OPINION

By Chris Russell

updated 12:19 p.m. ET Oct. 8, 2006

All year long, I watched in amazement at how the New York Yankees overcame some pretty crippling injuries to be the American League's best team.

Gary Sheffield, Hideki Matsui and Robinson Cano all missed significant time, and yet nothing stopped the Bronx Bombers. They became more of a team relying on gritty, young players with something to prove, like Melky Cabrera.

They were the No. 1 seed in the AL hosting the Detroit Tigers, fresh off of a late-season collapse to lose the division. New York won Game 1 with relative ease, and everyone — including myself — further dismissed Jim Leyland's troops.

Less than four full days later, nobody is dismissing "The D" anymore — certainly not the Yankees. After being down 3-1 in Game 2, the Tigers stepped on the gas pedal and never looked back, pulling away at Talladega-like speed and running over the $200 million misfits.

Bobby Cox, the longtime skipper of the Atlanta Braves, said last Wednesday on Sporting News Radio that the Yankees' lineup was the best that he had ever seen. "I think it's the best lineup in the history of baseball, I really do. ... It's a real challenge to hold them to five or six runs."

It was hard not to roll your eyes at the statement, because I didn't realize that the Yankees had actually done anything except win a division that the Red Sox quit trying to win.

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I relayed the declaration that night to a friend of mine who was a die-hard Yankees fan. He laughed, and said "Yeah, right." That was my honest reaction too. Of course it's easy to say it now, after the Tigers' bullpen and the combination of Kenny Rogers, Justin Verlander and Jeremy Bonderman made the Yankees look like an expansion team.

This is the best lineup of all time? If that was even true to begin with, then I guess Rogers is Sandy Koufax, Bonderman is Cy Young, Justin Verlander is Bob Gibson and Joel Zumaya is Lee Smith. OK, I'll reel in the insanity.

Give all the credit in the world to the Tigers, who had no fear all year, and played like it the last three days. The Tigers did everything right, from their aggressive baserunning to every clutch base hit that you can possibly come up with.

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However, while there is a lot of credit to be given out, there is equal blame. The reason why I rolled my eyes and sarcastically laughed when I read Cox's statement before Game 2 was because I knew it was a classic reaction to make a headline and that everyone in the media would run with it.

More importantly, I knew it wasn't anywhere close to being true. The Yankees could have swept this series in three games and it would not have been true, so I'm not playing "Saturday Night Quarterback" here.

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Here is why it wasn't anywhere close to being an accurate characterization then, and obviously is a ridiculous point in hindsight. With the Yankees' injury issues and Alex Rodriguez's playoff history, how could we believe the hype?

A-Rod is now 4-for-41 in his last 12 playoff games, including including Saturday's humiliating stomping. I only went to Buffalo State College, so I'm not exactly a genius, but even I know that's not good. He also has 12 strikeouts and 10 men left on base in that same stretch.

It's easy to pounce on Rodriguez, but it's beyond the salary at this point. For a guy who has spent his entire career carefully creating his image and hoodwinking every gullible member of the media (like Fox analyst Steve Lyons) into thinking he was this perfect athlete, A-Rod forgot about one thing: It doesn't matter what you do in 1998 and 1999, when it's 2004, 2005 and 2006. It doesn't matter what kind of numbers you put up when you were in Seattle, when you are part of the New York Yankees (for now) and the team has not won a World Series since 2000.

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Everybody struggles at times, even the greats of the game. Barry Bonds struggled in the postseason, and that was the only knock against him until his head and body blew up like a helium balloon. However, if not for Dusty Baker's complete mismanagement, Bonds would have erased all of his postseason demons in 2002 with a monster October and a World Series title.

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