Adding A Fifth Season to the Calendar

In case you hadn't noticed, a fifth season has just been added to the calendar. In addition to being able to Spring forward and Fall back, thanks to the 2012 New York Yankees, you can now "Spiral downward". Tucked neatly in less than a week in October, it will serve as reminder to us that the temperature can go from warm to frigid without warning. While there are cynics who may believe that global warming is but a hoax, there can be no questioning that "Spiral downward" is an identifiable mid-October phenomenon.

Alongside the 1927 Murderer's Row, we now have the 2012 Rally Killers. Instead of the Sultan of Swat, we witnessed the Kings of K. Gone was the swagger and the belief in one's own greatness. 

It seems the team featuring the heroics of Raul Ibanez was born from a different mother than this collection masquerading as pinstripe legends. If I didn't know that the economics of the sport were vastly changed  from the days of the 1919 Black Sox, I would swear that there was some financial incentive given for this group to perform with such historic ineptitude. They all couldn't become that bad that quickly. Not so many, not so precipitously. Not possible.

At the end of the regular season, Robby Cano got 24 hits in little more than a week. Then, in a blink of an eye, he appeared to forget which end of the bat to hold. Curtis Granderson went from grand to ghastly, unable to  make contact with even the most inviting pitch. One moment there was discussion as to whether a struggling A-Rod should be dropped from the 3rd hole, and in the next breath he became the most expensive mistake in baseball history. Is there such a thing as an anti-steroid drug that overnight makes you weaker and wholly incapable of performing the simplest baseball task?

October, 2012 will be long remembered by Yankee fans as the time when humbling became but a distant cousin to the thrashing they watched in horror. When fist pumping was replaced only by head shaking. When the aura of superiority met an ugly death. And when $200 million couldn't buy a bloop hit.

The Fall classic will soon commence. Baseball has always been a harbinger of spring, a companion throughout the dog days of summer, and a parting friend when autumn leaves turn bright and then disappear. Now, thanks to the bumbling Bronx bums of 2012, it has ushered in a new time of year. The short season of "Spiral downward" has mercifully come to an end.