Good morning, good afternoon or good evening to you my good friends - whatever applies at this time. Welcome to the final 2004 regular season edition of The Gospel According to "L". Well - this is it! This is the final consecutive Sunday in 2004 for this piece to be written. After today - the next Gospel will come at the conclusion of the Division Series - no matter what the outcome. Hopefully I will get to do three more Gospels before November - three cheerful ones. This week we've got a ton of stuff we're going to talk about and we're going to have ourselves some fun in the process. This may take you two days to read - it will be long! In fact it will be so long that it will not fit in one Gospel! We will have two parts to this week's edition my friends - I hope you'll be able to handle it. I'm going to recap the final six games, I'm going to talk about something that happened in the Red Sox clubhouse before last Saturday's game, I'm going to also talk about the Expos' move to Washington, a story I read in am-New York that made me sick, and I will preview the Division Series with the Twins.

Now before I get started, I want to bring up two things. I want to first send a public thank you to my friend Michael Aubrecht over at the Prinstipe Press. He posted a few things up in his last monthly newsletter: a little something I wrote to him about why I brought back this website, and the September 12 Gospel. I promised him in an e-mail that I'd mention this in the final Gospel of the regular season, so here it is. I think I'll also once again pimp his website - it's the Prinstipe Press - just another fantastic fan site. Mike I'll say it to you again - you are a God among men my friend.

I also want to inform you I've gotten yet another piece of hate mail by a Red Sox fan who got offended by my "Nine Innings from Ground Zero" comments last week. Let me just make this clear - I will say what I want to say here, and I will make no apologies for it! I won't even apologize to a Yankee fan who is offended by my comments - so just think how I'll feel about an anti-Yankee fan who dislikes what I have to say! If you don't like what I have to say - do yourself a favor: do not visit! When you read this "person's" (should be creature) e-mail, you will see the hypocrisy in these people! We're always the ones who are obnoxious and loudmouth - yet they have every right to call us names! The person's e-mail address is also there, so if you want to let them know what you think - click here. As I have warned you before - please do not send viruses or threaten the person's life - I will not be held responsible! Any who, strap on your seat belts, we're going for one hell of a ride.

I want to begin with the final home series of 2004 with the AL Central champs - the Minnesota Twins. Well thanks to Jeanne coming to town the game was washed away on Tuesday - you should have seen how hectic it was in Manhattan around 5PM. Anyway that gave me time to do other things. I heard the doubleheader would be played the following day at 4PM - so it's basically one of those twi-nighters with no separate admission. Here is one thing I would like to do for these types of doubleheaders. You see the Minor Leagues do a great job of this - they save time by playing each game seven innings. Instead of two nine inning games - which could run about seven total hours - you play each game seven innings; this way they end quicker and fans and players can get back home early. I'd love to see that tried in the Major Leagues someday. Now another thing I heard was that El Duque would miss a start because of a "tired shoulder." I thought to myself how can this be? He doesn't throw hard - at least not Pedro in '99 hard. Then I realized he did have surgery on that arm last year, so maybe the strain on a surgically repaired shoulder can cause some trouble. He did tell the press that he'd be fine in a few days and it doesn't appear to be as serious as it's been reported. If anything, he'll be the game three starter in the Division Series, which we will get to later. Then we have the doubleheader on Wednesday. I was at work when the first game started - so I followed it on Game Channel courtesy of Yahoo! I kind of like that little gizmo - it really does the job. Any way, I leave work with the Yankees down 3-1, and I'm thinking to myself well this could be the beginning of the end. I come home, turn on the game, watch my boy Max Kellerman talk up a storm and argue on FSN (too bad he lost,) and then I see the Yankee rally. Hideki Matsui sends one out and now it's 3-2, and then the Twins infield commits a felony - they do an unlawful impersonation of the Red Sox infield and allow the Bombers to tie the game up at three. That was with Derek Jeter at the plate, and then comes A-Rod with two men on and two out against a tough righty: Juan Rincon. Well Alex sends one deep, deep and it might have been Jason Kubel, Lew Ford or somebody else in right, I can't remember - but whoever it was couldn't catch the ball and two runs scored. I have the radio on the eighth and ninth since I was cooking half of the dinner (you men out there who can't cook - learn to cook the way I and my father did - if you don't have that many great qualities, at least a woman will like a man who can cook.) Any who, Flash Gordon's in, and he gives up a baserunner but nothing else - and then Mariano comes in, gives up a hit, but gets out of trouble with a DP and that's that - Yankees win game one and the magic number falls to two. Then we have game two about twenty minutes later - well we have Matsui doing it again - this time with Jeter and Gary Sheffield on base - three-run job to the opposite field and it's 3-zip Bombers. The way Kyle Lohse has pitched, you may as well have Kylie Minogue, nevermind Kyle Lohse out there - damn he's been awful! Hey don't get offended - you know the Aussies can pitch too! Overall a good close game, I don't want to get into too many details. I will say this however - I was not pissed off when A-Rod's double in the seventh was called an out instead. Lew Ford did make the catch - the replay clearly showed that the ball did not hit the ground. So you see, for all your whining Yankee haters, umpires will take your side as well, no matter if it's right or wrong. Pedro and the Red Sox got pummeled down in St. Pete, so now the magic number is simply down to one. All we now need is a win or a Boston loss - it is as simple as that! Speaking of Pedro, in case you didn't hear, and unless you haven't listened to Michael Kay you probably haven't, wait until you find out what the Sox did last Saturday - you are going to die when you see this! Moving on, now we have the last game of the series and the last home game of the regular season at 161 Street & River Avenue. Now I only watched this one on-and-off since I was trying to see if Smackdown was on (and it wasn't), plus I spent the last hour watching the debate (did Bush drink a six-pack before he got to the podium? Jesus, he was pitiful!) Now the Sox were not playing this night, so all the Bombers had to do was win and they'd have both the East and home field advantage in every round in their hands. Well they fell behind 2-0 to Brad Radke and I'll tell you - I didn't think it looked good. Javy Vazquez' problems with the homerun look more like a terminal illness - he throws one up in the zone to Torii Hunter and he hits it the other way, off the foul pole in right. Well like I said, I didn't watch most of it, so I didn't see the tying runs score. The next phase I saw was the ninth inning - Flash Gordon comes in, gets into trouble and out of it, so we go to the bottom of the frame tied at four. Now keep this in mind - the more Flash is used, the less effective he will be in the playoffs. I'd like to see Tanyon Sturtze be used as the seventh inning guy once the Division Series begins. But any way, we get to the bottom of the frame. I have the debate on radio (Bush even sounded terrible while Kerry sounded a bit more presidential,) and I have the TV on YES. Juan Rincon's in to face Gary Sheffield - and he does a good job of working the count to 3-2. Well it's 3-2, and the pitch looked like it was marginally low, but Andy Fletcher tells me I'm wrong and calls it strike three. Now I had no sound on the TV since I was concentrating on the debate (ahh the beauty of multi-tasking), so I see Ron Gardenhire run quickly out of the dugout while Sheff is arguing with the ump. I did notice his left hand was out, so it was a pitching change - talk about persistent! Any who, in comes the lefty Aaron Fultz to face Matsui. Unlike Sheff, Hideki does work out the walk, so we got a man on with one out and Bernie Williams coming to the plate. I can't even remember the pitch count, but I remember seeing Bernie take a big hack, and I thought to myself this game is over! I didn't think it was a homerun - I thought it was at least a walk-off double to score Hideki. But when I saw the ball hit the netting, oh baby that was sweet! I switch stations just in time to hear Sterling bellow out "BERN BABY BERN!" I even turned on the Spanish announcers on 1280 AM - I hear Beto Villa bellow out his homerun call "¡Se vaaaaaaaaaaaa! ¡Y se fue de quadrangular!" I love how he still does what they did on WPIX in the 80's - "¡Esta Bud es para ti!" (This Bud's for you!) Remember when Messer and Rizzuto did that back in the 80's when a Yankee hit a homerun? Thanks to ESPN Classic I got to see that. What a great way to end division title hope for the Sawx! Now, the Yankees have home field throughout every round - Division Series, ALCS and World Series - even if it were to be the Cardinals (best team in all of baseball.) So now the baseball gods have done a little bit of destruction on Red Sox nation - now hopefully the job will be finished next month. The beauty of this is simple - the Yankees sweep a potential playoff foe, and the get to play three games with no pressure at all. There are still some weaknesses, and we will get to them later.

Now we close out the season up in what Homer Simpson called "America, Jr." - a.k.a. Canada: Toronto to be precise. I didn't watch most of the game Friday night simply because the regular season job had already been done: the Bombers clinched first place in the division and in the League. It's like spring training - you know I do not follow spring training because the games are meaningless - well these three were. Unlike the early teams I watched, these games were meaningless for a good reason. Now the one worry I have is El Duque - he got just hammered to pieces! His shoulder problems are still there, and if those problems remain against the Twins, oh baby we're in a heap of trouble! A team like Minnesota's offense is not as forgiving as the Jays' is, and I don't even want to talk about Boston's or Anaheim's. Now we get to Saturday. I watched Saturday's game off-and-on. I was more interested in seeing what happened in the Braves-Cubs game and in the Angels-A's game, as I'm sure some of you were - plus I had to get a haircut. I will talk more about those two games a bit later on. Kevin Brown did pitch pretty well - even if it was the Jays. He goes five innings and only gives up one hit and two walks, while striking out two. That looked more like the Brownie we got for Jeff Weaver - but the question remains: can he pitch like that against the Angels, Twins or Red Sox? The Yankee offense was comprised mainly of Columbus' roster (Bubba Crosby, Andy Phillips, Felix Escalona) and guys who will be on the bench (Ruben Sierra, John Flaherty, and Enrique Wilson.) He lost the game, but he pitched more than well enough to get the win - so that was very reassuring. On Sunday I kept switching between the Yanks-Jays and the Giants-Packers. This was a funny game, especially seeing Ruben "el Indio" Sierra manage and if I was not mistaken, Mariano Rivera as the pitching coach. This is what I love about Joe Torre - he'll give other guys chances to do his job (Joe Girardi, Paul O'Neill, Roger Clemens, Willie Randolph, etc.) Brad Halsey did pitch pretty well - despite the fact that he was facing a last-place team with some minor league talent. One question I have - does Dioner Navarro ever not hit? I know he struggled this season when he was first promoted to AAA - but it looks like he may have gotten the hang of things. He reminds me a bit of Pudge Rodriguez - he's 5'10" (Pudge is 5'9"), he can hit for average and for some power. Now I haven't seen him throw out base runners, but if he can do that too, then it looks like we may have ourselves a future catcher. Bottom line - Yankees win on an eighth inning homer by Bernie, Tanyon Sturtze throws 60% of his pitches for strikes to close it out, and the Bombers win number 101. Well the regular season is over and we get to face the Minnesota Twins in round one - but I'm going to talk more about that later on. Right now let's get on to some other business.

I want to talk about what happened before the Saturday night Yankee-Red Sox game. I heard all this while listening to Michael Kay at work last Monday. I could not believe this - apparently Pedro Martinez showed up at 6PM for a 7PM game. Now I don't understand the big deal there since he had already pitched and gotten clobbered by his "daddy" the night before. A pitcher who doesn't have to pitch a certain day shouldn't even be at the ballpark - wouldn't conventional wisdom tell you that?

Any way, he didn't come alone. Pedro brought in a person named Nelson. Nelson is a midget standing less than three feet tall. I remember Michael Kay kept calling him a little person, please! Come on Mike, grow some guts, to hell with the political correctness police! Any way, I couldn't keep a straight face hearing about this, especially when I hear that one of the Sox players actually said "I have got to get me one of these" when Nelson was running around in the clubhouse. It was like a frat house in that locker room! This is the Boston Red Sox - a team comprised of players who do not take this game seriously. They lost a game that basically made them nothing better than a wild card team, and they react with this? Yet nobody in the national media reported this! Did you hear about this on Sportscenter, or did you see the news online?

Just imagine if Mike Mussina lost that game and then brought in "mini Moose" the next day! ESPN, FSN, WFAN and WEEI (Red Sox flagship) would have been on this like white on rice. You would have seen Max Kellerman have to argue about this on I, Max with those two idiots - Bill Wolff (who is a corrupt judge, I'm with you Max) and the only black Red Sox fan I've ever seen - Michael Holley. You would have heard Chris Russo scream so loud you'd be able to hear him all the way out in Ozone Park while Mike Francesa just sits there quietly! Sportscenter would have opened up with that and talked about it for most of the show! I can go on and on, but I don't want to have you squinting on me from having to read so much. This is insane - just look at both teams. The Yankees in their clubhouse have a business-like attitude. It's not all serious, but at least it's normal. Meanwhile the Red Sox clubhouse looks more like SUNY Stony Brook's frat parties! Just imagine if the Sox actually do win the World Series any time soon - you'll have strippers in that clubhouse! Their World Series victory party will have to be aired on Playboy TV! Oh baby, like the Scooter once said - God Bless this wonderful game they call baseball. All right, let's go on to the next topic.

Now I want to talk about the return of Major League Baseball to Washington, DC. All I have to say is - it's about damn time! The last game played in Washington was September 30, 1971 - the Yankees were losing to the Washington Senators 7-5, but ended up winning on a forfeit thanks to the idiot fans who decided to tear up the field at RFK Stadium. Precisely 33 years later the announcement is made: the Montreal Expos are relocating to Washington, DC. All we kept hearing was Northern Virginia and Las Vegas - neither of those two places are fit for Major League Baseball. Northern Virginia's team would be considered small market and would never make it, while Las Vegas is the gambling capital of the world - Bud Selig would actually have to reinstate Pete Rose *gasp*! So Washington, DC is the perfect choice.

Let me tell you why I am very happy with this. Washington is the capital of this great nation - most of the people who work there (who we pay with our tax dollars) may not be great, but it is the federal capital nonetheless! To have a team move from Montreal - a city that doesn't care one bit about baseball - to the capital of the nation that invented the game! Tell me that's not a good idea! "But Cat, what about the two previous Washington franchises?" What about them? They both failed because they didn't draw to a ballpark that was crumbling (Griffith Stadium) or a depressing cookie-cutter piece of garbage (DC/RFK Stadium). I hated the cookie-cutter, multi-purpose stadiums - it's all I knew when I first started following baseball and football! This isn't like indoor hockey and basketball arenas, these are outdoor pavilions where fans get to see a pastime that should have fields that are distinct from one another! Just look at the differences between Veterans Stadium and Citizens Bank Ballpark, Three Rivers and PNC Park, Riverfront/Cinergy and Great American, Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium and Turner Field, and even the Kingdome and Safeco Field! Which ones would you rather watch a game at? Now the franchise will start the first three seasons at RFK (I guess they'll share it with DC United,) but will have a brand-spanking new stadium by the next presidential election (2008.) Plus the demographics have changed in that area - so this time this team will have support.

I heard some people upset in Montreal - even one told one of our newspapers "imagine if the Mets or Yankees were going to move - how would you feel?" First of all that will never happen! You people in Montreal decided you didn't want your team, so now that it's leaving you're all upset! The nerve of some of these people! All right, I'm sure there were some diehard fans in Montreal, but the rest of them didn't care! You need a good amount of fans in order to be successful. New York, Chicago, Boston, etc. will never lose their teams, why? Because these cities draw real fans! Baseball is the American pastime - it will never die in these markets and I don't think a Washington franchise will either! The Expos only drew about 5,000 per night in a stadium that seats up to 44,000! It was so bad 25% of the home schedule had to be played in a different country! And Olympic Stadium was another depressing place to watch a baseball game. Thanks to the idiots that manufactured the roof - it could never open, therefore even on a nice day people were stuck indoors. How can anybody who is normal enjoy a baseball game crammed into a round indoor building? Tampa Bay - that means you too! Plus when you looked at the Big O from a distance it looked more like an air traffic control tower than a sports venue. It was depressing! By the way - this happened during the era of revenue sharing and the luxury tax - I told you so!

This franchise will not fail! Their fan base will grow - and their new stadium will be another neo-classical masterpiece. Peter Angelos kept whining about how he had terretorial rights to DC - funny, where were these rights from 1954 to 1971? I know he wasn't owner then, but what gives? It's like the Giants saying San Jose is theirs. Baloney! The A's play in Oakland, and Oakland is right next door to San Francisco - while San Jose is a few miles further out. If anything, the A's would benefit big time from a move to San Jose - the Giants could reclaim Oakland as their territory. You build a nice new stadium next to the HP Pavilion (Shark Tank) and you have a nice little sports complex for San Jose. And Washington, DC, and Major League Baseball will benefit big time from having baseball return where it belongs - the capital of the free world! All right, part one is finished, now click here for part deux!