In the 7th yesterday, The Master called our name; was it the coded signal that launched the Juju Intervention?

By the hoary hosts of Hughes! By the pimply pees of Posada! Yesterday, by the tens of thousands, the twenties of millions and the ten thousands of twenty millions, which is a frickin' pile o' people, soldiers of Yankee justice around the world funneled Rizzutonic juju into the floundering fishcake that was starting to be known as the New York Redsockees. And it worked, dammot... for now.

OK. I know what some of you are thinking: What a load a crap! This pie-eye thinks fan gyrations can change the outcome of a ballgame! He also probably believes in global warming! What a dork! To you, I simply say, Go. Now. Get offa my iceberg. You'll cost us games. You'll cost us the planet. This is the unvarnished truth about yesterday's game:

The key moment came in the seventh, when John and Suzyn went into their famous "bloop-and-a-blast" routine: All we need is a bloopanablast - not a blastanabloop, mind you, but a bloopanablast. A bloopanablast, and the game is tied. That's what'll happen if we get a bloopandablast. At which point Nick Swisher blooped a bloop, and Robbie Cano blasted a blast... which John called as, "It is HIGH, it is FAR, IT... IS... caught by Markakis."

At first, I was stunned. I collapsed to the floor. Then I realized The Master's plan: He was signaling to the world: SEND JUJU NOW.

At that point - with God as my witness - Alphonso arrived, sheepishly admitting that his sig uther had refused to let him listen to the Yankee game during their three hour ride to upstate - (tisch, tisch, tisch...) - and something happened to our bats. We put a man on first, which as daunting as putting one on Mars. I gave the recap. We mulled the situation. We decided to charge the mound (I had done it in the second inning, without success. But this is common in juju, where votes from the western districts often arrive late). We plunged outside, ran a vigorous loop around the perimeter of the house, and returned to confront the radio - our flushed, heart-attack red faces to the AM dial. The next two batters walked, and their otherwise plucky shortstop - lost inside a juju cloud - booted away the game.

We won. Now what? And at what cost?

Granderson? Forget him. Hasn't hit in weeks. Play Chris Dickerson. Arod? Who knows? Tex? Need his glove most of all. And we need Eduardo Nunez hitting from the right side. He's the man who gave us the timely hit yesterday. Nuni brought the juju.

Our first Juju Intervention in May saved the Yankee spring. The second IJI righted our ship in July. Now this: Is there enough in the tank? And did we use our resources too early... will there be juju in our reserves come October?

If we today - dammot, we gotta win today - yesterday's victory might just be the biggest game of the year.