Wake Me Up When September Ends

Open Letter to the Yankiverse...

Dear Madam or Sir:

Take a good look at this logo. What do you see?

Stars and Stripes... symbolizing flag and country.

A traditional top hat... symbolizing money, capitalism, Wall Street.

A long hard bat entering a woman-shaped vessel. Check out the curves on that hat. Hell, this isn't symbolizing anything. They might as well use a still-shot from the Tommy Lee-Pamela Anderson milkbath video.

Patriotism. Power. Propagation.

Folks, that's us.

That's America.

And throughout U.S. history, when the Yanks suffer E.D., so does the country.

Hell, maybe it's vice-versa. Maybe the nation falls apart first, and then the Yanks follow suit. Nobody knows. It's nobody else's business, and we don't talk about bedroom-baseball. But you could look it up. The Collapse of '29. The Depression. World War II. Vietnam. Watergate. The savings & loan crisis. September 11th. The war in Iraq. The subprime crisis.

When the country flounders, so do the Yankees.

When the Yankees fall, so does the country. (Keep in mind, the last two Presidents to oversee Yankee failures got impeached.)

So.... now what?

Twenty percent of the American public believes our country is on the right track. Those people no doubt spend a lot of time watching Fox News.

Probably 20 percent of the Yank fan base feels the same about this team. No doubt, they stay glued to the Yes Network, and they believe that we can buy out of this mess with free agents -- which is sort of like thinking the country can drill its way overnight to cheap gas.

Hold on: I'm not casting judgment or trying to make a political point. This isn't about who should be President. I have my own opinions, but hell... I believed in Phil Hughes.

But think about this. Why would it be far-fetched to think the Yank and America aren't emotionally joined at the hip?

Can there be no better barometer for the self-image of a nation than the flagship team of its national pastime?

Unlike the National League, which had two teams in New York, the American League was built to revolve around the mighty Yankees, where were built of money and put on display in the world's most iconic sports venue.

They are tearing down Yankee Stadium.

And the Bombers just shat the bed.

Their bats are like dead canaries in a mine shaft.

Get ready to rumble.