Sports Friday: The only post I'll do about sports today. Promise.

But get ready for it. It's big.

The New York Times (free registration required, naturally) explores the black hole in the ground that is what has become of the Yankees' season and swagger. Also, Joe Torre asserts his decision making. Michiko Kakutani says brilliantly:

"The Yankees' monumental collapse in the face of a Sox team that seemed to rise from the dead went beyond most fans' worst-case scenarios, and it came as the culmination of a week of interminable playoff games that had already left New Yorkers exhausted and drained. It felt like a harbinger of a long winter of discontent, and perhaps a much longer sojourn in the wilderness - a prospect made all the worse by the sense that the world was somehow, bizarrely, disconcertingly, out of joint"

amNewYork - a free daily whose web site I'm not going spelunking to find the link for - ignores sports entirely and leaves it to Clubplanet.com to say the classic: "There's no joy in Mudville". Maybe they're still a little stunned over there.

The Post reports on the death of a Red Sox fan, noting, "The horrific fatality capped a night of mayhem by Boston fans for which cops were completely unprepared." Yeah, I don't think anyone was prepared for what happened. I guess the cops were expecting an early night in bed for everyone in Boston - much as what happened here in NY instead.

The capper: Mike Lupica in the Daily News:

The Yankees just crumble in the big moments now. They couldn't put the Diamondbacks away, couldn't put the Angels away in the first round in 2002, couldn't beat the Florida Marlins in the World Series last year. They are the champions of money now. That is all.

You know, not that I enjoy that sentiment, but it's completely fucking true. It's mainly Steinbrenner's fault. On Bill Simmons' site, he posted a mailbag with the following quote: "True Yankee fans don't love the Giambi Yankees. The 2002-2004 Yankees are Steinbrenner's mess. But we still live and die with every pitch just as you do." I wrote myself the following to Simmons yesterday:

We performed admirably. Only the last game was a blowout, and that came down to about 6 overpaid players who memorably and noticably gagged - Sheffield, A-Rod, Brown, Vazquez, Loaiza, and, not to be granted any clemency, Giambi. If any of those guys came through, it would have been a close game if not a win. The reason why we lost our swagger is because we saw this coming in April. Hell, in Giambi's case, we've been watching his wheels come off for 3 years now.

Isn't it enough that we had a gun to our heads, Steinbrenner's finger on the trigger, being screamed at angrily to win the World Series or else…

Time to move on... as Adrian Wojnarowski insists...

The New York Giants face the Detroit Lions this weekend. A reminder to Warner & crew: Great teams don't go into games thinking it's going to be easy against a weak team, because that's how you end up facing a long day vs. a weak team.

And in a battle of the unbeatens, the Jets face the Patriots. Is this one kinda close to call? The Pats are favored by a touchdown as of Friday morning. That's on home field. I don't think the Jets can pull this one off, but I'm not writing them off completely either.

Now, back to snark.