Bronx, N.Y., July 3, 2007 — “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands,” Yankee organist Paul Cartier played during one of the pitching changes the Twins made during their 8-0 loss in Yankee Stadium Tuesday. And judging by the response, quite a few fans were, and did.

It was a gorgeous made-for-baseball night, the masterly Mr. Wang was dealing, and the too often missing Yankee bats showed up big time. It’s not until tomorrow that we celebrate the 68th anniversary of Lou Gehrig’s “luckiest man” speech; perhaps the announced crowd of 54,000 were grinning ear to ear much of the night in tribute.

The Yanks barely scratched a 2-1 victory over Oakland Friday to open the home stand after a disastrous 1-7 road trip largely characterized by offense that drifted from listless to absent. Before losing the rubber game Sunday during a rare Andy Pettitte stinker, they were shut out Saturday 7-0 while replying to the A’s three home runs with one measley hit, and a seeing-eye bouncer up the middle at that.

But things began to turn Sunday as they scored five against the AL’s best 2007 starter, and the line drives they stroked all over the outfield Monday night finally started falling in after Bobby Abreu blasted a bomb to right. They pounced on Minnesota starter Carlos Silva Tuesday with two quick first-inning, no-out singles, as they had Monday, and Damon scored on Derek Jeter’s fielder’s choice grounder.

Meanwhile, Wang was mowing down Twins batters, retiring nine of 10 around a Justin Morneau double, with six coming on Chien-Ming’s signature ground balls. And the Yanks kept the pressure on Silva, with one-out singles by Andy Phillips and Derek Jeter in the second and third, respectively, with the former sending Bobby Abreu, on with a seven-pitch walk, around to third base. But they failed to pad the slim lead either time, something that had players and fans nervous when Wang struggled with his control in the top of the fourth.

The hard-throwing Yankee righty has issues with his fingers from all the hard sinking throws at times, and things got tense once Jason Bartlett worked a seven-pitch walk of his own to start the frame. Jorge Posada pegged Bartlett out stealing on the next pitch, a particularly fortuitous turrn of events because Wang walked the next two in succession on nine pitches. Morneau singled hard to left to load the bases. The 1-0 Yankee lead was looking quite inadequate about then, but Torii Hunter grounded hard to A-Rod for a 5-4-3 to quell the uprising. Alex was pulled a bit off balance grabbing the ball in the hole, but recovered, and Cano’s throw may have pulled Phillips off the first-base bag. Replays were inconclusive, but Hunter was steaming.

Given another chance, the tenuous Yankee 1-0 lead was tripled in the bottom half, as Robbie Cano, who had failed badly batting third Sunday, homered to right with Abreu aboard on an infield single, 3-0 Yanks. Wang pitched around a fifth-inning single when his infield delivered a crisp but unconventional 4-3-6 double play, and he held the Twins scoreless despite a walk and single in the sixth. When Chien-Ming bounced Jason Tyner out to third to end a one-two-three seventh, his work was done.

He threw 60 of 100 pitches for strikes, and tossed eight of 17 first-pitch strikes the first and third times through the Minnesota order. With the finger trouble in the three-walk fourth, however, he managed just two of nine first-pitch strikes the second time he faced Minnesota’s lineup. Wang featured sinking fastballs as usual, topping off at 96 mph but averaging perhaps 92-93, but he actually threw more strikes with his slider and his change in this portion of the game. He got 14 of 21 outs on the ground in this game, walked four and struck out three, one of those on a taken strike. Twins batters swung and missed at Wang pitches just four times, with two of those ending the swinging strike outs.

With Wang’s performance, the 3-0 lead after four was plenty, but the offense was breaking out from its inertia, and they punished the Twins mound staff in the home sixth. Posada drilled Silva’s first pitch to center, and when a charging Hunter couldn’t control the first bounce, Jorge chugged around to third as the Twins center fielder sprinted almost to the wall to retrieve the ball. A triple to my mind, the scorer gave Posada a single and Hunter a two-base error. A first-pitch wild pitch scored Jorge, and Matsui and Abreu pulled pitches into the right field corner back-to-back, with Abreu’s scoring the left fielder for a 5-0 lead. When Phillips lined the next pitch to the left center field wall, Silva was replaced with Juan Rincon, who hit Cano with a pitch. Cabrera and Jeter singles plated three more, and the 8-0 final was set.

Veteran Russ Ortiz replaced Rincon and survived the seventh and eighth despite two singles and a double from an unrelenting Yankee attack. Cano had his home run with two rbi’s, an rbi total matched by Jeter (on three hits) and by Cabrera (two safeties, as Melky’s average climbs). But the offense has taken wing and the man who gets the most credit is the one who took the most blame as the team struggled. With Jeter in the third spot while Abreu works out his problems hitting seventh, Bobby had his second consecutive three-hit game, this one a 3-for-3 with a walk, an rbi, and two runs scored. Despite the hamstring-injury scares, A-Rod played the first six, with no hits but some nice work afield. Phillips made a nice play at first, all the infielders excelled on the two double plays the Yankees turned, and Jeter timed a vertical lunge perfectly in the seventh to flag a Jason Kubel liner over short.

Early comers to this one got a free DVD of the first game of the 1977 World Series, which resulted in a Yankee Championship after a 15-year drought. This is the 30th anniversary season of that wonderful time, and it’s beiing feted on TV and in movies, in a slew of books, and all over the World Wide Web. The weather could not have been finer on this eve of the anniversary of our country’s birth, and fans that stuck around for this game’s ninth inning received yet another treat. The major league debut of reliever Edwar Ramirez, who got the call to the parent club a few days ago, holds promise for the future. Scott Proctor struck out two in the home eighth, but he did not touch what Ramirez did with a hard fast ball and a devastating change of pace. Edwar was almost out of baseball two years ago, and was found pitching in an Independent League. His numbers in AA and AAA were impossible to ignore, and he overpowered three big league hitters in striking out the side, all three swinging, in the ninth.

July 3 would have been the 124th birthday of Franz Kafka, a star writer of the absurd. His tome Metamorphosis, which tells the story of a traveling salesman who wakes up one day to find he has changed into an insect, a cockroach in some translations, was first published 92 years ago. This Yankee team that seemingly arrived dead in the water from their last disastrous trip is certainly undergoing a metamorphosis of its own, as is their hard-working right fielder. And anyone who is familiar with all the hopefully premature epitaphs to the struggling 2007 Yankee season in the sports pages knows that the idea that this team can turn it around and win a Wild Card, or perhaps a Division title, has been considered an outcome as unlikely as the change in Kafka’s hero.

There will be many tests ahead, and some bad days mixed in with good. Facing Minnesota’s Johan Santana Wednesday will certainly present a challenge. But with three months to go,

I’m rooting for the absurdist author, the cockroach, and the team that plays in the Bronx.

BTW,TYW

YANKEE BASEBALL!!!