Weaving a spell

I have come to a conclusion. All the pain. All the suffering. All the terrible horrible no good very bad things that happen to us because of the New York Yankees are a result of fear, or as my co-blogger's mother put it recently: "some kind of magic spell"

I teach literature, so I know that the only really powerful spell is story telling, so I am left to assume that what happened was this:

The starting pitchers (and the sometimes starting pitchers) gathered together for a slumber party at the Metrodome. There was Scott Baker and Glen Perkins, and Cakeburn, and Killthrow and The Cisco Kid and the Master Librarian and Anthony Swarzak. And they played and braided each other's hair and ate popcorn and read teen idol magazines and laughed, laughed, laughed some more.

Then, before it was time for Uncle Gardy the Garden Gnome to tuck them into bed, the mean older brother came back. The brother who smelled of smoking and Southern Comfort/Fanta and evil. KYLE LOSHE.

LOSHE: "Wuzzup, suck 'tards!"

BAKER: "Kyle, you're not supposed to be here! This is our party and our fun-time!"

OTHERS: "Yeah!!"

LOSHE: [picking at the paint on the door jamb, trying to look unconcerned] "Sure, fine, whatever...I just thought I'd see y'all one last time before the Yankpires destroyed you."

OTHERS: "Yankpires?"

PERKINS: "What are they?"

LOSHE: "Yankpires? Oh, nothin'...just the most EVIL THING IN THE WORLD!!!"

OTHERS: "Gasp!"

LOSHE: "Yankpires are Yankee Vampires. They run faster than anyone else, they jump higher than anyone else, they hit the ball harder than anyone else."

DICKEY: "Wait, I'm sorry, who says that?"

LOSHE: "I READ IT IN A BOOK, TARDFACE!! Anyway. Their line-up used to have a man who would eat only hot dogs, pigeon heads and drink root beer mixed with human blood and he would turn that into home runs?"

OTHERS: "GASP!"

DICKEY: "Used to--how long ago?"

LOSHE: "80 years ago NUMBNUTS! BUT HIS GHOST IS STILL THERE!!"

DICKEY: "Vampires can become ghosts? That's not consistent with Stoker's original text, Van Helsing says--"

LOSHE: [PUNCH] "SAME THING'LL HAPPEN TO YOU IF YOU INTERRUPT ME AGAIN! Anyway, The Yankpires don't feel pain, the Yankpires will eat your fastballs for breakfast, your change-ups for lunch and your face for dinner!!"

OTHERS: "whimper"

LOSHE: "It's a shame y'all have to die so bad and everything...it's a shame nobody understands Yankpires like I do. They're misunderstood and I just wish I could lie in a meadow with them, just staring into eachothers eyes as their bodies sparkle in the sunlight..."

DICKEY: "Shouldn't they die in sunli--"

LOSHE: [PUNCH] "SHUT UP!!!!! Anyway...if y'all know what's good for ya, you won't even put up a fight. You'll just run away...like the stupid little NUMBSUCKFACES you are, later...uh....uh...you...uh....THINGS!!!!"

[Loshe leaves but, all the other pitchers look panicked, they murmur scary somethings to eachother]

BAKER: "I hear if a Yankpire spikes you, you become one of them!"

LIRIANO: "I hear if a Yankpire hits a home run off of you burst into a thousand pieces."

SLOWEY: "I hear that if the Yankpires beat you, they take your powers!"

CAKEBURN: "I hear that the only cake that can defeat a Yankpire is a Garlic Forest Cake in the shape of a cross!"

SWARZAK: "SWARZAK!!!"

PERKINS: "I don't feel so good..." [Perkins vomits, then faints]

Just then Gardy came in to say goodnight

GARDY: "Okay boys, time to say good night I--[he surveys the scene]--my goodness! What have you boys been up to?"

BAKER: "Kyle came in--"

LIRIANO: "Even though we told him not to--"

SLOWEY: "And he told us about Yankpires--"

CAKEBURN: "And how dangerous they are--"

DICKEY: "And then Glen vomited and fainted and--"

SWARZAK: "SWARZAK!"

GARDY: "Shhh, shhh, shhh, shhh....calm down boys. Okay, first, Kyle is a tool. Second, Yankpires are real [whimper of fear] but if you are strong of mind and body and if you channel your energies towards cooler things than vampires, things will be okay..."

DICKEY: "Cooler things like what?"

GARDY: "You know...anything that's even semi-decently written: Louis L'amour novels, Superhero comics, supervillain comics, Donald Duck cartoons, stuff about Ninjas and Pirates and Zombies and Werewolves...stuff like that."

DICKEY: "And Victorian Drawing Room FARCES!?!"

GARDY: "Uh...yeah...sure..."

DICKEY: "YYYAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY! G'night!!"

GARDY: "Goodnight boys, good night."

And Gardy left--but he forgot the most important thing about Slumber Parties--after the parent leaves, you must remain chattering for at least three hours. This combination of poor sleep, fear, and vomiting has lead to our defeats. We only hope that we can overcome the evil spell of the Yankpires today...and maybe that we can punch Kyle Loshe in the face.