Bye Bye, Yankees



Oh, they'll be analysing this one all winter. And oh yeah, you might hear the first calls for Looooooou right about now. If Joe Torre isn't on his way out the door now, he'll never be.

The Yankees, tied with the Mets at season's end for the best record in baseball lost in the first round of the AL playoffs to a team that backed into the playoffs by losing three straight to the KC Royals and let a double digit AL Central lead slip through their hands.

The Yankees with their Murderer's Row lineup (oh, shiver, oh tremble) played much like Mistresses' Row after Game One, losing three straight to the Detroit Tigers who outpitched and outplayed the Yankees so badly that at one point it was 8-0 in this elimination game.

You lose two of three against the Tigers and you'd think in Game Four they'd come out smoking but they didn't. They were overeager at the plate and crap on the mound, throwing away everything they thought they'd worked for all season.

And yes, everybody's favourite whipping boy, A-Rod, will take a pummeling for a 1 for 14 series, as well he should but the finger pointing should begin and end with the manager who took a 200 million dollar roster and made it look like 200 dollars.

For four world championships, Joe Torre was the best manager the Yankees had in 50 years and during that spell the Yankees were a team rather than a collection of millionaires, a team of passion rather than passivity, a team that won rather than a team that spent year after year disappointing in the post season.

But this new collection with A-Rod, Giambi, Sheffield, the selfish sort of players who don't respond well to Torre's kind of management, need something of a kick in the arse. Think the Yankees fall down like that three in a row if Lou Piniella was breathing fire down their necks?

It was a brilliant upset by a team of enthusiasm led by a chain-smoking Marlboro Man kind of manager and the Tigers should enjoy it now, while they can.

The formidable A's, who swept the Twins are up next in the ALCS.

*****

Now there's only one team in New York at the moment, as the Mets swept the Dodgers to go to the NLCS.

How often does that happen?

Well, three times the Mets have made it to the World Series without the Yankees in 44 years of baseball existence. Twice they won it all. 1969 and 1986.

2006 might see it again.


His Hall of Fame credentials wouldn't help him last night...

The Mets swept past what looked like a lifeless Dodger team who probably blew their only chance at winning this series by reliquishing the momentum in a second-inning running gaffe in Game One that saw two runs erased into none by one bonehead play by a player and one by the third base coach.

After that and yes, the Dodgers showed a few sparks last night but the reality was that they were doomed by a bad bullpen, the Dodgers simply rolled over and let the Mets roll past them. Not as embarassing as the Yankees mind you, but the Dodgers were favoured by many in this playoff they were swept in by those who fell in love with the demise of Pedro and El Duque.

Now the Mets will wait. One, maybe two days to see if their next opponents will be the Cardinals or the Padres. Whoever it is, don't expect them to stop the Mets juggernaut to being the next it team in New York and maybe even the next World Series Champions.

*****