On the third day, God creates Yankee Panic

In the big inning, there was darkness.

And today - Day Three of Hal's reverse genesis - the skies remain a Stygian black in the universe of Yankee hopes. Even the wise, self-loathing Gammonites, who on Tuesday assured us that April 7 is too soon to panic, are hugging their knees in the lifeboats. Consider Ken Davidoff, usually such a voice of reason that you wonder why he works for Rupert Murdoch - who today describes the '15 Yankees this way: 

Bad, boring and overshadowed by their long-suffering neighbors to the southeast.

Ouch. He must have confused his gun with the taser. (A common mistake, these days.)  Last week, the Philistine scribes chewed on pebbles while they listed all the "IF"s and "MAYBE"s that could lift the Yankees to, say, a Wild Card appearance. Today, they have stared into the pistol's barrel and seen the little white flag that says "BANG." Today, the talk shows will wonder just how ridiculously awful the '15 Yankees could be. It got really dark, really fast.

I'm a false prophet, of course. Beware me. Still, I trace this gloom offensive to Hal "I'm Not Cheap" Steinbrenner's refusal to outbid Boston three weeks ago for the Cuban infielder  Yoan Moncata. Wednesday, Baseball America ranked the Redsocks 2nd among MLB's top farm systems, while the Yankees are 18th - below average. And tidbits are slowly emerging as to how wretched the Yankee front office is.

Two weeks ago, rumblings emerged that the Yankees flatly bungled the Moncata bidding war. Bill Madden of the Daily News wrote that Felix Lopez - who married into the Yankee ownership - somehow cost the Yankees Moncata. Lopez has mysteriously disappeared from the Yankee letterhead. That prompted Kiley McDaniel - an ex-Yankee scout who writes for Fangraphs - to mention "embarrassing, unreported stuff" about the team's pursuit of Moncata. This might be the Steinbrenner heirs throwing overboard the in-law, or maybe Lopez had morphed into a John Eleuthere Du Pont, the late money-spewing psycho who was portrayed on Foxcatcher by Steve Carell. Who knows? But it's another sign of an out-of-control ownership, baseball's version of Kim Jong-un. 


The worst part of this oncoming darkness is the sense that we will see it for a long, long time.

Still, it's only April 10. On the Fourth Day, Hal created the Redsocks. Boston is coming. A Yankee sweep would do wonders to settle our nerves. But if the Empire falls on the wrong side of it, come Sunday - normally, the day of rest - the firmament will look bleaker than ever. 

Damn, we might have just run ourselves into the Dead Sea.