There's not much of a positive spin to put on a night when your starting first baseman pitches better than your number two starter, but at least the game ended with a smile thanks to Nick Swisher. His one inning of relief work was designed to save the bullpen, but it actually wound up saving the game.
Seriously. Ask anyone who watched the game last night what comes to mind first and, unless they turned the game off before the eighth, it'll be Swisher's inning of work. It'll be the way he was smiling and enjoying every minute of the unusual moment, the way he shook off Jose Molina even though Molina wasn't flashing signs and the way he struck out Gabe Kapler, a very experienced big league hitter. It was fun and a reminder that, even on the worst days, there's a reason to smile.
Swisher's been a welcome dose of levity to the Yankee team this season. You need not look any further than Jorge Posada's humorless reaction to Swisher and other Yankees smiling and having a laugh during an amusing eighth inning. "Nobody was laughing," Posada said, which makes him blind, a liar or, most likely, a bit of a misanthrope who has been in baseball long enough to know that tomorrow is another day.
Posada's hardly alone. Peter Gammons of ESPN moaned and groaned about Swisher's reaction, which wasn't out of order in any way, to whiffing Kapler, sniveling about how respected Kapler is and how Swisher should hope to reach that level in his own career. There are likely others who thought it was a mockery or an undue risk to Swisher or some other shade of terrible, but they should all just look to Swisher instead of sucking on lemons.
Baseball is a huge business, but it is also a bunch of men playing a kids game. Anyone who loves it came to love it as a kid because it was fun to play, watch and talk about. Swisher was clearly having fun playing it and the rest of us should have had fun watching and talking about it.
Those who want to stick to somber topics should spend more time contemplating why Chien-Ming Wang has become a second-tier batting practice pitcher and figuring out ways to turn him around.
Josh Alper is a writer living in New York City and is a contributor to FanHouse.com and ProFootballTalk.com in addition to his duties for NBCNewYork.com.
