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Sunday Morning Update #2: I’ve received figuratively hundreds of emails ranging from disgust to mockery because of the self pitying tone of a post like this coming from a Yankees fan. I make no apologies.

Sunday Morning Update #3: Literally zero emails. I had just noticed how much a baby I came off as when I was rereading my post this morning. Still, “7 years of playoff disappointments” isn’t exactly the same as a team missing the playoffs after a World Series win. Yankees fans since 2002 (hard to really say much negative about 2001 despite the outcome) have dealt with an odd sort of success based torture. It’s one that I’m sure most fanbases would kill to experience, but it’s a real torture all the same. Make the playoffs, fail, make the playoffs, fail, etc. Although that seems quite appealing at this point.

Sunday Morning Update #4: I hope Girardi doesn’t take a lot of heat for this season. Like any manager, he’s made his share of questionable decisions, but Torre’s biggest shortcoming was his handling of the bullpen and Girardi has done a really solid job. Rivera leads the team in appearances with 46 which ranks him only 31st in the AL. The only other three relievers over 35 appearances are Farnsworth, Veras and Ramirez with the latter two completely unproven heading into this season. Compared to Torre’s veteran driven abuse of Gordon, Proctor and Vizcaino over the past few years (which seemed to be based on selecting the comfortable option over the best option in many cases), there’s a basis for hope going forward. Factor in the number of key player injuries (Posada, Matsui, Wang, Hughes, Rodriguez for a couple weeks, likely Chamberlain) and I’m willing to give Joe II a pass regardless of how the final 7+ weeks play out.

Sunday Morning Update #5: This reads like an epilogue to the season, doesn’t it? Dammit.