Don?t listen to what anyone has to say. The New York Yankees are done. There will be no AL East title, no Wild Card crown, nothing. For the first time since Melky Cabrera was in diapers, the Yankees are not going to be a part of the Major League Baseball postseason. Their impressive stretch at the beginning of June was nice. It give even the most negative people hope that maybe the Bombers could resurrect their season and make a play for the World Series this fall. Things were looking pretty good as spring turned into summer. Roger Clemens was a Yankee once again. Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, and Jorge Posada weren?t the only guys in the line-up hitting consistently. Even Joe Torre?s pitching staff was starting to come around. For the first time all season we saw Torre smile and GM Brian Cashman stopped sweating for the first time since the end of April. In a two-week span the Yankees had cut the Red Sox?s insurmountable lead in the AL East in half, before long first place would be theirs. Then the bottom fell out. After looking like World Series favorites during an extended homestand, the Bronx Bombers hit the road for long trip against powerhouses like San Francisco, Colorado, and Baltimore (enjoy the sarcasm). For all intents and purposes, the Yankees should have come out of their time away from the Stadium looking even better than before. Who?s to say they shouldn?t have won each of those series. Instead, they?re limping home having lost all three, including a sweep at the hands of the Rockies. Bye, bye baseball in October. Bobby Abreu and Robinson Cano look like eight year old boys who?ve been separated from their mother?s at the homeplate, and the combined ERA of the Yankee staff in the last two weeks is somewhere around 71.30. Joe Torre looks as though he?ll blow at any second (or maybe cry), and Brian Cashman has even less hair now than he did a month ago. In other words, things are bad. The real problem with being in such a horrible situation isn?t the situation itself; it?s the fact that New York doesn?t know how to handle it. Should Cashman try to sell off some of the Bombers parts? Should they call-up young prospects in hopes that they?ll be ready to contribute more steadily in 2008? The latter is much more likely, because a fire sale would give off a blatant signal to the rest of baseball that the Yankees have quit on the season. So the only logical move is to bring up the young talent they?re recently grown in the farm system. All that is well and good. Cashman can fold the tent without giving off smoke by calling up some young players, but what about guys like Jeter and Posada? They haven?t really experienced losing at this level in their careers. They came up when things were just getting good in the Bronx, how will they handle the time off this fall? Playing golf and resting your bones might be nice for some, but it?s not going to pacify Derek and Jorge. They?d much rather be playing for a World Series title than counting their cash. It?s a long shot that they?ll be alive this fall, but if they?re going to make the postseason a real possibility once again the rest of the team is going to have to adopt the same mindset. That?s easier said than done. Just ask Andy Pettitte. Am I wrong to have counted the Yankees out? Please, let me know because I don?t want to be right?[email protected]