Yankees: Spring Panic

I wasn't feeling as charitable in November, but over the last month I've truly come to sympathize with Byung-Hyun Kim. By his star-crossed audacity to involve himself in the New York-rebirth narrative of last fall's World Series?in fairness, I suppose we should blame Bob Brenly?the 23-year-old Korean Diamondback reliever became baseball's greatest crybaby. Watching the third impossible home run in the second consecutive night in his first World Series appearance become another addition to the overcrowded register of Yankees mythology, Kim famously crouched into a fetal position and began to cry. He was still on the pitcher's mound. It was a glorious moment. I shouted many imprudent things about Kim's ethnicity.

It turns out my pain threshold is significantly lower. (It would have to be?Kim is a man who had to pitch his way to victory in the 1998 Asian Games to avoid military service in the South Korean Army.) I've been ready to splatter my dainty pillow with salty tears over the injuries the Yankees keep accumulating in Spring Training. Merciful God. If the bitter, script-shredding victory the Diamondbacks slithered away with proved to be insufficient balm for Kim's wounded soul, the creaking joints and strained muscles of the Bombers have to give him satisfaction. It hurts so bad, goddammit.

The intangible qualities that sustain the Yankees?clandestine infernal contracts, that sort of thing?tend to dissipate cyclically, like in the early 70s and through the 80s and early 90s. But I'm not making any proclamations about this forthcoming season, since I'm the sort of person who grinds his teeth apprehensively over every 15-day disabled list and infield bobble, inclined to declare the foundation unstable each time the paint peels. Baseball, I should admit here, is inscrutable to me. I have no intuition to determine outcomes. Percentages? I can barely add. Tea leaves are for brewing, and bird entrails belong inside the parrots of Flatbush. But the Yankees' bill of health at camp?and yeah, yeah, it is Spring Training, where the whole point is to allow ballplayers to get back into fit condition?has me nervous.

Jason Giambi's $120-million left hamstring put the anointed first baseman on the bench. As of press time, third baseman Rondell White's ribcage was generating more attention than his fielding, thanks to a February batting cage overexertion. While Jorge Posada missed exhibition games, convalescing from offseason shoulder surgery, Joe Torre opened the running for backup catcher. Improbably, El Duque, who just weeks ago seemed destined to be traded off, appears to be in good shape, throwing bullets after his recurrent injuries last season. But the papers and the wires and the tv and the Internet are filled with images of creaky men with bad backs, shoulders, necks and legs. Like a conflicted father passing an OTB parlor on the way to buy medicine for his sick children, I know I should be resisting temptation given my miserable track record, but I can't. Forgive me, Torre, forgive me, Brian Cashman, but I'm worried about this season.

I had the misfortune of being born at the beginning of the Yankees' too-recent 17-year dry spell. My formative Yankee fandom was characterized by frustration. The Yankees of the 80s had classic Bomber talent?Dave Righetti, Willie Randolph, Mattingly, Dave Winfield, Rickey Henderson?and lost. They didn't just lose. They lost like Pete Rose had money on them and gave Steinbrenner a taste. They lost like history had opened the books and had come to investigate a massive discrepancy in the record. In 1996, the Yankees righted themselves, completing the portrait of the New York renaissance during the Giuliani years. A friend of mine called me from Game Seven at the Stadium during the ensuing riot, yelling through the chaos that he had just ripped his seat from the stands because greatness had returned. To me, the victory was more like a miraculous accident than a restored trajectory. My Yankee experience was not onward and upward. Even during these last dynastic years, I've never been able to shake the dread that the stifled greatness is the Yankees' lurking default position. Stump Merrill will always be managing my Yankees. This must be what it's like to be a Catholic, or a Red Sox fan.

In that spirit I read about Derek Jeter's strained neck. He figured he twisted it catching a pop-up in the exhibition opener on March 2 and aggravated the injury during batting practice the next day. If anyone's the singular figure of the renewed Yankee vitality, it's the invaluable $189-million shortstop, so when he sat a few games and went in for an MRI, I reasoned that the end is nigh. It's madness, it's absurd, it makes no sense, and I did it anyway. By all accounts, Jeter is fine now, back on the warm Tampa grass and ready to taunt his pal Alex Rodriguez. But all I picture is that Kalamazoo grimace, those clenched teeth and sore, bulging neck veins. After the initial panic died down, Jeter let on that he was seriously freaked out by his injury. However baseless my fears were, they were shared by the man himself. "When it first happened, I thought I'd broken my neck," he said, and I held a deep breath.

Then there's Andy Pettitte's left elbow. Recall that in 1999, Pettitte started the season on the DL because of pain in that very pitching elbow. By the time this issue hits the streets, Pettitte may well be healthy?along with Jeter, White, Giambi, Posada and Ramiro Mendoza?and ready to congratulate Hernandez for earning a place in the rotation. (I'm pulling for El Duque and the streamlined David Wells to fill the last two spots.) Learning of the tenderness, Torre wisely rested Pettitte before putting him in a Columbus Clippers game on the Ides of March. Under orders not to throw any breaking pitches, Andy pitched for two innings and hurled 21 fastballs. Admittedly, everything seemed to go well. Mel Stottlemyre was quoted as being satisfied. Pettitte cautiously expressed optimism that he'd be ready for Opening Day. I shouldn't be worried about Pettitte either, but I can't shake the fear.

Byung-Hyun Kim is getting back at me. Unsatisfied that his obnoxious expansion team ended up beating the Yankees without his personal redemption, Kim must want the Bombers hurt and ailing, all as a mechanism of getting back at the New York fans who roared with joy at his public agony. So, long overdue here, Kim: I'm sorry. I shouldn't have laughed at you. You will be a great pitcher, given experience and despite your boccie-style delivery, and you will have postseason vindication. It's I who am the lost cause. I'll be apprehensive about the Yankees my entire life, no matter how successful they'll be. There ought to be a support group.

PRESSBOX: Let's assume contraction isn't an issue. Bud Selig invests you with the power to give any one city in the country a franchise. Money's not an issue. Where would you put a club? I was talking about this with a friend of mine the other day, and we agreed that DC needs to see the return of the Washington Senators. Hear me out. The AL East rivalry would be incredible: a Northeast Corridor four-way battle royal between the Yankees, the Senators, the Sox and the Orioles. What a hot ticket. Instead of Old Timer's Day, bring out the actual Senate for a two-inning game: majority party gets home-field advantage. Think about it.

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PREDICTIONS: Remember what I just wrote about my inability to forecast ballgames? Disregard it, because here comes my expert size-up of the 2002 season's dust-kicking, battery-throwing, Selig-hating, Japanese-hyping, battles royal. In the American League, the Yankees take the East, the strong-hitting White Sox dominate the Central division, Seattle has another incredible year to win in the West, with the competitive A's earning playoff berth through the never-should-have-happened Wildcard. In the Nationals, it's the onslaught of the armies of conventional wisdom as the Braves beat the Mets in the East, St. Louis takes the Central, the aging Diamondbacks again top the West and San Francisco clinches the Wildcard. ALCS is a hard-fought Seattle over the Yankees in seven; NLCS is the Cards over the Giants. And, in five games, it's the Mariners' year...

Big prediction: Baseball becomes more like basketball and football, with more players engaging in high-profile bar brawls, arrests, spousal abuse and vulgarity. Triumphant home-run kings will try to light up stadiums of 50,000 like they were the Staples Center as they round the bases. You read it here first.