No sooner than five minutes after walking in the door to my apartment, home from my week-long European vacation (Paris, then London), I had the TV on in search of baseball. A week of reading about the nationalistic soccer miseries of two countries and searching for day-old line scores beneath 900 stories about the ouster of Tim Henman will do that. Flipped over to YES just in time to see Kenny Lofton thrown out at first base to end the ninth inning of the Yankees-Red Sox game, and the promise of extra innings felt like the two teams had saved me a slice of birthday cake.

I paused the TiVo to reclaim my East Village turf, securing a beer at the deli and a slice at Sal’s, then settled back into my familiar groove on the couch. On sensory overload, I opened my mail, checked my email, unpacked just enough to get situated, reacquainted myself with the furniture, all while trying to catch up with the game. I was about 15 minutes behind live action, Michael Kay was too breathless to recap any of the action for me, and I was too scared I’d spoil my own fun by checking the web for the in-game box score, so I just took it all in as a naïve observer. Ruben Sierra in the outfield? Nomar Garciaparra on the bench? Intestinal parasites (yargh)? Sweep?

I didn’t find out about Pedro-Sheffield, young Halsey, or any of the ballgame’s early drama until later, and when my overzealous TiVo switched over to Jon Stewart before I’d caught up, I actually missed Boston’s go-ahead run. No matter. The baseball I caught was some of the most scintillating, bizarre and exciting all at once. A-Rod’s fantastic “triple play,” Derek Jeter’s full-speed crash into the stands (as hard-nosed a play as you will ever see, just pure reckless abandon of a type that even as I marvel, I’m not sure is appropriate for a team up 7.5 games as July starts), the Yanks’ blown chances in the tenth and twelfth innings, the crazy lineup configuration which I figured out once I saw the blood dripping from Jeter’s chin (except for the part about DH Bernie Williams taking the field).

It wasn’t until the bottom of the thirteenth that I’d caught up to live action, just about prepared to call it a jet-lagged night until Sierra smacked a two out single to bring little Miguel Cairo back to bat. Cairo had smoked a triple off the wall his last time around (thanks to a Johnny Damon stumble) and in general has been a surprising spark plug in the nine hole and at second base (a .791 OPS will do just fine, thanks), so I really wasn’t all that shocked when he blooped a shot into leftfield. More surprising was seeing Sierra circle the bases like a man half his age, coming around to score the tying run. When John Flaherty, the last player off the Yankee bench, knocked Cairo in for the winning run, and I watched the Yankees celebrate at home plate while the Sox walked off the field dejectedly, I knew I was home.

“I’m going back to New York City, I do believe I’d had enough,” I’d sung in the corridors of London’s Heathrow airport, referencing a nearly 40-year-old vintage Dylan line. But as fun as our trip was — viewing some of the rock stars of European art history (Venus de Milo, the Mona Lisa, the Thinker, the Bedroom) — it’s wonderful to be home. Only in the Big Apple do I get enough of this feeling.