With Seattle's Ben Gamel looming as a star, it's time to call the cards on Jacoby Ellsbury

Let's call the current horror show exactly what it is: The Curse of Jacoby... summoned from the Haunted House of Hal. 

It goes this way: Because the Yankees will not trade, bench or waive the mediocre Babadook known as Jacoby Ellsbury - a CF with no arm, power, ability to hit for average and ever-declining speed - we must banish anyone who threatens to make us uncomfortably aware of this team's systematic, self-inflicted malaise.  

Over the last decade, a series of plummeting hitters past their sell-dates is the phenomena that most defines - and stinks up - the faded Yankee brand. Remember Stephen Drew? Lance Berkman? Andruw Jones? Vernon Wells? Alphonso Soriano? Garrett Jones? Billy Butler? Ichiro? Pronk? Chase Headley? In each case, we fans received the chance to watch a highly paid vet flail away into obscurity because - well - that's what the Yankees do!

For the year that he is having, Seattle's 25-year-old OF Ben Gamel deserved All-Star consideration. He is hitting .323 with 4 HRs and 29 RBIs - (Ellsbury: .266, 4, 17) - and is considered the league's third top rookie, after some guys named Judge and Montgomery. Last fall, we traded Gamel for a can of beans - two dirt league pitchers so low on the development ladder they would show up as pixels on Cashman's disco-night, lady-prowling contact lenses. Last fall, we told ourselves that we had no choice but to trade Gamel: After all, we'd lose him in the Rule 5 draft because - well - nobody can get rid of the Babadook.  

Nope. Ellsbury must play CF, because - well, cough - his, cough, contract. The documents themselves should suit up and play CF. He will play over Aaron Hicks. He will play over Clint Frazier. He would have played over Dustin Fowler, but we were spared that assault on righteousness by the horrible knee injury Fowler incurred two weeks ago, one of the many recent signs of the impending 2017 Yankeeapolypse... which could reach Doomsday Clock levels by the end of the week.

Last August, for the first time in Prince Hal's nepotistic stewardship, the Yankees broke with his signature tradition of hiring limousines to collect 5-cent bottle deposits. The Yankees gonged A-Rod, benched Brian McCann and told Tex to square up his post-retirement plans. The result was one of the most enjoyable Yankee resurgences since the Jeter-Mariano era. But now, once again, our colon is stopped-up with high-priced vets - the human embodiment of Immodium-A Soft-Gels - who offer us little more than a one-game Wild Card chase. Ellsbury - with his 4 HRs, often batting fifth - represents the largest and most undeniable lost turd of hope.

Ben Gamel is a rising star whose ceiling has yet to be defined. Meanwhile, we don't have the guts to bench or release Ellsbury, because it would open management to a slew of Dolan-esque tabloid back pages.

This weekend, the Yankees go to Boston, which jettisoned Rusney Castillo, Allen Craig and Pablo Sandoval, regardless of their bloated, exhaustive contracts. Ellsbury will be facing his old team, his old town, his old fans. He should also be facing his last stand. Either he becomes a force worthy of playing CF for the New York fucking Yankees, or we should cut the tether - however painful or embarrassing that such a move may be. We don't need to trade another Ben Gamel and keep another Babadook.