It's a J-Bomb from Sterl-Rod: Amazing photos of young John Sterling, before The Master learned to THUUUUUUUH

As a dedicated John Sterling blogger, I cannot estimate how many hours, days, years... I have burned in search of The Lost Polaroid - that is, a photograph of a young, raw-boned Sterling. I might as well have looked for Amelia Earhart's left boob. Nevertheless, this weekend, a message from Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside flashed upon my inbox, changing forever the Yankiverse, as driven by Jeep. It held a series of pictures... portraits of The Master as a young man.

Behold...

Yes, the time is the 1970s. The place is WMCA Radio in New York. The shirt is - well - I'd say a Saturday night, bong water special. The eyes... let's just say he is high, he is far out, he is - gone!

This are screen grabs from a recent episode of L'Chayim, a talk show hosted by Rabbi Mark S. Golub, of which I am privileged to have been the 125th viewer on YouTube. Golub met The Master in the 1970s, when John was - get this - CAPTAIN OF THE WMCA BASEBALL NO-STARS. And John pitched and... batted third.

Check out this incredible form:

There it goes. It's a silver moment. Oh, John... you're Sterling!

Many years before John appeared in this iconic Yankee team photo at the White House...

He appeared with the WMCA All-Star team...

But John always planned to someday become THE MASTER.

Later, John took up the hair code and played for a team managed by the Rabbi. Again, he pitched and batted third.

I know what you're thinking: These pictures cannot be authenticated. In this age of Photoshop, anybody can fix images to produce anything. In fact, that leads to another theory, advanced by Pickett Burnside himself:

These are new shots: Yes, The 2015 Yankees have restored John Sterling's youth. Says Pickett Burnside.

"John's been like a kid again with the juice A-rod gave him.  In Saturday's  game (A-Rod's three homer game), at the top of the ninth, John said that Rodriguez, Teixeira, Beltran, Headley, and  Murphy were coming to bat.  I thought that sounded odd, considering there were only three outs left in the game. Then he added that if Gardner came up, it would be because the Yankees had rallied. The craziest thing: It all came true... 

"Last season, all John ever said was that they have no pop, they have no pop.  They would leave men on base, and you could hear his arms fall to the counter-top, plunk-plunk, in frustration. This year he's been optimistic. Stop watching the game on TV!"

Sir, you are so absolutely right.

Listen: Last winter, John lost practically everything he owned in a fire. That night, while tankers were pouring water onto the blaze, he was returning calls to newspaper reporters who had gone out of their way to savage him. Every year, the Yankees make him sweat out a new contract. He's long past retirement age, and a battalion of haters - some of whom simply hate everything about the Yankees - do whatever they can to mock him (from the safe distance of Seattle.) The guy hasn't missed a Yankee pitch in more than 25 years. He called every at bat throughout Derek Jeter's entire career.

Yep. Something has happened, all right. It's not Viagra or whatever John was smoking in 1973. It's Brett Gardner, it's A-Rod, it's Tex... It's the first team in four years to show a pulse in the ninth inning of a two-run game.

Enjoy the pictures. From now on, they shall occupy center stage in our Yankiverse. John Sterling is young again. And I bet he still owns that shirt.