Open Letter to Yankiverse: Screw the Math: WE CAN STILL WIN THIS THING!

Dear Madam or Sir,

OK, this doesn't look good. They claim we're mathematically eliminated.

Well, didn't Dan Rather once claim that Al Gore won the presidential election? What if Karl Rove on that fateful night in November 2000 simply turned off the TV, hung his head, said, "Golly, Molly, we're mathematically eliminated," then went out and bought a hooker? Well, Karl didn't. He got on the phone, he called Fox News, he rallied the Supreme Court, and he said, we're winning goddammot! And he did!

Goddammot, it's time for Hank or Hal to pick up the phone, call ESPN or YES or Karl Rove and say we are going to be in the playoffs. There are ways to do this, there is a need for a Yankee presence, and we are not out of this yet.

OK, we must win our final five games. We go to Boston, we sweep three in a row in Fenway. They're floundering. We show up at the airport. We fight them. We show up at the playoffs, wherever they are, and hell, let's take our chances in the Supreme Court.

I know, I know, some of you are demoralized by this latest turn of events. That what fifth grade math did to us. They planted a pyschological chip in our heads that said, "When you are mathematically eliminated from a pennant race, it's over." But who... who were they? It was some balding wonky teacher, making $22,000 a year, yearning to diddle the volleyball coach. They had no right to steal our dreams, to write them on the blackboard and then erase them.

OK, I'm not gonna sugarcoat this. It does look bad. But let me remind you of how bad it looked for another great champion of the past: The legendary Bad New Bears.

In case you've forgotten, they were pummeled in the first game of the season by a team of little smug fucking assholes. The score was something like 30 to nothing. They had no pitcher. Their manager was a drunk. Not one of the players could catch a pop fly. They were the worst team in the league, the worst the league ever saw. They were worse than mathematically eliminated. The league wanted to throw them out. Did they quit? Hell, no. They recruited pre-puberty Tatum O'Neal. They got a little runt punk with a moped. They turned it around. They eventually toured Japan, inspiring a knockoff series starring Charlie Sheen, which to this day plays in the National Hockey League, the Anaheim Mighty Ducks.

We are going to win this thing.

Dan Rather, your math is wrong.