“They say it’s alright
Say it’s alright
It’s alright, have a good time
Cause it’s alright, whoa it’s alright”

Bronx, N.Y., June 2, 2002 — Curtis Mayfield would have been 60 years old today, and his anthem to keeping on and looking up was a fine song to think of and hum during a beautiful, if disappointing (and eerie, but more on that later) day in the Bronx.

With a bright sun and barely a cloud in the sky, the pregame ceremonies included the Color Guard from West Point and forty-two cadets from the United States Military Academy stretching a huge American flag across the outfield in honor of that organization’s bicentennial. Although this has become a fairly routine sight in stadiums in the aftermath of the events of 9/11, the persistent southbound (left to right) breeze, while it added to the fans’ pleasure, made their task very much a parade ground adventure.

We sent a young and relatively inexperienced lefthander to the mound against an older and wiser veteran in this rubber game of our first 2002 series vs. Boston in the Bronx, and the results weren’t good. One of my pet peeves is that although numbers can be wisely and cannily used to judge, and predict, baseball performance, they can also cloud judgement if relied upon incorrectly. Thus, when I tell you that Ted Lilly threw only one first-pitch strike to the first 10 batters he faced, that stat can rightly be used to judge the hurler’s performance. On the other hand, unfortunately, the fact that Frank Castillo, starting his second time through the Yankee order when he faced Derek Jeter with one out and one on in the third, threw only two first-pitch strikes to the next 13 batters, had very little effect on the game’s outcome.

When Rickey Henderson led off the third inning with the Sox up 2-1, I turned to my brother and assured him I would give him $1 million if Rickey swung at the first pitch. I wasn’t worried, and Rickey took the first pitch ball and waited for the “groove thang” that was certain to, and did, follow. I was surprised by Mirabelli’s fourth inning shot, and disappointed that a too strong Mendoza couldn’t keep the ball down in a three-run fifth, but I really think we lost the game on that second pitch to Rickey in the third. Yes, I fully expected that our power-hitting, high obp lineup would eventually catch up to Castillo’s soft stuff. I tip my cap to him, but we would have managed to right the ship, had Ted come out for the third as 2002 Lilly, but he didn’t. And kudos to the defense of Merloni (again) and Rickey Henderson, whom I genuinely hope did not suffer a career-ending injury flagging down Wilson’s fifth-inning shot to the left field corner.

But the day was great, and it almost felt like we were at a cocktail party as I made small talk with some great fans and people who until now I had only met in cyberspace. I met Rich who writes a column for bronx-bombers.com and his sister Debbie (danmel on the site), who sit in Box 607, and Mike (aka soxfan9 on behindthebombers.com) who was all the way down from Massachusetts for his first Yankee Stadium game, and who had just come from Philadelphia where he saw his first Veteran Stadium game yesterday. Pregame Bernie threw long toss with Alberto Castillo again, while Derek did the same with Enrique. But both Derek and Alberto tossed the balls they used to kids wearing Jeter shirts, each jumping with glee behind the Yankee dugout.

And then at the end the day got weird. We had noticed Baltimore giving Seattle fits again, but during our ninth inning the out-of-town scoreboard showed that the Mariners had pulled even at 7-7 in the 7th. My friend Chris was remarking that it seemed like an X File as the pitchers currently in that game (Nos. 40 and 30) added up to 7(0) too, when among the wrappers and bags that had been blowing around over our heads all day appeared a crumpled newspaper page that looked old enough to have carried the original story of the Titanic sinking. Just then our attention returned to the field as Shane Spencer grounded back to the mound with one out and men on first and second. Casey Fossum surprised everyone of the 55,602 who remained in the crowd, and none more than his catcher Mirabelli, when he fired home for a 1-2-3 one-out putout! We were still abuzz when the rotating out-of-town scoreboard came around to the Orioles/Mariners game again, still 7-7 in the 7th, but in the time it took to come around, Nos. 53 and 50 were pitching! (You are encouraged to hear the theme from “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “The Twilight Zone,” or both, in your head(s) at this point.)

It will come as no shock to any Sox fans out there, but I sum this up by assuring one and all that everything is fine. We don’t face each other again for six and a half weeks, by which time the Yanks will have faced four NL West teams, the New York Mets twice, and others. The All Star break will be over, and the weight of the schedule and the importance of the games will have grown. Visitors from Beantown to our fair city may look back on this weekend wistfully as things grow a bit more tense. But I do think it’s clear that first place in the AL East will again be up for grabs. And you know what?

“It’s All Right.” Sing it Curtis, and thank you.

YANKEE BASEBALL!!!