Yankeetorial: There is a solution to the 2013 Yankee nightmare: Jeter plays third, A-Rod moves to first

Spoiler alert: I saw the movie. Tex gets the shot, it restores his super powers, he beats Zod, beds Lady Gaga, wins the big game and - uh-oh - eats the red kryptonite-filled cheesecake. His wrist turns to PVC pipe. Ballgame over, season over. The movie turns out to be a remake of the Jose Bautista Story, starring Woody Allen and Fernando Lamas Jr.,  as Before and After. Coming soon to home video.

Listen: The Yankees aren't known as great truth-tellers. When it comes to personal self-disclosure, the team would make the CIA look like Anne Frank. But nobody in the Yankiverse cares. We fans expect them to lie. We prefer lies. It shows they're trying to win ballgames, dammit. If Boston knows Tex is hurt - as we do - they'll have an advantage - not sure what it is, but screw 'em: Lie to us, everybody! Tell us Tex is fine! So... the Team Diogenes announces that Tex is OK, it's just a dream sequence sex hickey, and he's coming back. If the wrist pops after a few games, oh well, he tried. Waiting two extra weeks for season-ending surgery won't matter. His next appearance will be in spring training. And then... let the lies of 2014 form on our tongues!

So, our lucky '13 season - whatever is left - hinges on Jeter and A-Rod returning after the All-Star break, probably to a team five to 10 games out, in a jumbled division. (BTW, I don't buy the notion that A-Rod will be suspended; MLB would have to exile dozens of players, a veritable nuke in the middle of the Love Bud's precious pennant race, and each call must withstand the union's appeal; I think they'll wait until winter, when games are not being played during the interim, but - obviously - I'm Sgt. Schultz here: I know nothingk.)

So, here are two great hitters in the twilight, healing from major dings, and we need them every day. We already have a full-time DH (though Col. Travis better start hitting like one.) Let's look at each.

A-Rod: Much of the wear and tear on our boy's hip comes from charging bunts and throwing off balance. Move him to 1B, and he almost never needs to throw (as Jason Giambi proved.) He's played it before. He could platoon with Overbay or be replaced for defense. If A-Rod hits, he has a 1B-worthy bat. Face it, folks: This is our one hope. Yes, it's crazy, but who else do you suggest? Dan Johnson? Kyle Roller? Youk? (Hey, you want another spoiler alert?)

Jeet: Realistically, how many back-to-back games can he play at SS? The wear and tear on an ankle during double plays, pivots and guys barreling into him - every routine grounder, we'll be holding our breath. By comparison, 3B would be a cakewalk. Come on, folks, he's got to move someday. Ripken moved to 3B. It added three years to his career. Next spring, if Jeet's ankle is strong, he can come back and finish at SS. This is the only move that makes sense. I greatly fear that if Jeter tries to play SS next month, it will be painful to watch - moreover, painful to implement. It's practically a suicide mission.

Move Jeet to 3B, A-Rod to first - and let Youk warm up pitchers between innings. No, it's not a perfect situation. And let's let Tex play 1B until the kryptonite cheesecake is delivered. But once Tex goes pop, who plays 1B? Overbay? Love the guy. But there's a reason we signed him off the waiver wire.

OK, I know what you're thinking: I know nothing about the mechanics of each man's injury and - more importantly - the dimensions of their egos (which are wrongly believed to be larger than mine.) Maybe neither will sign on for such a move. (But I would, dammit; to help the Yankees,, I WOULD.) Maybe Girardi and Cashman have better ideas. But I sure hope we don't start dealing prospects for another short-term fix, because, my friends, we're teetering on the brink of the Isiah Thomas Guidebook to Sports Management. And I think Jeter and Arod have been around long enough to know that in NY, only winning matters.

This may not be the best move for either. But it might be the team. Hear those bells clanging, folks? They toll for thee. That's the fire alarm. In an emergency, you break glass. Time to grab the hammer.

I'll save el Duque the time (and anguish) of posting this ...

... but if you didn't notice, Chien-Ming Wang pitched Sunday for the Blue Jays. Threw strikes, Seven shutout innings.

And, oh, by the way, the Jays have won 5 in a row. A week ago, they were 9.5 games behind us; now, they're 5.5 back.

Victory! (I think)

Excuse me, but I need to soak my head in a bucket of ice water.

We held on - fingers to chalkboard - to beat the Los Angeles, California, Angels of Anaheim, basically because they ran out of young players in the ninth inning, and had to send up old Albert Pujols, who is practically as ancient as Mariano.

I worry when balls keep dunking in against Mo. That's what happened. Nobody hit him hard, but he couldn't get them out, either.

So we return home with a victory but no certain 1B, facing a divisional race that will go down to the wire.

If Teixeira is done for the year - and who are we kidding? considering our luck, of course, he is! - I have a plan to save the Yankees.

I will elaborate tomorrow. The bucket of ice water is ready.

Do The Math !

There is bar on the upper west side called, " Hell and Chico's. "  Who could resist?

Dark walnut bartop, brass bar rails and old fashioned stools with red plastic seats, held onto the chair by those little brass nubs someone ( probably an Indonesian 10 year old ) has to hammer in one at a time.

It serves manhattans with a shot of scotch on the side.  One is hellish and the other from Chico.  Finally, I get it.

So we're watching the Pukilis-less Yankee game and I start writing down numbers on a napkin.

Column 1:   Number of drinks and shots/inning:  = 0.45 ( Romine's BA)

Column 2 :  2+2+2+2= 0 ( number of wins in our latest 2 run/game streak)

Column 3 :  1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 = number of pitches for our hottest prospect to K three times last night.

Column 4:   2 = 2 NOT  ( my keyboard does not have the " does not equal" mathematical sign.) Translation:  if the Yankees are in a tie game e.g.  2-2, we always lose because 2 is our limit no matter how long it takes.

Column 5 :  0.  The number of highly touted position players who have come up from AAA, now batting over .219.

Column 6:    6.  Number of games we are now behind the rebuilding Red Sox.

Column 7:  100%.  Confidence level that the Red Sox have young talent and we have none.

Column 8.  0%.  Confidence level that things will change when Derek returns.

Column 9.  150%.  Confidence level that Pineda will be a bust, that Tex is done, that Hafner will not hit again; that Adams is gritty but can't hit, that Neal is a zero who will be hitting in the .100's before the day is done, that Bettances will suck as a reliever, and that Romine will be teaching math in high school next year.

I am still hung over.  I did the math.

Yankeetorial: Run, everybody. This is the End. The Yankalypse is here, the Ying of Wang is upon us.

History tells us that these things happen to empires. The Mayans disappeared. The Spanish Armada sank. Springsteen put out Devils and Dust. The Yankees, the mightiest dynasty in sports - (after the Chinese Ping-Pong team of the 1970s), have collapsed.

This is not a drill. Make your way to the exits. Women and children first. We practiced for this, people. We tracked this storm for months. That's not hail, it's baseballs dropping from the sky, launched by opposing batters. The Yankalypse is here: Tex is probably gone, nobody is coming, and once again, we are reminded that life's surest winners are youth and hunger - and we haven't seen either in a long time.

Boston and Baltimore are ahead of us, Tampa is gaining, and Toronto has won four in a row. Chien-Ming Wang pitches today for the Jays. I'm thinking this end of time should be remembered as the Ying of Wang. Everything crumbled
when we let him go.

But it was always waiting to happen. We watched it destroy Boston last year. Everyone knew we were next. They had high-priced stars doing nothing (Crawford, Gonzalez, Beckett); we have A-Rod, Grandy, Tex. et al. They had Papi playing for his contract, we have Robbie. They had Youk; we have Youk. They took a hammer to everything and started over. That's where the resemblance probably ends. We're more likely to double-down.

The Steinbrothers will have a perfect excuse to slash payroll and bank the money. Why spend so much, if you're finishing fifth?

Now, we turn back to the heroic Mr. Overbay and company. Trouble is, they did their job. They held the line until the reinforcements came. The reinforcements came. And the line has collapsed. Vernon Wells has grown old, Hafner is ice cold. Ichiro is sad to watch. You watch him and think, he's trying so hard, and he's such a shell of what he was.  

Last night, I had to laugh when hearing that our top pick, Jagiello, has a strained groin and will miss the opening of the season at Staten Island. Bring him up, folks. He's ready. Or better... watch him miss the season, like our first pick last year.

Look out, below. We're coming. This is not a drill.

How Much Juice Remains In the Ju-Ju call?

Let's be candid and objective.

The last international Ju-Ju worked like a charm.  For a while.

We were 6-1 or 6-2 under its spell.

Then we hit Oakland.  And now LA or Anaheim or Venice Beach, wherever.

The team is at .500 or just below the Ju-Ju call-out.  What kind of positive impact is that?  I can't be ruining a tv, a radio, and the flower garden around our house for a .500 result.  Neither can you, if you are honest.

The latest international Ju-Ju call, and its implementation,was a bit like QE3, the Fed's latest attempt to prop up and jump start the economy.  QE1 And QE2 lasted longer, had more impact and actually started things rolling.

QE3 was too small, too late, and , incrementally, had a minimal and diminishing impact relative to the cost ( though wait and see what happens when there are no more Q's from the Fed).

 But that is another tale.

Our all out intervention yielded no progress, no gain, and no energy.  Unless we are to believe that .500 prevented .200.

I haven't done the research yet, but I think Ju-Ju only matters (and works) when a team is talented and has a chance to win.

Did anyone read our line-up yesterday?

I thought I was watching the Charleston River Dogs.

Next time our leader calls for an intervention, let's make it with pizza and beer.

Lengths

Somebody look at Josh Reddick. Please. 

Swisher: Baseball or Faceball?

For whatever it's worth: I think the Yankees should acquire Josh Reddick, shave him and waive him. The one-day shave and waive.

New study blames Yankees for female menopause

Why not? We already destroyed the sanctity of marriage, the U.S. economy and the national pastime.  Feminists hate us. We beat up women.  And we're in third place.

One Last Reason To Worry

The trade deadline looms.

Cashman and his crew of misguided staffers can yet build a fantasy that the Yankees can still win this thing.  Now.  This year.  MO's last season.

They can pony up any and all prospects ( I hesitate to name any, because losing Yankee minor league position players is not a big risk ), including some of the players ( mostly pitchers ) who have had a taste of the Bronx and done well ( Adam Warren,  Nunu, Foghorn leghorn, mystery man Montogomery, etc), and trade them for a passle of $12million guys who are, say, 60 days younger than Wells, Hafner, Pukilis and more.

We can get a fresh set of over-the-hill, former all stars, who will give us a nice 30-45 day run before their tanks go to fumes.  Joe can get back to 3 games over .500, while adding the equivalent of A-Rod's contract to the payroll in a single swipe.

Fear this, friends.  Fear it.

Cashman and the Steinbunglers still believe in the ancient magic.  Evidence, proof, science, reality and intelligence do not fit their character.  Sound like a particular group in DC?

It can happen.

In our lifetimes, I doubt that the Yankees will conceded the need to re-build.  There is too much money on the table, and too much failure in the minor leagues, to face re-building with no straw.

A Few Sobering Thoughts

Since winning games and staying in the race requires a bit of wishful thinking right now, let's deal with a few hard facts:

1.  Duque is right.  The Pineda re-scheduling from a live game to a simulated game is a red flag raised in the harbor.  A storm is headed up the coast and it might just sink us.

2.  How long did Pukilis last in his most recent comeback?  This will be two years of $7 million pissed away by the dundner-headed beneficiaries of Mr Steinbrenner's will.  Sometimes I think this Yankee organization has morphed into another Jim Dolan.

3.  David Adams's bubble has burst.  He doesn't even look like a guy who could hit in batting practice. He flails at curve balls like A-Rod, and stands frozen as breaking balls bend over the heart of the plate with a 1-2 count on him. Sorry folks, there is no potential here.  Another .200 hitter.

4.  The new kid in the outfield?  Is he actually young?  Why, then, El Duque have you not briefed us on him?  I figure we got him in a rule 5 draft from the Cubs and he is 33.  Not that it matters;  he can hit .334 in Scranton and do nothing here.

5.  Texiera is beginning to grate.  In that wiggly bating staff, signifying nothing, he slaps one-hoppers to the infielders.  When he doesn't strike our or hit into double plays, that is.  Good to hear that the wrist is holding up.  Has there ever been a former star whose talents eroded this fast, without age being the cause?

6.  The old guys ( although I feel Overbay could hit .267 all year ) are toilet bound.  It isn't even July and they are slugless and nearly on empty.

7.  CC has reached an inflection point in his career.  Good for our opponents, not so good for us.

It is time to bite the bullet, fold up the tent and announce a re-structuring from top to bottom.  Beginning with Cashman and his band of blind talent scouts.  A 25 year-old third baseman from Notre Dame as our first pick?  Sorry, this isn't football.  He'll be 35 when A-Rod's contract is up, if we don't extend it.

USMNT ( soccer ) plays a match Tuesday to qualify for 2014 world cup.  It will be far more exciting than a week of Yankee nothing.

Giants football doesn't appear until July 28 ( actually camp opens on the 27th, but that is " media day."

Take pictures, gather momentos, teasure each moment: The Yankees are now in the Chris Bootcheck Era

Chris Bootcheck, the 34-year-old lugnut from Scranton - by way of Anaheim and Yokohama Bay, Japan - soldiered in last night, to not only pitch the eighth inning but to personify the 2013 Yankees, a team whose symbol has morphed from a pack of fighting underdogs into a flaming bag of dog doo on your front stoop.

We're left with the same decision Brian Cashman faces over the next three weeks: Should we stomp out this foul-smelling blaze, or just let it smolder until September?

Listen; The Mets sweep was no fluke. We are the second best team in New York and the third team in the AL East - and plummeting fast.

So last night, into this bubbling quicksand strode Bootcheck, who started well at Scranton and then was getting knocked around, a pitcher whose main value is his expendability. In 10 days, no matter how he pitches, he'll likely be gone, and Adam Warren will return.

Nothing against Bootcheck personally. But he is the new Colter Bean - just as Travis Hafner is the new Gary Ward, and Vernon Wells the new Andruw Jones. They are recurring Yankee sitcom tropes - the Lennys and Squggys of YES. We always have a thirtysomething minor league reliever, be it Wally Whitehurst or - your name here - seeking salvation at the end of his MLB career. We always have at least one former slugger who starts hot - and just as we are congratulating ourselves for signing him - turns into the strikeout machine that the other teams avoided - the Jesse Barfield, the John Mayberry - oh, Muse of Writing, don't make me go down the list, it hurts too much. 

At a certain point - hey, I'm not proud of this - you root against the guy, because one base hit merely means you must endure another 1 for 20 streak, before they'll consider making a change. You get sick of hearing how well his swing looked on that last AB, which is another sign that he's snapping out of his funk. GAAAH.

It is the most painful and frustrating part of being a Yankee fan: Rooting for Andruw, or Randy Winn, or maybe even the Grandyman, to fail, because you can't stand another strikeout with the bases loaded. People who don't watch the games, who don't care, call you a bad fan. And you are a bad fan, a blight upon your team, a reason why some players hate New York - people like you.  But you simply can't take it anymore. YOU JUST CAN'T TAKE IT.

Listen: We are nearly at that point with Hafner and Wells. Not there yet. But another week or two, and we'll have no recourse but to simply hope they tweak a gonad and go bye-bye. If we're going to watch a guy hit .220, I'd rather he be 24 and maybe on a rising arc, not a thirtysomething flaming bag on my doorstep.

Good luck, Chris Bootcheck. This is not about you. After the Yankees waive you, may you sign with a team that's going somewhere - other than down.

Eavesdropping By the NSA

Secret phone rings in the office of Hal Steinbrenner:  Chirp, chirp, chirp...

Hello?

Hal, this is Brian.  I need to talk to you about Joe.

Hal;  ok.  But use code words for Chrissake, you have no idea who might be listening in!

Brian;  Joe called me at 4;12 am from Oakland and reminded me that Tex and Yuke were about 0-16 with 8 strikeouts.

Hal;  that is an early phone call.  What time was it in Tampa?

Brian:  Who gives a shit?  Listen to this;  Joe thinks the Yankees would do better with Overbay at first, Ichiro in right and Adams at third !

Hal;  Jesus!  Even the dumb-ass Mets wrote me that Ike Davis was hitting better than Tex when they sent him to the Vegas proving grounds.  So what are you telling me?

Brian;  How's it going to look if we sit down $20 million in assets and replace them with $786,112 in assets?  And play better baseball?  This is a nightmare, and could become a national scandal...

Hal;  Friggen A, you've got me there.  If we sit these dudes down, we'll look like total assholes who have no idea what we're doing!!  It's worse than when we drafted number one that kid who told us he was going to UCLA, and he did!

Brian;  Exactly.  Money talks in baseball and everywhere else.  It is the American way.  So what can I tell Joe?

Hal:  Tell him to re-screw his head on straight and keep playing the superstars.  Tell him I won't have some cheapskate ballclub playing better baseball than these 1%'ers ! I don't care if we get blown out on the entire road trip.

The only way we can et them out of the line-up ios if another injury should occur.  Or some type of moral turpitude.  Hmmm.. I could make some calls.

Brian;  Thanks, Hal.  I knew you'd see it my way.  I'll suggest that Joe tell the media that baseball is a difficult game to predict, and that we have full confidence in our superstars.

One more thing:  that dirtbag Alphonso predicted, way back when we were in first place, that the Yankees would get worse when our injured " stars " returned.  How can I get him off our case?

Hal;  Send him four free tickets to the Goldman Sachs box at the stadium and a bottle of Crown Royal.  WTF does he know?

By the way, what time is it?

Jeter cleared to resume drinking

TAMPA _ Doctors yesterday cleared Yankee captain Derek Jeter to begin absorbing copious amounts of alcohol, after he watched 18 innings of a meandering, stagnant offense provided by former Redsocks, Indians and Blue Jays - who may still be working for those teams.

"He's not only ready to drink, he needs to drink," said physician Dr. Robert Anderson. "Imagine going back there. Whoa. Just thinking about it, I'm going to have a few stiff belts."

'It Is High' Newsflash!!!: Yankees set lineup for 2013 Old Timers' Day game

... and for the first time in history, the Old Timers' Day game is likely to be a shutout.

Homer Bush might at least steal a base, though.

Yankee Doomsday Clock moved one minute closer to midnight

The Union of Concerned Yankee Fans today announced that the world has rolled one tick closer to Steinmageddon. 

The Yankee Apocalypse is here

Stash canned food. Board the windows. Turn out the lights. Aim for the heads. Remember: Unless the bullet pierces the brain, the zombies just play on, unaware that they are dead.

Last night, Mariano added another great moment to his legacy: He mercifully shot this team in the skull. If not for Mo, the Yankees might still be lurching from the dugout to the batters box, taking spastic swings and then staggering back to the grave.

There is no escape, no cure - no cavalry en route. George Clooney won't save us. Woody Harrelson isn't coming. We have a team - no, an organization - so heavily layered with zombies that it took three months to differentiate between the living and the dead. We are old, slow, tired, drained of juju, and lifeless in our free fall. We are the 2013 Yankees - soon to be battered by the lowly Angels and, in - say - three weeks, passed by the disappointment known as the Toronto Blue Jays. On the day when Chien-Ming Wang beats us, we'll have reached the trench of Yankee horror - we will be where Redsock fans were in the halcyon days of Bobby V. But let's not kid ourselves: It has taken years to reach this puss-riddled cusp of Yankee hell.

Remember our sense of doom in spring training, when we realized the farm system - which last year included the New York State Thruway - had not one young position player ready to step in? (Might be the same next spring.) Remember the outpouring of anger, bordering on disbelief, when we obtained Vernon Wells, and the sense of "Oh God, how do you spell "meh?" when we signed Travis Hafner? Turns out, those were the correct responses. We just clogged the drain with an influx of Andruw Joneses - fresh in the spring, and then rotting in the first heat of summer. We waved mirrors and tricked ourselves into thinking all would be fine when the "stars" returned. What a joke. We made our own Kool-Aid and drank it.

A story cleared this week that last winter, the Yankees were approached by a Japanese team interested in taking A-Rod. Can you imagine the excitement that must have run through Cashman, from the souls of his feet to the thinning hair line: That humankind was still birthing people who were interested in A-Rod? Well, we have a bunch of players who should be in Japan, if not Newark - for the Bears. We have a raft of Jose Cansecos, sluggers who should be launching softballs in factory leagues. I'm sorry if I sound angry and defeated, and empty of hope. I am angry and defeated and empty of hope. Yesterday was the most painful loss since Game Four last October. You want healing words of gibberish? Screw you. Fox just resigned Sarah Palin. She's probably got something to say. Frankly, YES should have signed her. She would have been more entertaining yesterday than those excuse-making automatons. I CAN'T TAKE THIS. DO YOU HEAR ME? SEVENTEEN INNINGS WITHOUT A RUN. SHOOT ME, PLEASE. PULL THE TRIGGER. I CAN'T TAKE THIS.

Swept... our second sweep in the last five series. I thought we bottomed out after the Mets. Nope. This was worse. SEVENTEEN INNINGS WITHOUT A RUN. PUT ME IN THE TUB AND THROW THE ELECTRIC LAMP ON TOP OF ME. (OK... hold it together now. You're OK. Breathe. That's better.) So many opportunities. Early this season, you looked at the bottom third of our order - Bosch, Nix and Stewart - and cringed. Now, as soon as Robbie is done, you cringe. Look at the averages: Wells .229...  Hafner .220... Youkilis .219... Teixeira .163.  But they don't even tell the truth. It's worse when you consider that some of these bums actually started off hot.

Board the windows, folks. Get into the basement.  Make no sounds. And remember, remember, remember REMEMBER THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE OF ALL: 

Keep the last bullet. That's for you.

Mike at River Avenue Blues has finally had it with this team...

...and if you read him often enough to know how level headed he is, it reads like a murder indictment:

The Yankees didn’t just lose Thursday afternoon/night’s 18-inning marathon with the Athletics because they couldn’t buy a hit after the first inning. They also lost because they half-assed their way through an offseason in which they deemed it acceptable to downgrade all over the field despite a) winning the division by the skin of their teeth last year, and b) knowing it was very likely going to be Mariano Rivera‘s final season. Real nice going away present. That surfboard the A’s gave him today was more respectful.

Go savor the rest.

Shoot them

Possible NY Post front pages about Rupert Murdoch's divorce

Rupert Murdoch , 82, is getting a divorce from his wife of 14 years, Wendi Deng Murdoch, 44. How should the NY Post report this? 

Fortunately, the paper already has a wellspring of ideas from which to draw.

1.   Just follow it like any tragic marriage.

2.   Note that Wendi, being a woman, 

suffers from an insatiable thirst for sex.

3.    Everyone loves a pun.

Maybe Rupert wasn’t “Denging” her enough.

4.   Is it possible that they got the wrong couple?

5. Nobody ever gets tired of blaming Tiger.

6. Note that Wendi, being a woman,

must be a horrible gorgon.

7. It's sad, but journalists realize that 

the marriage was always going to end someday.

8. Was she involved with any hanky-panky?

9. Maybe the best way
is to just deny that it will happen.

Special treat: Today's Yankee starting lineup, in flowing script, written in blood

Beat this, Lohud.