I walked to my Dad’s room again last night, looking grim, and he looked around at me, pausing from scraping up an old floor tile.

“How are the Yankees doing?”

“Losing, of course,” I replied, as if the Yankees’ previous 26 World Championships never occurred. “I’m starting to hate them.”

“Yeah, everybody feels like that,” he told me. “The guys at work are pretty mad.”

Thus, we had the whole discussion that has been occupying my mind every time I watch a Yankees game these days. The Yankees, as it turns out, are so easy to hate! I’ve been watching every Yankees game of every season for about five years now and every year they seem to spend more and more money, trade away their young talent, and put out perpetually more disappointing seasons than the last. Last year, I stopped watching Yankees games at the end of August, when I was sure they wouldn’t make the playoffs. This year, I’ve stopped already.

I understand that it’s Brian Cashman’s obligation to “field a winning team” every year, but when does the point come when the Yankees organization realizes that, using the methods they’ve used for the past nine years, the Yankees aren’t winning? Hey, if Teixeira and Sabathia were on the market and I was a GM, I’d go after them, too. But trading Jose Tabata and Jeff Karstens for Xavier Nady? Trading Jeff Marquez for Nick Swisher? I mean, Nady’s a good player and Swisher is a great guy, I’d love to have him on my team, but how long will the Yankees have Nady and Swisher around? And I’m not just ranking on those two. There have been other cases, as well. How about trading Nady to a pennant-race team for prospects this July? How about at least trying to unload Matsui to AL team in need of a clutch DH? How about building from within? How about putting together a team that takes pitches, runs the bases, and feels like a team rather than a ego-boosting home for aging superstars. The Yankees dynasty of the late nineties was not built on power bats and huge names. Derek Jeter, Tino Martinez, Paul Oneil – Scott Brosius for christ’s sake! These are guys that played their hearts out and played the game the right way (passing over Oneil’s attitude, which, I would argue, is only an outward display of his desire to win). It wasn’t about Tino Martinez or Derek Jeter, it was about the Yankees.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m too much of an idealist. But I wouldn’t mind seeing the Yankees make some drastic moves to build up their farm system again and set the foundation for the future Yankees from within the organization. I’m not saying don’t pick up guys who hit home runs. I’m saying that the Yankees teams these past few years have not felt like a team. They’ve felt like a mix-and-match bunch of stars who aren’t pulling their weight, not to mention their rotation slots have been continually revolving doors. Not to mention, it feels wrong without Joe Torre, a man who NEVER should have been slapped in the face like that. That disgusted me more than anything.

I’m pretty sick of watching the Yankees lose.

But on the bright side, who’s in first place in the NL Central? THE ST. LOUIS CARDINALS, THAT’S WHO! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!