted by the Angels’ attempt to supplant themselves into Los Angeles with a stupid name change. And when the Yankees and Dodgers both made the playoffs last year, HAL and I agreed to root for each other’s teams so they could meet in the World Series.

But the
Giants
are a
different story.But the Giants are a different story. I still get upset when I think about Bobby Thompson’s Shot Heard ‘Round the World, even though it happened 26 years before I was even born. Their orange-and-black color combination reminds me of puke. I don’t even like the Yomiuri Giants of the Japanese Central League because of their influential American counterpart.

With one sentence by HAL, my sports world was turned upside down. I had always known myself to despise the Yankees. As sure as there are 108 double-stitches in a baseball, as sure as Gibson would make a great name for my firstborn, I had been sure the Yankees were in my personal column of “Things I Wish Would Die”.

I started thinking about my other sports allegiances to see if HAL’s theory held up.

Soccer? I hate Brazil, that’s not news. And while I say that I hate England, I kind of admire their level of play. And I respect Germany’s talent though last year’s World Cup loss to them still stings.

College? As a UCLA fan, there is only one school that epitomizes evil to me: USC. I don’t care for Duke or most Big-10 schools, but USC stands alone.

Football? As a Redskins fan, I hate the Cowboys but I only mildly dislike the Eagles and Giants. I’m kind of a fan, actually, of McNabb.

So maybe HAL is right. Maybe you can only truly hate one team per sport. Maybe the Yankees aren’t so evil. Does this make me a bad Dodgers fan? Will never marry me now? Does it make my pleasure at seeing the Red Sox beat the Bronx Bombers any less enjoyable? Probably not.

But I definitely still hate Jeter.

When the Nats open up the 2008 baseball season, they’ll be playing in a stadium that looks something like this:

Eight months before this artist’s rendition becomes a reality, though, I decided on Saturday to stop by the stadium construction site for a sneak peak. And I got to see more than I expected.

Walking down Half St, south of M St in Southeast, I saw the purple-blue seats of the Nats’ new 41,000-seat arena. I approached the stadium and saw backhoes lining the street and trash littering the gutted sidewalks.

I spotted some construction workers milling about and could hear the hum of machinery coming from the hollowed center of the stadium. I walked around the left-field stands with my camera, slightly disappointed with the lack of exciting images.

The thought of trespassing entered my mind. There aren’t any signs telling me not to enter, I rationalized. So, armed with the courage of knowing my chances of getting arrested were slim, I walked across the sandy gutters and into the stadium.

I was surprised by how easy it was. No one saw me and the few workers who were at the site were too far away – and busy with construction – to see me.

I hid behind a pickup truck and approached the lip of the field opening. I snapped some quick photos and watched two workers stroll by without seeing me. I found a hard hat and considered wearing it in case I was spotted and needed to blend in. Riiiiight,, I thought, I’m sure there are plenty of people who walk around the stadium wearing a T-shirt from Guatemala and cargo shorts, furtively taking photos.

Fearing a charge of theft on top of the trespassing one I imagined I could still get, I left the hard hat in the truck bed and continued my unauthorized tour.

Steel beams provided a mental preview of what the stadium will look like when finished. Though most of the ground under the stands and in the passageways is still dirt, much of the field is already covered with concrete. The outfield looked to be taking shape and when I peered to the right-field foul area, I saw the first-base dugout carved out of the ground and the foul pole standing stoically down the line.

I continued to walk under the stands and found what I thought might turn out to be the steel skeleton of the future club suites. I pretended to be someone important enough to afford one of these suites and shuffled in.

After snapping more shots, I was thinking about walking around to the right-field side of the stadium or even finding a way to climb up a level, when I heard footsteps.

Be cool Arjewtino, I assured myself, doing my best impression of a cat burglar. I tiptoed to one of the other suites when a construction worker stumbled into my path.

“Oh, hey,” I said as nonchalantly as possible, hoping he’d mistake me for a Nationals’ press officer. “Just taking some pictures.”

“How did you get in here?” he asked, not fooled by my acting ability, but not showing anger, either.

“Oh, I just walked in from down the street,” I replied. It’s open.”

Talk fast, I thought, don’t act like you know it’s illegal to trespass.

“This stadium looks like it’s coming along,” I continued. “Think you’ll be finished by spring of next year?”

The worker, a silver-bearded man who carried the air of a foreman, eyed me without saying a word. I nodded my head and looked up at the rafters, trying to appear like an architect impressed that his vision of a major league stadium is finally being realized. I could tell he wasn’t buying any of this and I wondered if I could beat him in a foot race.

“You can’t be here,” he said. “You’re not wearing a hard hat and there’s work being done. This is dangerous.”

I narrowed my eyes and looked at him like he was an appetizer I didn’t order.

“Oh?” I said. “Ok, I’ll go.”

The man walked me out and didn’t participate in my awkward efforts at small talk. He didn’t care how excited I was about the Nats’ chances next year nor about my attendance at the DC United-Beckham game at RFK last week.

I neared the exit and he said, “Watch your step on your way out,” and disappeared.

I could still turn around, undetected, and do some more snooping, I thought.

Realizing a charge of trespassing could also carry a lifetime ban from the new stadium, I walked out into the sunlight.

Wait ‘til next year, I thought, wait ‘til next year.

My favorite photo was this full-sized one, which, as it turned out, I took from the same angle the artist’s rendition was drawn from:

Courtesy of MLB

If we do nothing else noble or heroic in our lives, men at least adhere to one rule: Never Go After Your Friend’s Wife or Girlfriend.

We can add another one: Never Go After Your Friend’s Celebrity Crush.

Alyssa and I (can I call her Alyssa? No? Ok, Ms. Milano and I) first met 20 years ago when she was signing autographs at the in Canoga Park, California. She was there with Scott Valentine, who played Nick from Family Ties, and who I was told was some sort of teen heartthrob. Mallory must have been hard-up.

I waited several hours to have Alyssa Milano sign my 8×10, black-and-white headshot of the only girl whose Teen Beat photos and posters ever graced my wall. I finally got to the front of the line in front of Mervyn’s and there she was. Alyssa Milano. Samantha Micelli, 15 years old (three years older than me), and gorgeous.

I had had plenty of teen crushes before. The Childlike Empress from The Neverending Story. That girl who played Annie in the movie Annie. My mom’s friend. But they all paled in comparison to Alyssa Milano.

She asked my name and I think I said the right one. She started to sign the picture, writing something like “Best Wishes” or “Meet me in the food court in 15 minutes” when I began to realize this would be the last — and only — time she would be in my life.

No, no, it’s going too fast, I thought, Scott Valentine wants to leave, Alyssa is a golden goddess, no, just wait, shut up, Nick, give me a second.

Mustering a level of courage I could never display with the cute girls in my class, I opened my mouth and asked Alyssa Milano for one favor, one memory that would comfort my acne-plagued, height-stunted teen years: “Can I have a hug?”

Oh, somewhere angels sing and saints are praised; somewhere beauty’s revered and the poetic lines of man lionized. But never was a place so perfect as that one, where the words that Alyssa Milano was about to utter so exalted and venerated: “Sure.”

She leaned in, placed her right cheek on mine, and squeezed. Not like the girls at school who got “grossed out” when they touched me. She gave a soft moan, I closed my eyes, and it was over.

I said thank you and left the mall. That memory never left.

So when a friend recently told me how he and Alyssa Milano started chatting through her baseball blog, and then forwarded me e-mail threads as proof, and I read where she said how funny he is and how great his blog is, and how she might come down in August and she coyly wrote “maybe we’ll have to meet up for a beer and a hot dog at the game”, I seriously considered ending the friendship. I think my exact words were, “I want to dismember you.”

Never has a prank worked so well.

INPY had me fuming all day, going so far as to forward seemingly real missives from Alyssa Milano’s own personal e-mail.

—–Original Message—–
From: Alyssa [mailto:]
Sent: Friday, June 29, 2007 11:39 AM
To:
Subject: re: Who Knew?

He let me “in” on his prank later that night when I threatened to disown him as a friend. Part of me was naturally relieved. The other part was sad that my chance of possibly seeing Alyssa Milano again when she visited in August was gone. I even had the whole conversation planned out:

INPY: “Alyssa, this is Arjewtino.”

Alyssa: “Nice to meet you, Arjewtino.”

Arjewtino: “Oh, we’ve already met.”

The rest, as they say, would have been history…

Thanks .

“Oh no, no. Too high, it’s too high.” — Cleveland Indians fan Ross Farmer tracking the flight path of a homerun, in Major League.

While watching my L.A. Dodgers pound the natty Nats 5-0 last night at RFK, I overheard two middle-aged men sitting behind me talking out of their collective ass.

Not literally, of course; but enough inane comments to nearly make me turn around and address them.

“Have you seen Fever Pitch?” one of them said. “That’s a great movie.”

Wince.

“He was safe by a mile,” after Ryan Church got caught stealing in the 2nd inning, even after television replays showed him out by a step.

Groan.

“I was rooting for Duke.”

Idiot.

There really should be three guarantees in life: death, taxes, and baseball fans saying stupid things. Attend any ball game and you’ll hear pseudo-managers argue obtusely about topics like the Yankees’ payroll, interleague play, and sabermetrics.

Or you’ll hear fans question a team’s strategy, the umpires’ calls, and baseball trivia — usually contrary to the facts.

Football may have its Monday-morning quarterback phenomenon, but baseball has more fan-based, second-guessing and ersatz expertise than any other sport. We like to think we know what we’re talking about; baseball and the nature of its provincial beginnings bring out that need probably more than any other sport.

P.S. Last night’s Dodgers win raised the ballclub’s all-time record to 9,389-8,542, a winning percentage of .524. Just in case you were wondering. Here are some reasons why some of us bleed Dodger Blue:

Me (in the A’s uniform) stealing home

“In baseball, you don’t know nothing.” – Yogi Berra

When I was seven years old, I received my first baseball glove. I remember going to my backyard, slipping it onto my RIGHT hand, and wondering how I was supposed to throw a ball with it.

Three years later, I would hit a game-winning grand slam during recess and be carried off the field on my classmates’ shoulders, unsure of what I had done. I remember turning to my friend and asking, “What’s a grand slam?”

Baseball didn’t start out in my blood. My dad and I attended River Plate games while living in Buenos Aires. Playing “catch” was not something we did in Argentina. But in 1988, while living in LA, the Dodgers started to play what would turn out to be the greatest season ever for an inaugural fan and I started to pay attention. I collected Topps baseball cards with my friends (my first was a Jose Canseco rookie card my friend Scotty tried to screw me out of), went to my first batting cage, and signed up for Little League.

I sucked during my first season. I managed two hits the entire spring but since I was small, I walked half the time I came to the plate thanks to my miniscule strike zone. I was always really fast so I learned to steal bases and my coach nicknamed me Charlie Hustle despite my ignorance of Pete Rose or his nomenclature.

Over the offseason, I resolved to improve myself and spent the entire winter smacking tiny pebbles from my parents’ new garden into my neighbors’ backyards, convinced that if I could train myself to hit a small rock, I could then hit a baseball 10 times its size. It worked. The next year I batted .500 and made the all-star team.

I also learned how to be a catcher and quickly fell in love with the number 2 position on the diamond. As the only player to face the same way as your opponent, the role of a catcher came easily to me and I started to understand more facets of the game.

By the time I was done with Little League and all the glory it brought me – being ranked as the number one player my final year, going to the championship twice, winning the league’s Sportsmanship Award – baseball had become a part of me that would last forever. The sights and sounds of the ballpark, the dynamics of game strategy, the statistics borne out of every pitch – this was the essence of my happiness.

I realize that telling people about my Little League success may sound trivial and to those who never played the game, a bit sad. But baseball did more for me than bring me frivolous stardom. At a time when I was the smallest kid in school, when I suffered from severe acne, crippling shyness, and most girls either laughed at me or thought of me as a brother, baseball gave me confidence and a belief in myself that most teenagers could only dream of.

On the field, I was accepted and couldn’t get teased by the older kids. On the field, I could smack long doubles and steal home without feeling like an ugly outcast. On the field, I believed in myself and wasn’t scared of making eye contact. It might sound melodramatic, but baseball, in part, made me who I am today.

Opening Day, today and every spring, marks for me when everything is possible.

“Umpires would be natural Republicans — dead to human feelings.” - George Will

When I was 15, I took a job as an umpire with my Little League, working mostly 5-10 year-olds. I remember thinking this was a great way to save money for the car I was planning on buying in a year. Little did I know that I would witness some of the most evil, barbaric, and incomprehensible human behavior in the history of mankind.

Angry parents, foaming at the mouth, yelled, cursed, nearly shoved, and intimidated me during games intended to teach teamwork and sportsmanship. I lasted two games before I quit, succumbing to not only despicable adult behavior but my own incompetence at calling a game.

I called kids who beat out throws to first by a mile out, forgot the rules of the infield fly, and mixed up pitch counts. I even embarrassed my then-8-year-old brother, whose game I umpired, by making the worst calls against his team (perhaps subconsciously to avert any thoughts of bias).

So when The Princess last week sent me the following Craigslist job posting…

Baseball Umpires Make $25/hour!
You can realistically make $400.00 per weekend!
No experience necessary!

…I didn’t exactly jump at the chance. Could it be that I was still distressed from these 16-year-old memories? I looked over the job application and the training. Looked thorough, maybe I could pull it off and finally put these demons to rest. But no, not even the prospect of earning an extra $1,600 a month could shake my trauma.

Umpiring is a necessary evil of baseball. Someone’s got to do the job for the game to be played; it just won’t be me.

If anyone would like to be reviled and hated for judging the placement of a baseball, go to: http://umpires.org.