Seattle throws up its hands and says, "Huh? Another injured player traded to the Yankees? Jeepers, we didn't know..."

No self-respecting Evil Empire can keep open trade relations with every backwards culture. Some primitive societies - Cleveland, for example - simply cannot grasp the barter system. It doesn't help that they loathe us. No Indian GM can ever be accused of helping the Yankees. It'd be like a Fox News host supporting Hillary. The Yankees are actually more likely to cut a deal with Boston - (they gave us The Great Drew) - than with that misery-mongering mob from the charred banks of the fiery, fish-frying Cuyahoga.

Ahh, but Pittsburgh is another matter. They return calls. Maybe it's because we gave them AJ Burnett for a pair of sweaty boxers and an autographed picture of the guy who played Lerch, (Ted Cassidy, a native.) My guess: Pirate fans secretly like the Yankees - we've never hurt them - and still free-associate us with Bill Mazeroski's moment. They more despise the Mets. It doesn't hurt that Frankie Cervelli turned out to be a fine catcher.

We occasionally deal with San Diego and - in rare, kinky threesomes - even Arizona, whose hatred for NYC burns with the heat of a Phoenix asphalt driveway in mid-July. Arizona's greatest moment in history came at our expense - the 2001 World Series - and the bastards celebrated by playing "New York, New York" on their stadium loudspeakers - (this, just weeks after 9/11, no less: what rotten SOBs, not even Boston would have done that. WE MUST NEVER FORGET) - and yet they'll trade with us. Go figure. Maybe it's just the ways of serpents.

Which brings us to the franchise we should never again phone, email, text or recognize in a crowded Thruway rest stop: The Seattle Mariners. Frankly, we should never even play them. When the 2016 schedule dictates a road trip there, I say we pay Manpower Temporary Services to field a team of 280-pound brawlers, who get paid double for every bone broken. Seattle should be ashamed of itself. I'm almost rooting for the Big Earthquake.

In recent years, we have cut three deals with Seattle, and twice, their players turned up with sawdust in the gas tanks. We traded Jesus Montero for Michael Pineda and Jose Campos, both of whom quickly needed arm surgeries. (Yeah, Montero couldn't catch, but at least he was healthy.) We traded for Ichiro - basically doing them a favor, because they were too cheap to pay an aging icon. And now this: Our newest Yankee, Dustin Ackley, comes to bat three times and ruptures a friggin' disk.

I shall now like to now do something I try to never do on this blog: Speak from knowledge. I had a herniated disc once, even underwent surgery. Listen: There are ways to screw up your back - skiing accident, car crash, straining to lift a piano, etc. But generally, a bad disc doesn't just happen. It creeps up on you, like a CGI version of the demonic Linda Blair. One day, it's lame. Next day, it hurts. Then, you're vomiting green Nick at Nite slime. Three at bats, and he's hurt? I'm sorry, folks: I simply cannot believe Seattle didn't have a whiff of Ackley's impending issues. So they did what made sense to their feeble system of values: They traded him to the Yankees.

Brian Cashman claims everything is okay with Seattle. He says the Yankees checked out Ackley and he tested fine. That's called "covering yourself with the memo." Whatever MRIs and X-rays were done, they don't tell you what's happening. In fact, reliance on MRIs produced one of the darkest Yankee events of modern times - letting Andy Pettitte run to Houston. Someone saw something on an MRI, suggesting Andy's elbow was about to go Vesuvius, so we let a member of the Core Four go. We're lucky Houston sucked so badly that Andy wanted to come "home," even though technically, Texas is his home.

So... recapping here - 1. Big Papi remains the most hateful person in sports, whose pretend status as an ambassador of love stems from Boston's desire to deny its racist past...  2. The greatest free diver in the world is still down there, adding to her new record... And 3. Seattle remains a franchise of double-dealers who happily send out injured goods, and we better remember it three years from now, when they come begging for us to take a certain jogging 2B - by then he'll be a jogging DH - off their dirty hands. We should just say no. The reason? He'll be hiding an injury. Fool me once, shame on you... fool me, twice... oh, hell with this, beam me up, Scotty.