YANKEES START their

[smazza]

it didnt happen yet

[smazza]

IT'S THE PITCHING, STUPID!

NAME OF THE GAME That Kenny Rogers and the rest of the Tiger pitching staff toppled the Yankees is no great shock, it's just baseball.October 9, 2006 -- THE most unbelievable ele ment of the Yanks' loss to the Tigers is the disbelief expressed by the media, by the folks who should know better.

For some reason you're supposed to regard the Yanks' loss to a good team in a best-of-five as unfathomable. For crying out loud, both Mike Francesa and John Sterling late last week claimed that if the Yanks lost to Detroit, it would be "worse" than 2004, when, up 3-0, the Yanks lost four straight to Boston.

And that's preposterous. What the Red Sox did was unprecedented, miraculous. What the Tigers did was - is - just baseball. And since when does losing a 1-0 lead in games (or in a game) constitute "a collapse"?

Why is October baseball spoken and written as if it's football? Yeah, it would be shocking if the better NFL team lost a best-of-five. But in baseball, the lesser team often wins three of four, and pitching generally is the reason.

We understand that "The King and His Court," the four-man softball team that regularly whipped 10-man teams, did so because "The King," Eddie Feigner, was near-impossible to hit. So why don't we see it in nine vs. nine baseball?

While Yankee fans should be disappointed, to encourage them toward shock is ridiculous. And to think that the media have for years ridiculed George Steinbrenner for his reactionary, silly behavior in response to a loss.

*

ESPN has become BSPN. Saturday, from the start of Cards-Padres, Joe Morgan again became so self-immersed in protracted, convoluted speeches, he turned himself into a background hum. Eventually, we didn't hear a word he said.

Friday, with Randy Johnson clocking 98 mph on BSPN's graphic, Jon Miller said, "For years, we'd see Johnson come out and throw 91, 92, 93 mile per hour fastballs, and then, when he needs it, a two-strike count or whatever, throw 98."

A seven mph difference? That would make his 91 mph fastball his change-up.

Friday, BSPN had 43-year-old Johnson consistently throwing 97-98, while 41-year-old Kenny Rogers was throwing 92 - until the eighth, when the graphic read "93." Hmmm. Then again, in Game 1 of the NLDS, BSPN's Gary Thorne identified a John Maine pitch that registered 84 mph as "a fastball

ESPN's easiest to endure/enjoy first-round play-by-play was on radio, from Jon Sciambi and Ted Robinson, who called the first two of A's-Twins.

*

Things being equal, Francesa and Chris Russo should attack Ernie Harwell for working a couple of Game 3 innings on ESPN and in the Tigers' radio booth. So what if Harwell's the beloved, legendary Voice of the Tigers? He retired, so, as they screamed about Gary Cohen, holler that he should just go away and not take innings from the regulars during the playoffs!

By the by, if Francesa were as bright as he thinks he is, that bet he lost to Russo - Francesa would buy him season's tickets to SF Giants games if Rogers came up big - would have been contingent upon Russo attending every game.

For all his analysis of Gary Sheffield's inexperienced play at first after an up-the-line throw by Alex Rodriguez, Saturday, Fox's Steve Lyons might have at least mentioned that Sheffield perhaps avoided making a sweep tag because he'd just returned from glove-side wrist surgery.

Thursday, Fox studio's Jeanne Zelasko, after a retro on the Mets' '86 Series win - emphasis on Game 6 - said, "and Game 7 wasn't even close." Good grief. Through five innings, Boston led, 3-0; after six, it was 3-3; entering the bottom of eighth, the Mets led, 6-5.

Later, Thom Brennaman reported that if the Dodgers don't score it'll be the Mets' "first postseason shutout since 2000." What a coincidence - that was the last time the Mets played in the postseason!

For all the goofy stats thrown at us, yesterday on Fox, after Giant RB Brandon Jacobs was seen in a rare moment - catching a pass - it would have been worth noting that it was his second catch in his 21-game pro career.

After Fox showed its end zone man, Tony Siragusa, chatting with Jere-Me Shockey, who was about to huddle with the Giants at their own goal-line, **** Stockton said it all: "I'm sure Tom Coughlin's happy he's talking to you, down on the field."

Finally, when Texas scored a TD against Oklahoma, Saturday, ABC cut to a series of UT crowd shots, including a close-up of Bevo, UT's mascot longhorn. We don't know what was expected from Bevo - applause? - but he appeared totally disinterested.

phil.mushnick@nypost.com

[smazza]

JOE AND TELL

TORRE'S ENDING, LIKE THOSE BEFORE HIM, WON'T BE HAPPY

October 9, 2006 -- LOS ANGELES - When it ends, it will not end pretty, because it never ends pretty when you occupy the manager's office at Yankee Stadium. When Joe Torre started accumulating his four championship rings, he joined a select company of rarefied excellence - men who have led earth's most famous sports franchise to a title.

When he is fired - whenever that is, today, tomorrow, two years from now, whenever - he will join another club, occupied almost entirely by the same people: men who won a championship for the Yankees and were nevertheless ordered to pack up boxes and leave at someone else's behest.

It's a tradition unlike any other, and the truth is it is a tradition that predates George Steinbrenner. Steinbrenner is responsible for firing two men who won championships for him, Billy Martin and Bob Lemon, and for making life so miserable for Ralph Houk, who won two titles pre-George, that Houk all but ran out of Yankee Stadium under cover of darkness on the final day of the 1973 season.

But while George Steinbrenner was still an anonymous shipping executive, the Yankees fired Casey Stengel, and all he'd ever done was win eight championships and 10 pennants in 12 years. Back when Steinbrenner was still a student at Williams, they fired Bucky Harris, who led them to the title in 1947, and while he was at Culver Military Academy they all but led Joe McCarthy out of the job in a strait jacket, after McCarthy had won eight pennants and seven championships in 15 years.

Miller Huggins, it turns out, is the only man who ever led the Yankees to a title - and he won three of them - without getting fired. And that's only because he was lucky enough to die on the job.

The truth is, if Torre wanted to break with Yankee tradition and leave on his own terms, then he would have left a long time ago. He would have left in triumph after being carried off the Shea Stadium field by his final championship team of 2000. He would have left vanquished but proud after the Yankees were finally beaten in an unforgettable 2001 World Series. He would have retired after putting one final stake through the heart of Red Sox fans everywhere in 2003.

But Torre never really wanted to do that. He liked managing the Yankees. He liked the attention, the public platform the job provides. He certainly liked the salary, which this year reached $7 million. So he will not get the happy ending, or the soft landing. Ultimately, he will wind up fired, just as he's wound up fired three other times in his career. And just as Joe McCarthy, Bucky Harris, Casey Stengel, Billy Martin and Bob Lemon wound up fired.

Maybe, if this had happened a few years ago, there would have been outrage, a firestorm to match that which accompanied Billy Martin's first departure in 1978. Back then, fans weren't as aware as they'd be later on that when Martin wasn't a full-time drunk he was a part-time sociopath, and so when this newspaper ran a poll, 99 percent of the respondents declared their devotion for the departed manager. That's how Billy I became Billy II.

But the more Torre forfeited his golden touch, the more he started burning out his bullpen, the more he started pandering to people like Gary Sheffield, the more he started playing mind games with Alex Rodriguez, the less bulletproof he became.

That, too, happens. By the end McCarthy was too prone to benders, Harris was too quirky, Stengel too old, Lemon too detached. Even the later incarnations of Billy Martin inspired less and less fury.

So will it be when Torre goes, today, tomorrow, whenever. Eleven years is a long time to manage a baseball team. In the dog-ears formula of the Yankees, it's more like 77.

But the Yankees have always been very clear about one thing: managing the team is a good job, maybe the best job in baseball. But it's not a lifetime appointment.

George Steinbrenner may have perfected that philosophy. But he didn't invent it. Every Yankee manager, even the immortals, get fired sooner or later. It's not the worst fate you can suffer.

Ask Miller Huggins.

michael.vaccaro@nypost.com

[Apis Bull]

world series run next week

How'd that work out?   ;D

[UCFBeach]

the yankees might not lose a game on their way to the title

the redsox need to take notes

Guess the Tigers didn't get that memo?    

[smazza]

great  pitching stops great hitting every time

hope lou p signs with giants

[smazza]

the yankees might not lose a game on their way to the title

the redsox need to take notes

Guess the Tigers didn't get that memo?    

just like ftu/ou/oc  didnt get that football memo last 30 years

[Triple B]

the yankees might not lose a game on their way to the title

the redsox need to take notes

Guess the Tigers didn't get that memo?    

just like ftu/ou/oc  didnt get that football memo last 30 years

This is why we keep you around ......... every once in a while out comes a gem like this.  [smiley=thumbsup.gif]

[UCFBeach]

Smazza made a funny~~   ;D

[smazza]

laughter is the best medine

seems like the boss is undecided