POSTED 10-9-07

There are rotisserie heroes and fantasy goats. But some performances are so ugly, egregious or plain perplexing that it begs the refrain: What the F--k! Here is Update's seriously twisted moment this week.

An end of an era in Yankees baseball is in sight. George Steinbrenner publicly called for the head of manager Joe Torre just hours before Game 3 of the ALDS. And as everybody who follows New York baseball knows, what Goergie wants Georgie gets. But is it really Torre's fault that another World Series has slipped away? Or is it possible that the Big Bad Boss is to blame? Sure, the Yankees led the league in batting average, boasted a lineup that included this year's probable MVP and owned the best record in baseball after the All Star Break. And sure, they had five players with 90 or more RBI, scored nearly 1,000 runs and hit over 200 homers this season. But in post-season baseball the old maxim stands true: good pitching beats good hitting. So whose fault is it that the Yankees had to trot to the mound a noticeably limping 44-year old, whose career effectively ended two season's ago. The Yankees essentially had a two-man starting rotation of Chien Ming-Wang and Andy Pettitte. And when Wang couldn't get it done, they were toast. So let's leave old Joe alone. He did, after all, resurrect the Yankees midway through the season and lead them back from a 14-game deficit. Maybe Streinbrenner has lost his marbles. Who knows how much control over the team he actually wields. Perhaps this was just his way of exerting his dominance over a fading empire. Whatever the case, don't blame Joe.