Boo Joba Chamberlain? You bet!

In his post in the wee hours of the morning, Travis took exception to Saturday's booing of Joba Chamberlain when he exited after getting one out, surrendering four runs and coughing up a New York Yankee lead.

Well, let me be completely honest here. I was in attendance Saturday, probably the only game I will get to this season. And I was booing Joba, too.

Is there such a thing as "Booing Etiquette?" I don't know. I do know that, in my mind, it is NEVER OK to boo Mariano Rivera or Derek Jeter. It is probably bad form to boo Andy Pettitte and Jorge Posada as well. It used to be accepted practice to boo Alex Rodriguez. I'm not so sure A-Rod is fair game anymore, either. It's also probably not cool to boo Robinson Cano, since he might be the American League MVP right now.

As much as I love the Yankees, and I don't like listening to the booing, I can't really say that anyone else is completely off limits.

When it comes to Saturday's game, let's just say I completely understand the booing, which I would have to since I was participating in it. To be honest, the booing was only partially directed at Joba.

These Joba meltdowns are getting to be all too common of an occurrence. Joba now has a 5.82 ERA and this was his third brutal performance in his last five outings. He hit 97 mph on the Yankee Stadium radar gun, but Indians' hitters rocketed pretty much everything he threw all around the ballpark.

When it comes to Joba, Yankee fans have thrown plenty of praise and adulation his way since 2007. A little heat is OK, I think. Chamberlain was absolutely awful Saturday, and he has not yet lived up to the hype. Starting or relieving.

But, the booing was about more. This was a bad -- really bad -- baseball game.

• It took 4 hours, 22 minutes.
• There were an unbelievable 402 pitches thrown.
• There were 13 walks combined by the two pitching staffs.
• There were three batters hit by pitches.
• There were two delays caused by injured pitchers. Thank God Cleveland's David Huff is going to be OK, but in the end the delays still added to the frustration of the fans.
• There was Brett Gardner getting picked off first base.
• There was an obviously uncomfortable CC Sabathia taking what seemed like about five tortured minutes between each pitch he threw.
• There was Manager Joe Girardi bringing in an obviously unprepared Sergio Mitre to pitch when David Robertson left with a back strain in that fateful seventh inning.

I don't know what else to say other than this was just a horrible baseball game to sit through. By the time Joba finally got an out and stomped off the mound, having surrendered four of the 18-29 Indians' seven runs in that seventh inning, the Stadium crowd was just plain aggravated.

Boo? At that point, sure. And while it seemed like Joba was the primary target, I think it was the whole pitiful performance by the Yankees that truly drew the ire of the 46,000+ in attendance.

After they got done booing, I saw something else you don't see often at Yankee Stadium. Probably half the crowd just got up and left. That's how awful this game was.