The Yankee Apocalypse is here

Stash canned food. Board the windows. Turn out the lights. Aim for the heads. Remember: Unless the bullet pierces the brain, the zombies just play on, unaware that they are dead.

Last night, Mariano added another great moment to his legacy: He mercifully shot this team in the skull. If not for Mo, the Yankees might still be lurching from the dugout to the batters box, taking spastic swings and then staggering back to the grave.

There is no escape, no cure - no cavalry en route. George Clooney won't save us. Woody Harrelson isn't coming. We have a team - no, an organization - so heavily layered with zombies that it took three months to differentiate between the living and the dead. We are old, slow, tired, drained of juju, and lifeless in our free fall. We are the 2013 Yankees - soon to be battered by the lowly Angels and, in - say - three weeks, passed by the disappointment known as the Toronto Blue Jays. On the day when Chien-Ming Wang beats us, we'll have reached the trench of Yankee horror - we will be where Redsock fans were in the halcyon days of Bobby V. But let's not kid ourselves: It has taken years to reach this puss-riddled cusp of Yankee hell.

Remember our sense of doom in spring training, when we realized the farm system - which last year included the New York State Thruway - had not one young position player ready to step in? (Might be the same next spring.) Remember the outpouring of anger, bordering on disbelief, when we obtained Vernon Wells, and the sense of "Oh God, how do you spell "meh?" when we signed Travis Hafner? Turns out, those were the correct responses. We just clogged the drain with an influx of Andruw Joneses - fresh in the spring, and then rotting in the first heat of summer. We waved mirrors and tricked ourselves into thinking all would be fine when the "stars" returned. What a joke. We made our own Kool-Aid and drank it.

A story cleared this week that last winter, the Yankees were approached by a Japanese team interested in taking A-Rod. Can you imagine the excitement that must have run through Cashman, from the souls of his feet to the thinning hair line: That humankind was still birthing people who were interested in A-Rod? Well, we have a bunch of players who should be in Japan, if not Newark - for the Bears. We have a raft of Jose Cansecos, sluggers who should be launching softballs in factory leagues. I'm sorry if I sound angry and defeated, and empty of hope. I am angry and defeated and empty of hope. Yesterday was the most painful loss since Game Four last October. You want healing words of gibberish? Screw you. Fox just resigned Sarah Palin. She's probably got something to say. Frankly, YES should have signed her. She would have been more entertaining yesterday than those excuse-making automatons. I CAN'T TAKE THIS. DO YOU HEAR ME? SEVENTEEN INNINGS WITHOUT A RUN. SHOOT ME, PLEASE. PULL THE TRIGGER. I CAN'T TAKE THIS.

Swept... our second sweep in the last five series. I thought we bottomed out after the Mets. Nope. This was worse. SEVENTEEN INNINGS WITHOUT A RUN. PUT ME IN THE TUB AND THROW THE ELECTRIC LAMP ON TOP OF ME. (OK... hold it together now. You're OK. Breathe. That's better.) So many opportunities. Early this season, you looked at the bottom third of our order - Bosch, Nix and Stewart - and cringed. Now, as soon as Robbie is done, you cringe. Look at the averages: Wells .229...  Hafner .220... Youkilis .219... Teixeira .163.  But they don't even tell the truth. It's worse when you consider that some of these bums actually started off hot.

Board the windows, folks. Get into the basement.  Make no sounds. And remember, remember, remember REMEMBER THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE OF ALL: 

Keep the last bullet. That's for you.