We look like insecure seventh graders at a sock hop: Did we or did we not ask Hiroki Kuroda to dance?

Yesterday, an animated dollop of hopeful news finally wriggled out of the 2011 Winter Meetings, which are known as the Cheap Yankees Convergence Summit: We'd offered $12 million to Dodgers pitcher Hiroki Kuroda.

Yes, At last! The Steinbrothers planned to spend some of that $500-a-seat money that they pocket 80 times a year, including games that feature the KC Royals.

Well, that good vibe lasted less time than it takes Hank Steinbrenner to eat a small child. Within minutes, the Yankees announced: NO, they never offered Kuroda nuthin, other than their wishes for a healthy family and wonderful life -- that he can grow in his direction, as we grow in ours - and if someday our branches intertwined, it would be beautiful. But our money is too precious to be spent on the likes of him.

So... WTF? I'm inclined to believe the first report. Everybody knows Kuroda fits our needs - one-year deal, vet pitcher, etc. - and they're just using lawyer-talk to deny it. We asked him to dance, he blew us off, so we spun on our heels and said, "OK, I gotta go take a shit anyway."

Seriously. How insecure do the Yankees need to be? Why deny the offer? Did he cackle in our face? "Me? Dance with you? You're ugly! Hahahahaha." Or did we lose our nerve? "Yes, Cashman-San, you have question for me? Uh, no, Huroki, I, um, say - have you seen my rappeling cleats?"

Yeesh. I hope we offered the guy money plus access to Hideki Matsui's porn collection, and if he turned it down, it's less likely the Redsocks will get him. (They're chasing Jimmy Rollins: BEWARE!) So what really happened? Must we wait for Brian Cashman's autobiography, in 2082, to know?

More importantly, what will the Steinboys do with all that $500-a-seat money? Clam dip? If the Yankees charge that kind of price, they better not poormouth. The two axioms of baseball, Donald Fehr once said, were that you never have enough pitching, and the owners never make any money.

We better start spending ours.