Hey Guys, I'm Nick Swisher!

Hello Pinstripe Lovers!

It's officially baseball season now that the Yanks are playing back at home and me and the gals have made our way to the Bronx for our first game, and boy does it feel good! We (us and the team) are feeling fresh from Spring Training and ready to go. Now that we've seen a full game in person, I can officially say that the boys are looking sooo good and I think we're going to win it all this year! They are also playing well...

So, despite the fact that the Stadium was lacking popcorn, peanuts, and PETTITTE shirts (!!!) on Thursday night, it was an overall great trip. Our seats out in section 237 (DJ3K territory) are great, and I only spilled one beer on someone...success! (Now that we're season ticket holders, I'd better not piss off too many people though, as there is a good chance we might see them again out there...) Oh, and get this: Curtis Granderson went 5-for-5 and hit 3 home runs...wait for it - that's not the shocking part. Picture it: The Stadium is on its feet waiting for Grandy to come out for a curtain call, and the usually overly observant Dana thought it was only two HRs. Even I KNEW what was going on! Wow... must have been because I was down a beer.

Also part of the highlight reel was our tweets from Flash himself... Mr. John Flaherty! He tweeted a pic of his healthy dinner to which I replied that Dana and I would be sticking with "a dog and a beer" at the game that night. See below for his response. Dana jumped in on the convo. and promptly invited him to the bleachers for a hotdog. We know he would've come on down if he could, but he needed to be fulfilling his duties in the press box...probably handing out some pre-game sedatives to Coney or something. Maybe if Erica flashes her turkey sandwich on Twitter next time, he'll come visit!

And of course, the marketing geniuses of the Yankees have, yet again, cooked up some amazing between-inning fillers to put on the giant screen in center field. Over the years, we've seen the oldies but goodies: the cap game, the bloopers, Baby Bombers, and various montages of the Yanks kicking a$$... But just as we're sitting there waiting for them to come back out - and probably contemplating our next hundred-dollar, thousand-calorie snack - this awesome display of Yankees doing impressions of Nick Swisher come onto the screen. So funny! One after another - Gardner, Chavez, Nunez, etc. give it their best shot. And then comes Jeter. For a second, it looked like he wasn't going to do it, but then he busted out (hand movements and all) with "Hey guuuuys, I'm Nick Swisher!" The place went wild like Curtis just hit another 3 bombs! Men, women, old, young...everyone! Geez, as if we needed more reasons to love Derek - we are perfectly content loving him and knowing we're barely going to get a smile out of him in an interview, but when he does things like this - we melt into little puddles in our seats... right next to the spilt beer.

Ya know, I have always said I only had three things I wanted to say to / ask Derek Jeter if I had ever met him (that will only be disclosed in the blog when that day actually arrives). But I think I've got a fourth... how does this dude have us all wrapped so tightly around his finger?? He does normal things, and we fall out of our seats thinking it's so hilarious! Gosh, I wanna be him when I grow up...Oh, and you think he has a Jeter Meter in his giant apartment? Ok, I guess that's five things. Will you marry me wasn't on the list either. Six. I'll stop!

Love, g

ps - Check us out again next week - We'll be back in the bleachers at the end of the month where we will continue our quest for #28.... AND #46!

Spring Training Recap: I'm bringin' the cannolis, they already got the cake

We here at Pinstripe Love know that pictures are way better than words, so for our 4th annual spring training trip recap, we're going to post our slideshow and some videos we took along the way. But first a quick run through of the high points of the trip:

1. We attended three spring games, two in Tampa and one in Kissimmee.

2. Every year we fall in love with another Yankee when we see him in person. This year it was probably a toss up between Eric Chavez and Francisco Cervelli.

3. We are "not over" Jeter, hence our theme song this year, "Not Over You" by Gavin DeGraw, look for it in our slideshow.

4. Jeter's house was again a stop during our travels. He wasn't home. We drove by five times.

5. Somehow our "thing" this year was trying to get the players to acknowledge us..on video. We managed to get waves of recognition from Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte, Frankie Cervelli, and Alex Rodriguez. We were able to get Alex and Frankie on video. The others will just have to stay burned in our memories.

6. We got autographs from Eric Chavez, Justin Maxwell and Chris Dickerson. We had close calls for autographs from Kevin Long, Mike Harkey, Dante Bishette Jr. and Cervelli.

7. It poured half way through the game in Kissimmee at the Astros spring ballpark. Gina and I stood in the pouring rain (Erica took the keys and waited in the car), got thoroughly soaked and slightly delirious (as one of the Astros workers told us) while we waited for the players along the first base side fence. The game got called in the top of the ninth and the remaining Yankees came running by us. We tried our best to get them to stop and sign. Joe "Jiggy" Girardi even turned around to us after we yelled for him to sign and he said "it's raining." We yelled back..."we know Joe! We're soaked!" No autograph.

8. We saw Stevie Donahue at the day game against the Astros when it was still bright and sunny and scorching, and he told us to make sure we didn't get sun burn. Always doing his job!

9. Brian Cashman was in line for Carvel at GMS field. Gina and I saw him, Gina pointed at him with her foot-long hotdog. "Dane, did you see that guy right there that looks like Brian Cashman??" "G, that IS Brian Cashman!" We were standing right near him, he definitely was hearing our idiocy. Then again, he was in line buying his own ice cream...so next time, don't take so long to negotiate Jeter's contract AND don't send Cervelli to the minors!

10. I started an Andy Pettitte chant. We were already in GMS when we saw the pitchers on the second practice field doing infield drills, throwing to second base. After a bit, everyone left, except for Andy Pettitte and Goose Gossage. Andy was practicing fielding the grounder and throwing to first while Goose covered the base. The small crowd around us was really excited to see Andy, so I thought we should be organized about it and started the chant :) Andy showed his appreciation with a fist pump.

11. The Yankees gave away a drawstring bag the first night we were there as one of their promotions. They were stuffed with packages of Vigo rice.

12. And finally, we can't summarize this trip without mentioning Dan Franzese's Italian Mom's video, A League of Their Own, My Cousin Vinny, The Godfather, Date Night outtakes and SNL's Bronx Beat. The three of us didn't speak actual words to each other the whole time, we communicated mostly with lines from the aforementioned videos and movies to hilarious and sometimes Depends worthy outcomes.

And now for the slideshow and videos. Enjoy!

--Dana

First off, our slideshow:



Here are three videos of Francisco Cervelli, the first one is the "wave."







Next up, our three attempts to get A-Rod to wave to us. Look for success on take three & check out Erica's pipes :)







Here are the guys doing infield drills on the practice field:



Here's a clip of Erica throwing balls at one of the games outside the field, pretty hilarious.

These next two are a couple of Mariano clips, the first is him warming up, taken from our seats near the bullpen, and the second is Enter Sandman:





And finally, we end with Jeter. This was just after he waved to us. Gina was speechless, so that's me yelling "Derek" right at the beginning.

Coming soon...

Hello friends, coming soon will be the in depth recap of our 4th annual spring training trip. For now, here's a little clip of Derek "The Hotness" Jeter from our first spring game this year: