"The New York Yankee Road Trip From Hell"

Fans must all face reality, and I'll show you how hard the remaining season will be.

Sept. 1 at Detroit - Please try to score some runs for Sydney Ponson.

Sept. 2-4 at Tampa Bay - Don't make me cry. 

Sept. 5-7 at Seattle - Take a big, long flight and see how that works for ya.

Sept. 8-10 at Anaheim - Hottest team in baseball. One sick SOB made this schedule.

September 12-14 at home, against Tampa Bay - That ass will probably be sore by then.

This is indeed a horror movie. A bad dream that one does not wake up from. It is the Wes Craven version of Groundhog Day, but instead of it being Bill Murray stuck in a town with repeating days, Yankee fans find themselves hoping for a postseason appearance in the last year of Ruth but are battling the GM and owner, who are just laughing at us fans while in our misery. 

Cashman might as well be called Kashman Bates of the horror movie Misery, because the fans are now tied down to a team that he and Hank built, and now they are holding fans hostage. Much like Cathy Bates, who forced James Caan to write a new novel while being held captive as he was crippled, Kashman Bates has forced fans to support and pay for a new idea too: the youth movement.

And just as the fans had the hope of making the postseason, by signing the likes of Gary Sheffield or Barry Bonds to permanently fix the offense, "Kathy" caught us hoping for a way to that postseason in the final year, and the sledge hammer came crushing down, breaking our dreams of postseason play into mere shards.

They passed on what I called a must sign, and then they passed on the cure for the rotation too—almost proving that they want to lose this year. 

Maybe Yankee management wants to lop off some heads and let them role as they break the streak in order to have an excuse to rid the team of some pretty big fan favorites next year—Pettitte, Moose, and Giambi's stars are fading already.

Will the Yankees make the playoffs? I'd rather go buy a lottery ticket, and it kills me to even say it. 

Bottom line, YANKEE UNIVERSE: Management didn't do what was needed to do, when it was needed to do it (Yogi helped me write that).   

Now the Yankee fans are paying the price for being naive and optimistic. We are paying the price, as we always do—after all, it is OUR MONEY—but this time the goods are no-good. 

It's one thing to buy into a winner, but it's quite different paying to see a loser (no offense Pavano). It is our money and NOW, we can choose to spend it elsewhere, like college football and send the Yanks a message. 

Or maybe fans can go along with Cashman and Hank - we could demand that they keep Carl Pavano—because he is sooo good—that's only my attempt at offering the reader some comic relief, but don't tell Brian Hoch of MLB.com—he likes Carl—which is as funny as listening to Eddie Murphy's Raw, "Wanna lick? Psych!"

Without fans, there is no Yankee Universe to destroy because Hank and the Steinbrenners would not have the money they now have. It is not Hank's world, he is just a steward. It is our place....The Yankee Fan Universe, and maybe it is time we showed management our displeasure of this, the final year of OUR stadium.

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