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Hot dogs, hamburgers, mac salad, a cold beverage, dessert with stars and stripes on it, and some family and friends. Put this all together and you've got a great recipe for a good old fashioned American cookout.

Having lived and grown up in Central New York, I can see the above menu has something missing.

Where's the ballgame?

Don't get me wrong - I'm a diehard, lifelong New York Mets fan. But, even I noticed there was something missing this past Memorial Day Monday, and it's also going to be missing at holiday cookouts on the next classic summer holiday: The Yankees Game!

Call it a scheduling glitch or an odd coincidence, but the New York Yankees did not have a scheduled game on Memorial Day, and they're not scheduled to play on the Fourth of July.

Mondays are a common off day or 'travel day' for MLB teams. But it's odd to have an MLB team, as iconic as the Yankees, to not play on Memorial Day or July 4??

To steal a line from the old commercial: "Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie, and Chevrolet."

So, I was surprised to see that the most renowned team of the classic American pastime is absent from two classic American holidays.

On Memorial Day, the Yanks were one of six MLB teams with a scheduled off-day (along with Mariners, Reds, White Sox, Blue Jays and Angels). On Independence Day, the pinstripes are just one of two teams in the entire league who aren't playing (the other is the LA Angels).

Every Yankee fan I've asked about this couldn't remember the last time the Yankees didn't play on at least of those holidays.