COUSIN MARYANN

You have to understand something about my cousin. She's always been the Mary Richards of our family. Single, savvy, glamorous and cool. She knew everything there was to know about Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle when she was a kid; saw the Beatles twice--at Forest Hills and in their inaugural Shea Stadium show--and swears she and her girlfriends saw A Hard Day's Night "at least twenty-five times" the summer it came out.

And, despite being the family's resident "trophy cousin", hip and attractive and personable, Maryann always made time for me and my two siblings. It was the Seventies, and she should have been boogie-shoesing it at Studio 54 or snorting lines off Burt Reynolds' chest hair, but instead she was taking us to Yankee games, or Six Flags Great Adventure, or Jones Beach (Who knows? Maybe she was doing it all...). I remember once she got me tickets to sit in the studio audience of a popular kids' show at the time, Wonderama , but I was too shy to go by myself and passed.

Maryann has always been rescuing me. She rescued me from wearing a peach-colored tuxedo for my senior prom. My date, who was so much higher on the food chain than I, had told me to rent such a tux so that we'd match, but Maryann and her incomparable, unforgettable boyfriend--who happened to be visiting my family in Arizona at the time--took one look, laughed, and drove me all over the Valley of the Sun a day before prom to find me a tux that "won't look so embarrassing when you look at the photos twenty years from now."

It was Maryann who rescued me from state schools (and the fabulous babes who drink there) and whetted my appetite to attend Notre Dame (taking me to my first Notre Dame game) instead. It was she who rescued me from a career I had little passion for by shoving some stories I'd written into the hands of Larry Keith, an editor at Sports Illustrated three degrees removed from her. But that did not stop her.

When I moved to New York in the summer of '89, it was Maryann who met me at Laguardia Airport. She even rescued me from my first--and worst--date in Manhattan (of course, there are those who've dated me since who'd tell you that their worst date also involved me). Anyway, what happened was that I knew almost no one in New York City and bumped into someone at the post office who invited me to lunch. Later, it was suggested as dinner instead.

And, see, the person doing the inviting was (go Austin Powers with me here) "a maaaan, baby!" Now, it wasn't a guy in drag. It was just a guy. Howard, I believe. But I was so naive that I had no idea what his intentions were. Thirty seconds after I met him that night, I realized. But by then it was too late to exit gracefully. And, hey, he was buying dinner.

Anyway, he wanted to walk me home (this is all true, by the way) but I had no intention of him knowing where I lived. So I made up an excuse and told him I was supposed to meet my cousin, which is how I wound up at Maryann's apartment that night. It was soon after that that she began setting me up on blind dates...which would have been fine if any of the women Maryann introduced me to had been better-looking than Howard. "And I thought you loved me..."

So here we were today at the Yankee game. Maryann, the native New Yorker, and I, the resident. Me, still at the "If I can make it there" phase of my career, she at the "I'll make it anywhere" phase. And talk about weird karma. The first time I went to use the men's room, there was an ad above my urinal sponsored by the Scottsdale (Ariz.) Police Department, soliciting men to apply for employment. "If you want to live here, work here, play here, call us."

Maryann is moving to Scottsdale. That's a good gig, by the way. Most of it involves pulling over botox'ed cougars for DUI tests.

It was a perfect afternoon, with one exception: the Yankees were blowing and bad. Melky Cabrera dropped a line-drive that led to five Blue Jay runs. Chien Ming-Wang was Jay walking and Robinson Cano was behaving exactly like Robinson Cano, which is to say failing to execute a bunt twice before hitting into a 6-3 double-play.

So there we were, two outs in the bottom of the 9th, nobody on, and the Yankees trailing 8-6. Then A-Rod hit a seeing-eye single between 3rd and short. He took second two pitches later, then Hideki Matsui (the most dependable Yankee by far this season) lined a single to make it 8-7.

Up came Jason Giambi, who, like my cousin has a glorious paisan surname. Two pitches later it was 0-2. Then Blue Jay reliever B.J. Ryan inexplicably threw the Giambino a hittable pitch, which he rocketed into the upper deck in right. 9-8, Yankees win!!!!!! Thuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh Yankees win!

So I don't know if the Yanks, now 30-30, will use this emotional win, or four upcoming home games against the Kansas City Royals, to begin rescuing their season. But I do know that today they crafted a moment that my cousin and I will never forget (and made the $80 tickets somehwat worth it).

For Yankee fans, it was a thrilling walk-off. For Maryann, it was the proper sendoff.