00000000001000000000... a lot of zeros on the 2014 Yankees

Let the record show that the 2014 Yankees - of the Incontinent Empire - didn't even make it to mid-September for playing meaningful games. Our "post-reason" race, even with the phony one-day wild card, ended before Monday's third-quarter moon. Last year, they at least made it to the final weekend. At this rate, in 2015, we'll be free on Labor Day.

From now on, analysts should ignore personal output by Yankee batters. Mark Teixeira, Brian McCann, Carlos Beltran, et al, should not be allowed to go on meaningless HR sprees, which later would make it look as though they contributed anything to this season but a deep and constant malaise. If you want a definition for frustration, it is seeing a man on base while these overweight, should-be-extinct dinosaurs lumber to the plate.

Derek Jeter should be played sparingly, and if necessary he should sit out the final Boston series, rather than let his batting average fall into the .240s. This could have been a great time to play Robert Refsnyder and Kyle Roller, but the brain trust didn't want to subject raw-boned rookies to the pennant race. (That's a joke, by the way.) Thus, we get to see Mighty Chris Young, and Zelous and Antoan - people who would be no-names, if not for the weirdness of their names. Is there a reason why Adonis Garcia didn't get a call? Good grief, it's tougher to escape Cuba than Scranton.

This rancid collection has given us 71 losses. At this point, 15 MLB teams have done worse - though I find it hard to believe they are actually lousier teams. If the Yankees could just lose - say - 15 out of our last 17, we might finish with one of the 10 worst records. Thus, if we signed a free agent next winter, we would not forfeit our first round pick. The Redsocks, of course, will go on a huge spending spree, and they still probably draft two or three times - as they did last year - before we step to the podium to name our first player. Because that's how you build, under the new rules. Maybe the Yankees should read them?

Ah, but it won't happen. Nope, they're going to do what they've always done - sign the Blue Oyster Cults and REO Speedwagons of baseball, and pretend they're 22 again. And this team won't lose, now that the games are meaningless.

Nope. In fact, now that nothing matters, we're likely to start a winning streak. That's how the 2014 Yankees operated. Whenever they were nearly out of it, they started winning. Whenever they were nearly in it, they crapped the bed. It's a tough way to live, incontinence. Zero, zero, zero, zero, zero...