PROCTOR ALERT We are back to the blown-out bullpen days of Joe Torre

Remember when Tanyon Sturtze, the human mobile home, was our only hope between the sixth and eighth innings? Remember Joe Torre, over and over, signaling for Mo in the eighth? Remember how those troubled Octobers always ended? "Murderers Row and then Cano," they called us... yet we couldn't overcome a bullpen in Joe Torre meltdown.

Well, God help us, we're there again. It's 2002-07, and Preston Claiborne is Scott "Torch the Equipment" Proctor. Just as Obama is turning into George W. Bush, Larry Rothschild is morphing into Billy Connor, and every seventh inning is Deep Fried Doomsday, straight from the State Fair.  Good grief, the only difference is that James Spader is now the size of a truck, and little kids go to bed at night terrified that Miley Cyrus' tongue will get them.

If we're lucky enough to have CC pitch into the seventh - it once was a certainty, now it's a treat - who gets the next nine outs? The ghost of Quan-Go-Mo?  For that matter - and let's be honest here - faith in Mariano is no longer scientifically justified. At this point, it's just a religious thing.  We set the sacred stones in place and hope the magic works. God help us.

But keep this is mind, folks, as we watch from behind the couch. The Redsock fans are terrified of us. Yes, terrified. They know we should be dead and mouldering in an unmarked grave. There is no way we should still be competing for a playoff - even that fraudulent, Bud Selig bobblehead version. The Boston fans are terrified of us. They know their team is running on Nitro cylinders three weeks ahead of schedule, that one of these days, their perfect closer is going to melt down, or clutch his elbow, and poof - it could be 2004 in reverse. The more savagely they beat us, the more terrified they are. In their minds, they are Nicole Kidman, and we are the bicyclist!

We are dead. We have been buried. We have officially nothing left to lose. The one-armed ghost of Scott Proctor is prowling the Yankee dugout. He's looking for lighter fluid. We need a spark, dammit. Does anybody have a spark? 

Time to jump?

Chris Stewart's historic whiff, Bobby V's bizarre history, The Master's call of Sori's catch

1.  I was half-watching last night when it happened. I figured the YES talk-and-say-nothing machine missed the first call, and I dismissed it. We've all come to grips with Chris Stewart strikeouts. Now, it turns out the poor guy struck out on two pitches, and the umpire didn't bother to say a word.

"[Home plate umpire Jim Wolf] said something the first pitch, and I thought he called it a strike," Stewart said. "I assumed it was 0-1, I fouled a ball off and I swung and missed at a ball. No one said anything; the umpire didn't say anything, so I just came on back to the dugout and put my stuff away."

WTF? All the king's horses, and all the king's men are watching -  on national TV - and nobody speaks up? Stewart is laughing about it today - what choice does he have? - but isn't it an umpire's job to say, "Wait, that's only two."  WTF?

2. Apparently, Bobby Valentine hasn't been receiving his regular 15 minutes of fame lately. (Fifteen minutes can save you a bundle on car insurance.) Thus, Bobby V selectively remembers Sept. 11, 2001, employing the psychological blinders of his last relevant deeds on this planet: A period in which Bobby did nice things for New Yorkers who had been traumatized by the terror attacks.

The other day, this is what he said:

"It was an emotional day. I don't know if I was trying to take credit for the team. I was trying to make a fact. After 12 years of hearing what was done and hearing it reported incorrectly, I just thought I'd state for the record that there weren't any Yankees out there that week."

Listen: Everybody who was around remembers 9/11 in his or her own way.  We can redraft our stories every year, if we want. It won't change what happened. The Mets did nice things. The Yankees carried the city's heart into the World Series.  Everybody was good. Everybody was a hero. Everybody tried. That's how you survive things like 9/11. Everybody does a little bit of good.

Frankly, I think Bobby may be losing it. This business of always whining about the Yankees - jeez, it's like a tape loop in his head. Ask a question, and he's ripping his perennial nemesis,  the Yankees, for whatever pops up. Miley Cyrus' twerking? It's the Yankees! Did he really need to stir the pot - to set the record straight - on the 9/11 anniversary? Yeesh. What happens to these guys when they're no longer in the spotlight?

3. A few blogs today are smart-mouthing about The Master's call of Alfonso Soriano's catch magnificent last night. It went this way:

“Leaping … and she’s gone! It is a home run (pause) NO HE CAUGHT THE BALL HOWDOYALIKE THAT!”

Of course, our website is based on The Master's lost home run calls - the most painful moment in the Yankiverse, by the way - so I can't blame anybody for having fun at Sterling's expense. But there are plenty of things to rip him about, if you're of the mind. Frankly, he called it last night just as he was seeing it, which is what play-by-play drama is supposed to be. 

He's an easy target. Surely, John's critics would have called it perfectly, a combination of John Updyke and Norman Mailer: "A towering fly to deep left field, seemingly targeted for the first or second row! Alfonso Soriano is drifting back, antelope-like, back to the wall, springing from his powerful legs, rising on an 100 degree trajectory, raising his tan, elongated Spaudling mitt above the fence, snatching the home run from the Promised Land, bringing to the Yankees the salvation of the inning's first out. May God in heaven bless his immortal soul!"

Whenever I think of Sterling, I remember Randy Newman's lines about Lester Maddox in the song "Rednecks." He may be a fool but he's our fool..."

The Dike Is Leaking Again. Or is it Dyke?

I am a bit slow today because last night's game, during Robertson's ( now usual ) meltdown, required me to open a second box of twinkles.

I thought I paced myself with the Crown Royal Black, but noticed only about one inch of brown liquid in the bottle this morning.  I think the bottles are being made smaller.

I was alert enough to notice another disaster in the making.  Here is my prediction:  Brett Gardener is not, " day to day."

I think he tweaked his oblique muscle or cartilage ( whatever it is ) and, if I am right, he is done.

I seem to have an instinct about these things and, hatefully, am usually correct.

So, on we churn.

Another win, another starting player down.

Another leak in the dike ( dyke).

Aside to Mr. Duque:  what are the Ju-Ju orders for tonight?

Yea, though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we will fear no evil: for Mo art with me; thy A-rod and thy staff, they comfort me

Perhaps it ends here... Boston. The Valley of the Shadow of Death.

Psalm No. 23.

Don Mattingly's psalm.

Remember opening day? April Fools Day, Yankee Stadium. Brooding crowd. Nuni at short, whiffed three times. Our DH was Ben Francisco.  CC surrendered four in the second. Joba hammered in the ninth. They beat us 8-2. It wasn't "Youk" they were yelling...

I think it was Tino Martinez who once said - paraphrasing - "In New York, somebody writes your obit every week." Damn straight.  I've always believed - in my traumatic Yankeecentric stress disorder - that one week with the Evil Empire equals a lifetime in Kansas City.  I think that's why some players, like Alphonso Soriano this month, burn red hot upon returning - while others freeze. Maybe this happens everywhere. As a fan, I choose to believe the nothing must compare to playing for the New York Yankees.

Make no mistake, this has been the season of hellish lifetimes. Whenever we saw a beam of hope, new shadows overwhelmed us. We never saw Jeter. We never saw Tex. We never saw Pineda, or any of our so-called prospects. We steeled ourselves - I'm still clenched - to lose Grandyman for the third time. When David Phelps started to emerge - poof, he was gone. A ghost named Vidal Nino blew in on the wind, then disappeared. If you ask me how this team managed to contend for a playoff spot - even the fake, Seligian one-game shot - I shake my head. Damned if I know. But here we are.

We need two out of three against the best and hottest team in the American League, if not all of baseball. At Fenway. If that isn't the Valley of Death, baseball-wise, what is?

Well, I've written the Yankees' 2013 obit on this blog so many times I should have a user key programmed for it. But here we are.

Brendon Ryan, I hope you know what it's like to live an entire lifetime in one week. And I hope dark shadows do not frighten you.  Here we go...

Sorry, Buck

I Am Ready For Tonight's Second Inning Ju-Ju Intervention !!

Roll Yanks.

How can we lose?

We have Phil Hughes.

The Yankees should name this man their new, de facto Captain

He has no friends, no future career, no public defenders. To the baseball world, he is a pariah, an untouchable, a sadistic monster who should be spat-upon, beaned and booed.

Every time A-Rod gets a hit, a demon in Hell receives his wings.

Say whatever you want about Alex Rodriguez. No one will defend him.  But know this:

The Yankees were dead as dishrags before he turned up in the clubhouse. Now, they're two games away from a chance at the post-season. And who knows what will happen if the Yankees get a toe-hold on October.

JUJU INTERVENTION TONIGHT.

TONIGHT, WE UNLEASH HELL.

TIME TO UNLEASH THE KRAKEN International Juju Intervention called for tonight's second inning... Chain yourself to your best juju post and... SWING AWAY!

Comrades, strangers, passers-through, NSA eavesdroppers...

It is time for the Yankiverse to rise, to form mobs of the juju network, and to finish off the detested 2013 Orioles of Baltimore, a city that won the Super Bowl last winter and certainly needs no baseball trophy to supplement its crudity. It is time to send Mr. Buck Showalter to the showers of Hell, and ask him once and for all to explain why he, in the final game of a season, yanked all his starters so the California Angels could have home field advantage in the playoffs. Oh, yes, we did not forget, Mr. "I'll Always Be a Yankee," and tonight, the collective juju of the Yankiverse must take the form of - well - I'm thinking of that smoke monster in "Lost," (which I never did figure out - the thing turned into Locke, right? Oh, screw it, I'm on a role here) and wreak raw and un-hamstered vengeance upon all who oppose the pinstriped faith.

And there are many. In the eyes of Major League Baseball, we are Lance Armstrong, al Qaeda, the Westboro Baptist Church, with a dash of Miley Cyrus on Molly. We are alone in this quest.  If the Yankees win the World Series, it will be the worst month of Joe Buck and Tim McCarver's lives - while they describe the action. If the Yankees win the World Series, Bud Selig's hairpiece will become alive.

So, In the second inning, take to your TV, radio or electronic receptacle of Yankee news.  Glare at it. Glower. Twerk. Focus your psychic testicles upon the Yankees, and release the juju seed that has been welling up for months inside you - figuratively, of course - firing it directly into the YES stream or Jeep-driven radio sounds,  and don't let up until we have scored five runs. Five runs. (That will nullify the five run lead Phil Hughes may have given them.) A victory tonight will vanquish Baltimore once and for all, and perhaps move Team Satan to just one game in the loss column behind the Martha Rays, whose Tamponic players right now are fleeing their positions like 12-year-old girls in a summer camp panty raid.

Tell your friends. Tell strangers. Tell Obama (talking to you, NSA moles!) Rent sound trucks. Buy billboards. Pass the word.

Tonight, we of the Yankiverse rise.

INTERNATIONAL JUJU INTERVENTION
TONIGHT
SECOND INNING
UNLEASH HELL 

ALIVE

Jim Miller DFA'ed Secondary headline: Yankees had player named Jim Miller

Third headline?

Derek Jeter is out for the rest of the season.

What a year.

I just hope that supermodel he's dating is worth it.

She's obviously bad juju.

Rejoice, fellow damned souls of the Yankiverse: In Baltimore, playing in pain, a new Yankee hero is born; o come let us behold him...

Bedeviled Rays Tampa Bay has turned putrid

Maybe it's Tampa. Has anybody checked the water? Maybe it's the fact that we are headquartered in a city well associated with sinkholes to Hell, where the (formerly Devil) Rays go through more players than Miley Cyrus - (old formula joke there, where's Arsenio, woof-woof-woof...) - and frankly, we are The '13 Damned Yankees... Satan's team of choice. 

Last night, one of the great Yankee wins of the season - and you can count them without removing your sneakers - and what happens? We lose three soldiers, including A-Rod...  just moments after the YES crew hexed him, by saying Alex had finally started to hit.  I am not kidding. Michael Kay mentioned that A-Rod was finally putting it all together, swinging the bat like he hadn't all season - and in that moment, one ugly though coursed through my clouded head: HE'S GONNA GET HURT. Two pitches later, A-Rod rambles in from third, running like a couch on wheels, and now he goes the rest of the season with a new, built-in excuse: On top of the drug hearing, the impending suspension and his age, he's got a tweaked gonad.

But it's Nova that hurts me the most. Two years ago, Super was rounding into the home stretch of a great season - on the verge of becoming a core member of our staff - when - poof - he pulls out of the post-season with a barking somethingorother, and until last month, he's never been the same. Ivan was the guy who could go inning for inning against Yu Darvish, if we're lucky enough to make that ridiculous one-game Selig Series, and maybe we'd have a chance.  (Would Mariano be asked to pitch a three-inning save? Don't laugh.) Now... what? Sabathia? Andy? Hiroki? Hughes?

Yet somehow, SOMEHOW, the Rays have lost 7 of 10, and we are still breathing air.  If we win the next two against Baltimore, the O's fold. We leapfrog Buck, we run to Boston - which is peaking wayyyy too soon for it's own good - and we play three games against Tampa in our backyard. We've lasted longer than anybody - certainly than I - expected. We're here. We're hurt. And we're not drinking any more of that Tampa water.  Just keep in mind: One sinkhole - straight to Hell.

Hurt tu', A-Rod? Still alive, but are the injury gods trying to tell us something?

GOOD SEATS STILL AVAILABLE Like NY counterparts, Baltimore fans not fooled by Selig's fake playoff

Last night, the Yankees and Orioles started their most important series of the season, a virtual, loser-goes-home, four-game set. In such events, Game One is critical.

Baltimore's official attendance: 17,456.

No lie, either. Everywhere you looked, empty green seats.

This followed a weekend of well-exploited Yankee mediocrity against Boston, in which the blue seat backdrop casts doubts on NY's official attendance numbers - (40,481, 44,117, 49,046, 43,078; yeesh, the Yankees must have been counting eyes) -  likely jacked up by corporate and bigwig season ticket holders, those novelty fans for which the old Yankee Stadium was sacrificed.

Seventeen thousand fans in Camden Yards - that's 12,000 below Baltimore's 2013 per game average - for a must-win series against the hated Yankees. Wow.

Well, surely the crowds were dense in Cleveland, where the Indians are chasing the one-game playoff in Texas against Yu Darvish.  Surely, that great baseball city is entranced by the Selig Snatch and Grab, and when the Indians last night hosted the Royals, the fans turned out in droves, right? Droves!

Nine thousand, seven hundred, ninety four.  You'd see more people at a Star Trek convention.

Listen: I am a pathetic Yankee captive, a follower of the team, no matter what.  If Cashman signed George Zimmerman and Vladimir Putin, I'd somehow rationalize rooting for them, as long as they hit against John Lackey. But we must never forget the fake post-season being cynically dangled in front of our eyes like a zirconium broach  by MLB's marketing department. Fortunately, most fans are seeing through it.

For this season, the Yankees - (still in the hunt! they say on YES) - are just a few games above .500 - with a pitching staff in ruins and a middle of the order - Cano, Soriano & Granderson - comprised of streak hitters with zero reputations for rising to an occasion. If they're hot, whoopie; if they're cold, forget it. This month we have been chasing a mirage - a fairy tale notion that somehow, everything would change, and the gods would deliver us a miracle.

Well, we have lost four out of five. Ouch. It's killing me. But dammit, now and then I see those empty seats and smile. Most people have tuned it out. How 'bout them Jersey Giants!

Two teams enter, one team leaves

And through six, it doesn't look too promising.

Betances not only gets shut out of games, the Yankees don't even bother hazing him

I was waiting this weekend to see eternal Yankee prospect Dellin Betances get his crack against those big, well-dug-in Boston sluggers, figuring that maybe what we need is a 6'8" state fair carney who throws a 98 mph fastball without a clue where it's going.

Well, instead of giving Dellin a shot, the Yankees called up guys who had gone home to mow their lawns. Did I miss something? Is he hurt? (Who isn't?) Is he fatigued? (I sure am). What happened? 

Then, today, the mystery deepens. The Yankees did their traditional hazing of rookies - (who can forget Joba as the Cowardly Lion and Ian Kennedy as Dorothy?) - with this 2013 edition of "rock stars."

Once again, in order to have a quorum of youth, the Yankees had to dress up a non-player: In this case, an interpreter, who stands in the middle. The others are Preston Claiborn, Cesar Cabral, Brett Marshall, David Adams and JR Murphy. But where is Dellin? Did I miss something?

I have this recurring nightmare ...

This nightmare isn't stumbling to the end of the season and missing the playoffs. No, this is much worse.

In this nightmare, something-- say, a fluke win on a wild pitch --  gives up hope.

Then, over the last few weeks, the Orioles and Indians play like, well, the Orioles and Indians of years past. The Rays continue to stumble to the finish like they've had too much beer and chicken wings. The Yankees bang enough solo home runs off bad September call-ups to grab some wins over the Blue Jays, and scrape together a few victories over Pawtucket while the redsocks' A team rests up for the real games.

Lo and behold, the Yankees find themselves in Bud Selig's vaunted one-game playoff, where we face the Rangers. Then, against a decent team with something to play for, we're exposed again. CC struggles, Joba's in by the third, Bettances by the fourth and Joe is calling to see if we can't somehow get Nick Swisher back to mop up in the late innings. We're inept on offense, and Soriano somehow finds a way to get picked off at home plate. Jeet, Andy and Mo look on helpless on the bench as the Rangers put up a football score on us and move on to the real postseason.

Then the nightmare really gets going. Hal talks about how the loss was disappointing, but that our "late surge" showed that we were on the right track and a loss in a one-game playoff doesn't change that. He declares the cost-cutting a success, and knows with just a few tweaks we'll be fine next season. We bring back Wells, Soriano and Ichiro, and give Travis Hafner ("in the best shape of his life!") another chance to give us some depth. Mo and Andy say farewell, and we can't afford Kuroda, but Cash and Hal are certain that all those Tommy John surgeries our minor-league pitchers have undergone will pay off and they'll be healed up any day now. Cano costs too much to bring back, but Cash is able to coax Troy Glaus ("in the best shape of his life!") out of retirement. A Rod's status is up the air because of his appeal, but Cashman is trying to trade some prospects for the rights to Phil Nevin ("in the best shape of his life!") or someone of that sort to hold down the fort.

The season is a blur of DL stints, ARod headlines and double-digit losses in a half-empty Stadium. Every few days, someone does a story comparing Jeter's final seasons to Mickey Mantle's. I wake up in a cold sweat just when the Pirates, led by 20-game winners Phil Hughes and A.J. Burnett, are ready to battle the redsocks, led by new closer Joba Chamberlain, in the World Series.

When does hockey start?

PONDERING THE UNPONDERABLE: The Yankiverse considers its looming apocalypse

Nothing generates clicks more easily than asking a wild question. Will an asteroid hit tomorrow? Maybe. Has Obama been replaced by a military robot? Probably. Is Derek Jeter done? No, of course not.

But the Yankee asteroid is coming. I think NASA calls it "Heathcott 2019."