New York Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez follows through on a two-run walk-off home run to beat the Boston Red Sox 2-0 during the 15th inning of a baseball game Saturday, Aug. 8, 2009 at Yankee Stadium in New York.

I am a huge baseball fan. I live and die with the Yankees. Mostly I live. They’re an easy team to watch. They win a lot. I know, I know, they’re the team with all the money. But at this moment in time, this year, they’re now officially the team to beat.

Last night after 5 1/2  hours of scoreless baseball, Alex Rodriguez hit a walk-off homer to win the game in the 15th inning. I know, you just read it in the caption above, but I just had to write it, to say it, to yell it. I just had to crow.

I’ll have to admit it. OK, I went to bed at the end of the 14th inning with the score tied 0-0.  Today’s a big day for me in the studio and I couldn’t jeopardize that – even for my Yankees.

I woke up about 10 minutes ago at my usual godly hour of 4:00 AM to write my post for this blog. My eyes popped open and my brain pumped a message to myself, “I wonder who won the game?” I scrambled out of bed, instantly awake, grabbed my robe, turned on my computer, prepared myself for the worst, booted up espn.com and sat before my computer with my eyes shut waiting for the news to appear before me, teasing myself like a kid at Christmas.

Then when I knew enough time had gone by for the news to boot before me, I teased myself even further by waiting about 10 seconds more thinking, “Well, the world knows the outcome, but I don’t.” My heart began to pump a little faster. I was even prepared for them to be still playing – say maybe in the 28th inning…

Finally I opened my eyes and there it was. Inspirational moment number 15,468,397 if you’re counting. YANKEES 2 – RED SOX 0!  I know, it says it in the title of this post. I just had to say it again. YANKEES 2 – RED SOX 0! There.

It didn’t matter that I missed the moment; it only mattered that they won. Actually, I prefer the previous kind of game to this one, the one Thursday night. Yankees 13 – Red Sox 6. I’m not much for pitcher’s duels; give me a good ol’ slugfest any day and don’t make it close; make it a slaughter. Yeah.

All this is especially pleasing to me, since (if you’re not a baseball fan but somehow still reading this) previous to this series, this season had been pretty embarrassing for me.  The Sox had won all 8 games between the two teams. Egads!

I used to hate the Red Sox. Any true blood New Yorker must sign a pledge to do so in order to live here and walk the streets. But I have a confession to make.

I admire them.

There, I said it. The dreaded Sox have been pretty impressive these last few years since they beat the jinx. They got a lot of hard-nosed players who don’t take nuttin’ from nobody. They got a great team.

There, I said it. Now back to the hatred. The Sox are in town and the whole town’s buzzin’. The Yanks have now gone 4 1/2 up in the race and could run away with it. Then again, there are two more games in this series, the Sox could win ‘em both and be right back in it.

But if the Yankees won both…! Oh, heavens to mergatroid, (Who ever says that anymore?) what a wondrous summer that would make. We’d be 6 1/2 up and it would be very tough to catch us at that point. But then again, ya’ never know…

Ah, that’s baseball. It’s a beautiful game played in a beautiful city on a beautiful night in the summer of ‘09 with a fabulous happy ending!

If that ain’t inspirational, then what is?

For  more inspirational music, thoughts and ideas from Peter Link, please visit Watchfire Music.