I was fortunate enough to snag some tickets to Friday night's game vs. that Yankees. We were in the upper deck, almost all the way to the top, directly behind home plate (section 417). Not a terrible view though. About the only thing that was really hard to see was whether pitches were high or low. We had a pretty good view of the plate.

Overall, home fans did a decent job (though I was puzzled at times). There were plenty of Yankees fans there tonight and several times they tried to get a Let's Go Yankees chant started, but the home folks managed to drown them out. After Jeter's HR in the 8th, there was plenty of cheering, but the boos overwhelmed them. So MMP wasn't overrun.

I was surprised at the level of vitriol directed against Derek Jeter and ARod. Both were booed at Carlos Beltran levels every time they stepped up to the plate. I guess I can understand people who view ARod as the culmination of everything wrong with baseball today (even though I don't share that opinion), but I didn't know people hated Jeter that much.

Jeter's HR was impressive to watch, even though it sucked.

It's hard to say for sure, but the home plate umpiring looked erratic tonight. A couple pitches in particular stand out, both called strikes: one a breaking pitch that curved way inside to Matsui and another to an Astros (maybe Lee) where Posada had to reach way up to the right to catch it and it was still a strike. He was inconsisent on the plate too. Also, I haven't seen the video on his balk call on Valverde, but it didn't look like there was anything different in his motion than on any other pitch. I think he called him for not coming to a full stop in the stretch. It seemed a really fine distinction from our vantage point.

Something that doesn't come through on TV: Valverde works SLOW! After every pitch he's stretching, or wandering around the mound or picking up dirt. The top of the 9th took forever. Maddening.

It was a cool surprise to have Rudy Guiliani throw out the first pitch. He got a big ovation. He also was out to the mound and back in about 5 seconds it seemed. Talk about a quick pitch.

Except for his first swing of the night, Pence looked bad, like he did to start the season.

Berkman getting caught stealing was dumb, but I see it more of an error of degree than kind. He was this close to having Chamberlain timed, and he just barely missed it. If things go the other way by a fraction of a second, Chamberlain delivers the pitch w/o checking on Berkman and he ends up on third w/o a throw. Tough play and that ended up really costing us.

No excuse for the later CS by Bourn and Wigginton though. I do have a question, and this goes to something that I've noticed about Bourn. He seems to lose focus when he's on the bases. There was a game last week where he got caught too far off second, and another instance where he didn't even try to score from 3rd base when a dropped third strike got away from the catcher. Tonight, when he stole 2nd base, he did so when the Yankees tried to pitch out. Instead the pitch got by Posada and ended up bouncing off the wall and back towards 3b. Bourn wasn't alert to that and dove headfirst into 2nd when there wasn't even a throw. I don't know how likely it was he could have made it to third, but b/c he was completely blind to the possibility he didn't even have a chance.

It was a fun ballgame to watch, even though we lost.