Yankee go home

Here is what I like to do every October: Celebrate my birthday, trick or treat with my daughter, carve a pumpkin and, oh yeah, watch the New York Yankees go down in flames in the playoffs.

So it was with much enjoyment that I went home at my lunch hour on Monday, turned on the television, put it on channel 622, the YES Network (or Al-Yank-Zera to most people of intelligent baseball thought), to watch the tears flow on the "Mike and the Mad Dog'' show.

Yes, it was a glorious day. Callers in despair. Callers in disbelief. Why, there are children pushing 6 years old who have never known a day when the Yankees won it all. This could be the Next Great Generation. All they have known is Yankee failure. I have great hopes for our youth.

Anyway, it doesn't take a genius to figure out what is wrong with the Yankees. The good thing is it appears there doesn't seem to be any intelligent thought taking place in New York.

Getting rid of Joe Torre? Uh, that's not the problem. Torre doesn't take the mound four days out of five and needing a protective screen to keep from getting shelled by line drives.

It's the pitching, stupid.

The Yankees need better starting pitching. That's it in a nutshell.

It would also help to get rid of some parts of the All-Star lineup. Alex Rodriguez is a fabulous player - most of the time. But Scott Brosius was a gamer. Sometimes you need gamers in your lineup to go along with your stars. A-Rod is slowly turning into an everyday Ed Whitson.

And here is one other way to fix the Yankees -- realize the situation you're in. The goal shouldn't be to win the division. The goal is to get into the playoffs. When you do that, it's a crapshoot. Detroit didn't win the division, but the Tigers are still playing.

Oh well, let me go back to the living room and see if I can't catch some more of the Yankee Hot Stove show. Oh wait, that wasn't supposed to be on until November.