I’m about to go to sleep, yes, at three AM, and this thought, however outrageous, occurs to me: baseball endures because the human spirit endures.

***

In the last forty-eight hours, as a baseball fan, we have seen the full course of human emotion.

We have seen the build up, and the jubilation as we inched closer to yet more perfection, in what is beginning to look like Year of the Pitcher, Part II.

We had shock, disbelief and anger as video showed us what should have been, and tradition battled back with what is.

We had, yesterday morning tears in our eyes as we watched Jim Joyce who had tears in his.

Yet, when Armando Galarraga smiled his wry, endearing smile, the type of smile that can make you like a guy even though you know absolutely nothing about him and still call him Andres out loud, we smiled.

***

I’ve said it before and it’s worth repeating.

Baseball is a sport about hope.

It’s about optimism (with apologies to the North Side of Chicago), about the knowledge that if the Mets and the Red Sox can win World Series, if Cliff Lee can be in the minors one year and win the Cy Young the next, if AJ Burnett can walk 9 and still pitch a no hitter, if Josh Hamilton can happen, if Rick Ankiel can happen, then surely, too, this can happen.

Surely, too, then, anything is possible.

***

So we hoped that we’d get a chance to see it, the third perfect game in a season, the second in four days, something wholly unprecedented in the history of a game so long it’s origins are not definitively known.

We hoped we’d get to see it, and in essence, the replays show that we did.

Then the call was blown, our hopes were crushed, and we were reminded about how imperfect the game can still be, designed, as A. Bartlett Giamatti said, to break your heart.

***

Yet the Coda here is perhaps more telling than the story.

We saw Galarraga take the lineup card to Joyce; Galarraga smiling, Joyce in tears and the fans applauding.

If it happened in a Hollywood film, we’d call it trite and cliche and unreal, but here it was, real as the computer or mobile screen on which you are reading this.

***

This game will find another way to make us smile, to make us angry, to shock us, to make us tear, to make us feel, to make us forgive.

As long as we remain human, the game will toy with our emotions, as it has done for generations, and yet these are the very emotions that give the entire experience meaning.

We saw that while the game itself may be an ideal, it’s still populated by, powered by, and played by humans.

Humans who err, sure, but also humans who feel, humans who forgive, humans who hope and humans who will, most importantly, play on.

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So I realize that tonight you are most likely distracted by what happened in Detroit, and that’s totally cool. That one blown call in the ninth inning of what would have been a perfect game, could, theoretically, single-handedly cause the greatest progress in the struggle for full instant replay in baseball.

That said, while you were busy being distracted, Phil Hughes pitched another gem, the Yankees had another offense-go-boom day, and oh, um, they got Jorge Posada back.

Despite the Yanks’ nine runs, and the fact that Robinson Canó is now hitting .373/.412/.632, the story continues to be the emergence of Phil Hughes.

With an ERA of 2.54, a WHIP of 1.05 that ranks third in the entire American League, and more strikeouts than anyone else on the Yankee starting staff (despite having started in just 10 games compared to Sabathia and Burnett’s eleven each), Hughes is not-so-quietly beginning to make the case to appear on the All Star roster.

Of course, thus far, it seems like everyone everywhere is pitching something incredible (three two perfect games in one season? Are you kidding me?), but for Yankees’ fans, Hughes season has to feel extra special.

After injuries derailed him in 2007 and 2008, and being forced to the bullpen to make room for Chien Ming Wang in 2009, fans right now are finally getting the chance to see Hughes, healthy and successful, show us all why he may very well be the Yankee home-grown ace of the future.

****

It’s probably much too early to start a Canó-for-MVP campaign, but early May slump aside, this guy was hitting seventh last season!

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1) The Orioles won a game after being down four runs in the eighth inning.

2) The Padres are three outs from sweeping the Giants.

3) The Cardinals lost to the Astros–again–and the Astros even hit a home run (!)  (Then again, the Yankees haven’t hit one in a while, so…)

****

The point is, in baseball, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains.

The Yankees dropped their second series all season, so while they may not have played particularly well against the Tigers, I’ll take winning nine of eleven series every. single. time.

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I know games started by Sergio Mitre are not generally considered winnable, but tonight’s game was.

In the eighth inning, especially, when the Yankees had the bases loaded with no one out, they looked poised to at least tie the game, if not take the lead.

No, your pitching staff giving up five earned runs is not a good thing, but that said, it’s not the abhorrent blowout that last night was. When you have an offense like the Yankees, and you’re facing an emergency starter and the rest of that team’s bullpen, five runs should not be Mt. Olympus.

There is one glaring stat from tonight, however:

Randy Winn left seven men on base.

I know Randy Winn is not Curtis Granderson, and until he returns the Yankees are in a bit of a spot, but anyone who’s played on San Francisco’s offense (except, perhaps Pablo Sandoval) in the past three seasons can’t really be expected to put up tremendous numbers.

That said, in the eighth inning, Winn didn’t have to get a hit. All he had to do for the Yankees to tie the game was hit the ball out of the infield–or even to the right spot on the ground.

He did not do that. Instead, he popped out and advanced no runner.

****

However, some happy thoughts:

David Robertson easily had his best outing in a long time–if not all season. Let’s hope that this is the beginning of him being able to turn it around, and be something like the pitcher he was last season.

The gun had Joba Chamberlain hitting 98–98!–and while it’s tempting to say that the gun was on some sort of juice, the way the Tigers struck out in the bottom of the 8th reminds one of the phenom that burst on the scene in 2007.

(I’m too tired to mention anything about Joba and rotation, but if Javy Vazquez continues tomorrow, I might have to).

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Me: “Two packs of skittles, please.”

Clerk: “You like that candy, huh?”

Me: “You have no idea.” As I count my change, I realize that this is the same person with whom I talked about the parade a month ago “By the way, you know the Yankees got Granderson, right?”

Clerk: “Wha? I heard about the Bruney thing…”

Me: “Yeah. Curtis Granderson for Coke, Jackson and Kennedy.”

Clerk: “No way! We’re getting 28!”

******

So yes, the Yankees have, pending physicals, acquired Curtis Granderson for Phil Coke, Austin Jackson and Ian Kennedy. Granted, the physicals are not guaranteed–and Arizona is also a player in the deal (they get Edwin Jackson and Ian Kennedy and give up Daniel Schlereth and Max Scherzer)–but the clerk’s reaction, wide eyed and “OMG MY LIFE RULES” seems to be a fairly common one amongst Yankee fans.

How do I see the trade?

It’s a little hard to contemplate Austin Jackson not being in pinstripes after we’ve kept talking about him for so long, but Granderson is, as of right now, better than Jackson. He (Granderson) had a bad 2009 so there’s a little risk in hoping that 2009 was an off year and not a downward spiral, but what it does mean is that the Yankees have that much more leverage in negotiating with Johnny Damon.

I’ll miss Phil Coke’s postgame interviews, but I will rest easy knowing that he won a ring with the Yankees.

The part of the deal that strikes me most is that Arizona is giving up Max Scherzer–who is young and with tremendous upside–for the inconsistent Edwin Jackson.

In fact, netting E. Jackson and Kennedy, it’s hard to see how Arizona benefits–although Kennedy, at least, might find much more success in an NL environment.

The other big news of the day is that Peter Gammons is leaving ESPN.

That’s pretty big. Also, one that came out of basically nowhere. However, it does mean that he is trending above Tiger Woods on Twitter, and that is, given recent revelations, a testament to just how big a name Gammons is.

Regardless of any perceived bias, Gammons is still an institution, and helped nurture the talents of many we read today. No word on if this is a retirement or if he is moving on to another gig, but wherever he goes, I do wish him well.

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Couple things.

1) The Yankees traded Brian Bruney to the Nationals for the elusive PTBNL.

The PTBNL, as it turns out, is Washington’s Rule 5 pick–and they, unless I am mistaken–pick first. So the Yankees get to pick first in the Rule 5 draft.

Before you go moaning about how the Rule 5 draft is just prospects that teams don’t care enough to protect, remember that one Johan Santana was also a Rule 5 pick.

And it cost us Brian Bruney.

The potential for this to turn into something akin to Swisher ’09 down the road is intriguing–and one would think Cashman wouldn’t ask for the Rule V pick unless the Yankees had someone in mind.

2) This sentiment has been echoed by others, but thus far it’s the bloggers–and perhaps their cynicism–and not the main stream media that’s doing a better job of not reporting every single rumor they hear as veritable fact.

It might also have something to do with the fact that bloggers seem to be able to grasp how quickly information can spread on twitter, while many of the MSM have yet to figure out that twitter is as much about the ability to interact with others as anything else.

3) The Tigers, according to Buster Olney, basically want Hughes and Austin Jackson for Curtis Granderson, a trade that would basically (IMO) give the Tigers Hughes for free.

Granderson might be the nicest guy you meet, but no thanks. Hughes is the guy you trade for a guy like Halladay–and that’s only if you trade him and not Joba, when the consensus seems to be that in such a case the Yankees would be more likely to go the other way around.

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