Yankees Collapse Column by Vaccaro

By MIKE VACCARO

YOU don't have to plumb the depths of your imagination to see the ominous windsblowing around the Yankees. Just take a look around. Shades of 1965 areeverywhere. Shades of 1982 abound. Signs of Great Collapse III are all around you. Anyone with eyes can see that. Well, anyone with eyes who isn't holed up in hisbunker in Tampa, releasing more defiant pearls of wisdom like this one:

"Weknow the fans may be disappointed, but if you're counting us out for next year,don't bet the house." George Steinbrenner should know better, of course. He wasn't here for GreatCollapse I, in '65, when a Yankees dynasty that had won 29 pennants and 20World Series (news - web sites) in the previous 44 seasons crumbled to dust,thanks to years of farm-system decay, years of neglecting African-Americanprospects, and, in Whitey Ford's famous words, the fact that "everyone got oldat the same time." But Steinbrenner most certainly was present in '82, for Great Collapse II, whenfive first-place finishes and two world titles in six years evaporatedovernight. He engineered it, in fact masterminded it, put in place all the squeaky wheelsand slippery slopes that kept the Yankees postseason-free for the next 14years, despite a checkbook that was just as accessible in those years as inthese years, despite the presence of plenty of talented players, despite theyearly belief the Yankees were a player or two away from glory. "What I remember most about the way our team fell apart is how shocking itwas," Graig Nettles said during the summer of 2001. "It was like being in abathtub, and you jack the temperature up bit by bit, a few degrees at a time,and before you know it you've scalded yourself to death." That's precisely where the Yankees find themselves now. One night, you go tobed and you have a clubhouse that is the envy of every baseball fan ever born,a mixture of talent and character, a gentle blend of grit, guile and guts, ateam even the most ardent Yankees-hater has difficulty truly loathing. The next morning, you wake up, and Tino Martinez has become Jason Giambi; DavidCone and Orlando Hernandez have become Javier Vazquez and Jose Contreras; PaulO'Neill has become either Gary Sheffield or Vladimir Guerrero; Scott Brosiushas become Aaron Boone; and Andy Pettitte has become Kevin Brown. Instead of having a beautifully crafted jigsaw puzzle where all the pieces fitsnugly and comfortably, you have lots of scattered jagged pieces lacking bothplan and pattern. Good enough to win plenty of games, perhaps. But good luck to Joe Torre andwhoever succeeds him on the Yankee Stadium throne, trying to coax that hideoushybrid team deep into October. "The thing about the Yankees all these years," a baseball executive saidyesterday, "is that you always knew the good guys outnumbered the bad, so thegood guys were going to make sure the bad guys found religion before too long.I don't see that being a given any more. The balance there has shifted, maybefor good." Pettitte's departure is one more nudge into the long winter that's been comingfor these Yankees for so long, the balloon payment for all the good times.Steinbrenner is back where he used to be, collecting expensive toys and seeingif they can play nice together. All the while, the core of his team becomes a corpse, lying at the bottom ofthat bathtub, scalded beyond recognition, right in front of our eyes. Winter hasn't felt this cold around here for a long, long while