Yankopalypse: The Steinbrennerian Long Count calendar will end on Dec. 21 next year

OK, I know what you're thinking: Dukie, you don't know squat about what I'm thinking. Why do you always claim to know what I'm thinking? I know what you're thinking: You think you know what I'm thinking, but you don't know crap. And I'm NOT conflicted about this Youkilis thing, either!

OK, I get it. You're conflicted about this Youkilis thing.

Friend, we all are. And on behalf of the Homeland Security people who bug your home and read your email, let me say it's no pleasure cruise, constantly delving into your dungeonlike mind. I always wear a condom. Let me suggest alcoholism or hard drugs - (Did you know Leann Rimes was recently accused of being addicted to laxatives? I'm not making this up. When you're done thinking about Youk, wrap your head around that one.) - as a supplement to your emerging Yankee insecurities.

But lately, I've had this notion about the Yankee End of Time.

It will happen next winter, right around now. The Yankopalypse.

Think about it: Mariano will probably be gone. Andy and Jete, who knows? Look at all the players ending their Yankee contracts: Kuroda, Youkilis, Cano, Ichiro (assuming we get him for one year), Grandyman (assuming we don't trade him now), Hughes, the DH we soon sign, and anybody else to come. And then there is A-Rod. Let's face it: the second half of 2013 will dictate whether he is done. (Yes, we'll continue to pay him, but his time with the Yankees will be like fingernails growing on a corpse.)

(By the way, if hair and fingernails grow on corpses, why aren't movie zombies hairier, and with huge circular nails? Stick that next to Leann Rimes' X Lax addiction.) 

Thus, 2013 is clearly not a rebuilding year. We're not rebuilding anything. We're too old. This looks more a last gasp Pickett's Charge Year - a bridge to the rebuilding year of 2014.


By next September, we will either have young guys ready to play, or we might as well be dead. We might be both. Betances, Banuelos, Williams, Heathcott, et al - they might be MLB ready - but a few years away from starring. (Jesus Montero didn't set the league on fire, but let's give him another year.)

Thus - 2013 is the bridge to a rebuilding year. What a concept. No other team in sports does this: A bridge year to a rebuilding year. The Redsocks didn't need one. They just pressed reboot and instantly started rebuilding. Tampa is in a perpetual state of rebuilding. But we must run the Long Count just to get there.

So this is it - the all or nuthin' year. If by July, we are mired at .500, stand back, because the Yankee brass - driven by Cheep - will be ready to dump contracts like the late stages of the Mel Hall era. We could make Boston's deal with LA look like the saga of Eli Whiteside, who is still being passed around like a bong. The Yankopalypse is coming, folks. As Mellencamp once said in song, "It ain't the end of the world, but you can see it from here."