Yankeetorial: It's time to address the gorilla in the room: Are we better off with Jeet hurt?

The answer is no. Absolutely not.

But by this time next year, we will be.

Hopefully, either the Mayans or Harold Camping will have been right, and the world will have ended.

If all of humanity dies, it would certainly take the sting out of benching Jeet. (He'd still get the back pages, of course; it's hard to say whether Weinergate will still have legs.) 

Still, we can't go forever like this. Everybody knows it. Jeet's days are numbered.

I think that's what Harold Camping was really alluding to, although because he's now sucking creamed corn through a tube, we can't know.

But this we do know: We're already better with Brett Gardner leading off. Last spring, this was Girardi's plan. Gards sucked through April, and even though Jeet hit into a billion doubleplays, he still looked Hall of Fame by comparison. Now, it's just weird, wondering why our best on-base threat is batting eighth or ninth?

But with Jeter on the verge of THREE THOUSAND HITS, we must use stealth. We can't make a big deal out of dropping him in the order. We must move secretly.

For starters, let's wait until Jeet reaches, say, THREE THOUSAND FIVE HITS and nobody gives a shit about the career numbers anymore, except for Fox News keeping tabs on Weingergate's Twitter totals. Then we give Jeet the "well-deserved day off." Let Edwardo "Noonie" Nunez play shortstop.

At the last minute, have the coaching staff give Nunez a painful cowbite, forcing him to be scratched. Hence, Jeet goes in, batting ninth, without changing the order. Everybody will say it doesn't matter. We win the game. Stick with it.

Presto. Jeet ninth. It gets us to 2012. From there, it's up to you, Mr. Asteroid.