Yankeetorial: I'm sorry, but Bud Selig's October Lite wild card isn't the post-season, and the Yankees still haven't "clinched" nuthin

Today, the official line being flushed to the journalistic out-houses of the Yankiverse today is that - with the Angels' late loss to Texas Sunday - we have clinched a much-coveted post-season birth.

Hoo. Ray.

Listen: This is our sorriest celebratory declaration since the second signing of Sir Sidney Ponson. Last night, we backed into a chance for a one-game playoff that would actually land us a spot in the post-season.

If we play a fiver - regardless of the outcome - at least we can say the Yankees made the playoffs. Until then, we are the team that squandered a 10-game lead, the team that left a billion souls on third -- and the team that forgot basic fundamentals, just as it will deserve to be forgotten by anyone who loves the New York Yankees.

Sorry to say this, folks, because we Yankee nutbags are constantly viewed as pampered fatcats of negativism, and maybe some of those critics have it right. Maybe we of the couch and clicker demand too much of our heroes. But for nearly a century now, the Yankees have been one of the few great American institutions that has constantly stood for greatness. When you put on those pinstripes, you immediately garner the hearts and souls of the most loyal, rabid and knowledgeable fan base in sports. Yep, we are even crazier than those SEC football looncakes whose pee contains bath salts, and who key every car with an out-of-state license. Yes, we are the craziest of all, because we live every game forever, we internalize every at bat in our heart, and we remember every outcome. Hell, if you're reading this blog, you guys know who I'm talking about.  YOU, DAMMIT, YOU!

And if this team fails to make the post-season - I'm talking the real post-season, not Bud Selig's October Lite - then it deserves to be mocked, ridiculed and torn apart over the winter. It will have betrayed a great legacy, and there is no middle ground.

Yes, I know (Cue the falsetto voice): Some really good teams won't be playing after Wednesday, and we should be happy about getting this far, and anything can happen in a one-game series, and all Betances needs to do is get command of his breaking ball, and then habla-habla-habla.

Let the writers and bloggers who need to curry access say whatever gets them the next phoner with Randy Levine's cabana boy.

I say - and we all know - This team should never have let itself be in this position.

From Brian Cashman's hubris-laden desk seat to the inability of Eduardo Nunez to throw a freakin' baseball, everybody in the organization needs to know what we clinched last night:

Nothing. 

There is one way out of this mess... and it is to win.

And if we so much as lose one of these final three to Pawtucket, we certainly won't deserve to be participating in Bud's fake October. A one-game knockout would be like putting down a sick dog. Hoo. Ray.