Teix Turns His Swag On

The impact was felt only briefly, thanks to Curtis Granderson's Scott Smalls impression in the bottom of the 9th, but hands down the biggest moment of last night's game was Mark Teixeira taking Vicente Padilla yard one pitch after Padilla tried to clown him with a 51 MPH floater and then pimping the ever-loving shit out of it by standing and admiring the shot and doing the slow walk down the first baseline.

One of the biggest criticisms of Teix has always been that he's got the personality of a black-and-white photograph of a bowl of plain oatmeal, and it's a fair criticism.  The guy is a bit of a stiff.  So to watch him admire a home run in such an exaggerated fashion, a fashion that was almost as over-the-top as a Barry Bonds or David Ortiz performance, brought a smile to my face.  Teix has been having a great month, and he's going to be looked to even more with A-Rod on the shelf.

I don't expect him to step to the plate tonight with a bunch of gold Jesus chains on, or start his own series of complicated handshakes in the dugout, but it was good to see that Teix does have some personality in there.  In that moment last night, his swag was on a hundred-thousand-trillion and it was fucking awesome.