On July 1st, John Harper wrote an article declaring the Yankees dead. Oh what a difference a few months make.
On July 1, the day that I set myself up for ridicule by declaring the Yankees dead, it is worth remembering Andy Pettitte failed to last two innings against the A's and Joe Torre was so tired of watching Bobby Abreu and Hideki Matsui give away at-bats that he batted Robinson Cano in the No. 3 spot.
Furthermore, the Yanks had lost nine of 11 games to fall to 37-41, and at the time, not even die-hard fans, at least none outside of Lincoln, Neb., could have picked Joba Chamberlain out of a police lineup.
So, um, does that cut me any slack with the jury of pinstriped loyalists, your honor?
Didn't think so.
All right, so my time has come to officially answer for being proven dead wrong, as the Yankees last night clinched a playoff berth for the 13th straight season, and the 12th in a row under Torre's guidance.
Not that I haven't had time to prepare. By the second week in August, during a weekend sweep of the Indians in Cleveland, I knew I'd written them off too soon. By then, with the help of an infusion of youth, they looked and sounded like an entirely different ballclub from the one that had dragged its tail through the first three months of the season.
The bottom line is that I should have known better. Usually it's baseball writers like myself who are always telling fans to be patient, reminding them in May and June that the season is longer than they can imagine, that a team as talented as the Yankees benefits from the six months it takes to sort out the best and the worst teams.
In this case, I was doing a lot of that early this season, some of it with the sports editor of this newspaper, who was predicting doom and gloom for the Yankees, not to mention something like 162 errors for Derek Jeter, way back in April.
But you watch enough bad baseball and it wears down your patience. Watch enough of the lethargic, seemingly passionless baseball the Yankees were playing in April, May, and June, and you get sick of writing about how much time there is to make everything right.
Not that I was merely desperate for a column that day. By then I was convinced this was the season in which age finally caught up with the Yankees. Abreu, Matsui and Johnny Damon all looked like they were ready for the Senior Tour, not to mention Roger Clemens and Mike Mussina.
Beyond various levels of resurgence by each of them, there have been two developments no one could have predicted.
Most significantly, the young pitching saved the season. At the time the Yankees were saying Phil Hughes might not be back until September, and while he hasn't been the phenom everyone predicted, as his leg injuries seem to have stolen some life from his fastball, he did help stabilize the starting rotation. Same goes for Ian Kennedy.
And then there is Chamberlain, the darling of Yankee fans, whose impact can't be overstated. On July 1, Joba was merely an impressive first-year minor leaguer, still three weeks from being promoted to Triple-A and tried as a reliever.
Secondly, the math seemed prohibitive, mainly because I wasn't counting on the Tigers collapsing.
I thought it would take 95 wins to beat out either the Indians or the Tigers for the wild-card berth, which meant the Yankees would need to go 58-26 the rest of the way. Had that been the case, this last week might have been filled with suspense, but the Tigers fell apart, and so while the Yankees have surged, going 54-26, it took only 91 wins to clinch the wild card.
So, technically ...
I know, I know, don't go there. They might get to 95 anyway. Either way, the Yankees have played at a higher level than I thought possible.
So I was wrong, as I have been reminded more than few times recently. Indeed, judging by e-mails and such, it seems that half the people who read the paper that day saved the back page, just waiting for the chance to rub it in. Only family members have mentioned anything about serving it with salt and pepper.
It's all in fun ... I think.
Anyway, it's made for an interesting second half. At some point I stopped rooting for my prediction to hold up and just enjoyed watching the baseball the Yankees gave us the last couple of months - full of the energy and passion that was missing during the first half.
Indeed, as it heads to the postseason, this Yankee team seems to be showing more joy than any since the '90s. For once the Yanks don't seem dragged down by organizational expectations, perhaps because they had to fight their way out of the huge hole they dug.
They fooled a lot of people along the way. Pass the salt.
jharper@nydailynews.com
