Going for 28

Last fall, I was in the midst of a miserable semester. It was my sophomore year of college. I was 250 miles from home and nothing was going my way. I was exhausted, run-down and hadn't gotten a full nights sleep in weeks.

After three weeks of tossing and turning, I'd tried just about every solution in the book. I drank chamomile tea and no caffeine, I took herbal supplements, I tried running before bed, I started meditating. Nothing worked.

Finally, one night in a fit of desperation, I signed up for an mlb.com account. I gave them my credit card number and could now listen to any baseball game in the country.

I immediately turned on the game John Sterling was calling that night on WCBS and I felt a sense of calm I hadn't felt in weeks wash over me. It took me back to the summer nights of my childhood, driving home in the backseat of the car, listening to a Yankees game.

I fell asleep in twenty minutes.

I use this as a story of what baseball and the Yankees mean to me. It's not that I find baseball boring, and listening to Sterling puts me to sleep. I wouldn't be writing this if Idid. But baseball, and the Yankees, have always been a piece of my home. It's not an exxageration to say the sound of my childhood was the Yankees Soundtrack. I feel like the team is an extended part of the family.

So it's fitting that I'm writing this blog with my brother, Mike. He's much stat-focused than I am. So look for me more for my feelings about the team, growing up a Yankees fan, being a transplanted Yankees fan, team gossip (Will Jeter ever actually marry Minka Kelly? What's up with ARod and Cameron Diaz) and book/magazine/blog reviews.

We're going for 28 this year. Leave a comment if you are too.