It's official: The Yankees never won anything during the 1990s. At least, that's what you'll learn in Cooperstown

It's one thing to lose NYC to the Mets. Now, we've lost Cooperstown. too?

As you all know by now, the League of Extraordinary Gammonites - in their noblest anti-Yankee traditions - yesterday voted into the Hall of Fame a Mariner and a Met, both of whom made their bones by not being Yankees. Ken Griffey - who in his final 10 years never once drove in 100 runs - now holds the highest Hall of Fame vote percentage in history.

Apparently, those four Yankee World Championships in the late nineties happened all by themselves.

No Yankees made the cut. Obviously, winning the World Series is overrated.

Of course, everyone knows the Yankees are over-hyped and, thus, don't deserve the appreciation that needs to be bestowed on small market stars - like Mike Piazza. As a Met and Dodger, he played in obscurity. It's a tribute to his greatness that he helped the Mets get into a World Series. Same with Griffey. Wasn't he great, pushing his team in the playoffs?

Of course, Bernie, Cone, Pauly, Tino, Jorge, Clemens, et al  - they were Yankees, who already get too much attention. That's why Roger Maris isn't in the Hall. Or Ron Guidry. Or Thurman Munson. Or Graig Nettles.

Of course, Jeter will make it, and Mariano, too. But Giambi, Mussina and Damon may have irreparably clipped their Hall of Fame wings when they signed with the Yankees. Writers in other cities won't vote for them, and the Gammonites of NYC - well - there's a reason why we call them Gammonites.

Maybe we should cut our losses, just be thankful that they didn't add Curt Schilling, though his slighting yesterday suggests that Senator Warcraft won't need to be writing an acceptance speech any time soon.

Someday, when we're living on creamed corn and rec room bingo, young people will look back on the 1990s and see a team that won four world championships - Torre's Yankees - and they'll shake their heads. Four world championships, nearly in a row, in the three-tier playoffs era. How did that happen? they'll wonder. And on visits to Cooperstown, they sure won't find any answers.