I’ve got nothing to complain about here on the baseball front. Forgive me, but for the moment I feel as though I’m leading a charmed life.

On Wednesday I left work just a little bit early and got up to Yankee Stadium in time to catch the tail end of the first game of a doubleheader with the Twins. Though I’d gotten caught red-handed (“Please print and send this for me before you go,” my boss told me just after I’d shut down and slung my bag over my shoulder. D’oh!) I still arrived in time to hear the opening riff to Metallica’s “Enter Sandman,” Mariano Rivera’s signature entry theme, as I got off the 4 train. I ran all the way to my seat, easily entering the ballpark for once in my life because the doubleheader had thrown off everybody’s schedule — they were either already inside or else waiting for game two. After sprinting up the corridors, I reached the field of visibility at the leftfield foul pole and walked around the upper deck all the way to home plate, and by the time I did so, the Twins were down to their final out. At the time I didn’t know how the Yanks had put up a four-spot to come from behind, but who cared?

After the end of that game I was joined by Cliff Corcoran, of Clifford’s Big Red Blog. He filled me in on the blow-by-blow of the first game and extolled the virtues of a $5.75 soda that was so big he could bathe in it, and then we settled in for game two. It wasn’t too long before we were high-fiving over Hideki Matsui’s three-run homer in the bottom of the first, his second on the day and his 30th of the year.

The Twins, who clinched the AL Central about four months ago, made a game of it by scoring two runs in the second off of Jon Lieber, starting in place of sore-armed El Duque. Just as I was disparaging Cristian Guzman, he ripped a double down the third-base line, then little Augie Ojeda singled him home.

Alex Rodriguez, who’d tripled in the first game, hit a towering solo homer in the fourth, a ball that fooled us from our home-plate vantage point. The next inning, the Yanks added one more. Gary Sheffield drove in Derek Jeter with a short sacrifice fly to centerfield, the Yankee shortstop brazenly testing Lew Ford’s arm.

Lieber wasn’t too sharp, yielding ten hits overall and making a throwing error that led to two runs before departing in the sixth. Felix Heredia came on with two on and two out and got Jacque Jones to ground out and end the threat. The real surprise on the night was Tanyon Sturtze. With the Yankee pitching staff in disarray, he has worked his way out of long relief and appears to be auditioning for Paul Quantrill’s first-righty spot. He came on and struck out the Twins number three and four hitters, Ford and Justin Morneau and made a nice fielding play on a grounder in the seventh. He then got two outs in the eighth, the second by K’ing Michael Restovich, and departed to a strong ovation. His last four appearances: 9.2 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 12 K. The man is dealin’!

Thanks to Tom Gordon and Mariano Rivera, each pitching in both ends of the game, the Yanks nailed down the 5-4 win and moved their magic number to one. They clinched the AL East last night in dramatic fashion on a Bernie Williams walk-off homer that I wish I’d gotten to see — more on the reasons I missed it later.

Meanwhile on the Late, Late Shift, I saw the Dodgers luck run out Wednesday night. Odalis Perez pitched eight innings of four-hit, one-run ball against the Rockies, but the visibly fatigued bullpen coughed it up in the ninth, yielding three runs. The Dodgers, who managed only three hits themselves, looked flat after two straight come-from-behind wins over the Rox. Fortunately, the Giants lost to the Padres even later that night, trimming Big Blue’s magic number to two and preserving their NL West lead.

They cut it to one last night. Catcher David Ross, who’s taken a permanent residence south of the Mendoza line, hit a two-run homer in the 11th-inning. The sight of Jose Lima, who’d pitched seven strong ones — that’s three quality starts in a row for the battered Dodger staff — running to home plate to greet Ross was worth the price of admission. Vin Scully joked aobut Lima doing so “in his usual, understated style” or words to that effect in his own understated style, and damn, that was as good as an ice cream sundae.

I missed most of both of yesteday’s games as I was slavering away over a forthcoming piece for Baseball Prospectus. To make a short story long, I’m headed to Washington, D.C. this weekend with a few other baseball buddies — Corcoran, Cub Reporter Alex Ciepley (who is dying a slow death as his team rolls over), Steven Goldman and family — to visit BP’s Chris Kahrl and take in the “Baseball As America” exhibit at the Smithsonian before it departs. In our pre-travel discussions, Alex pointed out a factoid that he’d heard on an ESPN chat, namely that Barry Bonds had never played with another Hall of Fame teammate, which would be unique among Hall of Famers. We — mostly Cliff — came up with a list of candidates and wondered aloud who was closest, and then I broke out the system I used for my first two Prospectus pieces in analyzing the 2004 Hall of Fame ballot.

By the time I finished my response, I had done enough preliminary work to pitch an actual article, and at the group’s encouragement I did so. Successfully, as it turned out (thanks, guys!). Though I ended up having to redo all of the Hall Standards data as the Davenport Translations foundation had been tweaked by its inventor since then I did very self-consciously coin a catchy acronym for my handy little system: JAWS (JAffe WARP3 Score). Catchy, no? I finished the piece in time to catch Ross’s homer and watch another hopefully more significant victory on the TiVo.

With one foot out the door, I’m not sure whether my BP piece will run today or later this weekend. But again, I’ve got nothing to complain about. The piece will be free, so check for it at the site. And enjoy the final weekend of the regular season as it looks to be an exciting one, particularly with regards to the AL West and the NL Wild Card.