I was at the barber shop this afternoon waiting to get my haircut when the game started. There are two big screen TVs at the barber shop and I watched the first couple of innings of the Yankee game with the other men. There were three barbers working and four guys waiting including a dude with a Mets shirt who said he was a Yankee fan.

There were two guys ahead of me which made me impatient. I wondered how the Jays were going to humiliate the Yanks today when Kevin Pillar answered my question with a diving catch to rob Carlos Beltan of a double in the first inning. By the time I got in the chair for a haircut the Yanks scored a run on a sacrifice fly with one out and now Didi Gregarious hit a fly ball to medium-shallow center. It didn’t look deep enough to score Alex Rodriguez from third but as soon as Pillar caught the ball Rodriguez tagged.

A sprint. An exercise Rodriguez has done thousands of times in his life. But now he’s an old man and he doesn’t have many of these left. He’s still a large, athletic man and he ran with his head down as fast as he could. Rodriguez slid head first into home, hands stretched out ahead of him, before the tag arrived, and he was safe.

He let out a whoop and everyone in the barber shop laughed and smiled. Those who’d missed it now looked at the replays. All of the barbers stopped cutting and watched. They smiled and laughed, then went back to what they were doing and didn’t talk again.

(In some ways, I bet Rodriguez will feel as good about that play as any all season–in all it was a memorable day for him).

I got home a few innings later, had lunch, then attended to the Sunday chores as Masahiro pitched 7 scoreless. There’s no doubt about it–Tanaka is the ace of this team and he pitched accordingly. There was no agita today as the Yanks beat the Jays without incident, 5-0. They’re 3.5 behind in the East, 3 ahead of Texas for the first Wildcard spot, 4 up in the Wildcard overall.

It was a weekend to forget but today’s win was a great relief.