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WPCNR VIEW FROM THE UPPER DECK. By “Bull” Allen, September 4, 2022 UPDATED SEPTEMBER 5:

Hello there everybody, this is Bull Allen, greeting you from a deserted Yankee Stadium. The old Big Ball Park. Drawing deeply on a White Owl Wallop and sipping a Ballantine Ale in the depressing gathering twilight, watching the greatest collapse in baseball history unfold.

They are on life support in Tampa.

The Bronx Bombers are no longer bombing.

The losing continues.

The lead over Tampa Bay is 5 games after the must win Sunday, 2-1, where Aaron Judge once again with a head first slide into third to set up the winning run in the eighth. A win not even mentioned in this mornings sports section of The Times.

The pitching lasts 4 to 5 innings.

The box scores when you can find them on the internet are pathetic. No hits from the 3rd slot to the 9th slot in the batting order Saturday night. Benching kids who were hitting. Playing hitters who won’t walk and swing .

Batting Aaron Judge, by far their best player and best clutch hitter, as manager should realize first is no longer smart. He has to move The Judge down to third and fourth and Kiner-Felafel 1st. At least there would be somebody on when Judge hits one.

The team has lost its heart.

Meanwhile, in another part of the country in Tampa Bay the Yankees continue their el foldo. They cannot score. A tired overused pitching staff struggles due to Aaron Boone mismanagement and the lead once 13 games is down to 4 games–with 30 to play! 

New York needs to play .500 ball at least to .make the expanded crapshoot of the playoffs

With every loss the Yankee ability to resign Aaron Judge dwindles. Judge is looking at a team that has fallen into a funk. The swagger is gone on this team. The confidence is gone.

The inability of the Yankee hitting instructors and the manager to demand the hitters execute situational hitting has indicated the collapse of the Earl Weaver 3-run homer theory along with the flaws of the Sparky Anderson 4 innings and 5 pitchers daily rotation.

The inability of Aaron Boone to motivate the team is obvious.

You cannot have 5 inning starters because it kills the bullpen. A management change was needed.

Perhaps we can exhume Bob Lemon’s coffin or Billy Martin’s coffin, or Casey Stengel’s coffin and place it in the Yankee dugout and that will inspire the team.

The prospects for the club after this colossal fold from .700 for 81 games to .300 ball since unprecedented in baseball annals.

This streak is worth a book.

But it could shatter the team for years. The Yankee heart is gone.

The team has never collapsed like this ever in their history. Even in the mid-60s, they played with heart. Their mystique brought them back into contention with Bill Virdon almost winning the pennant in 1974 and 1975.

Will Judge want to sign on for big Yankee money with so much having to be fixed? This lineup strategy of free swinging big boppers who can only bop when a pitcher makes a mistake, since they swing at everything and never just make contact. Of course, Judge might go cross town to the Mets and enjoy the same celebrity. This business about him going to the West Coast to play with the Giants, well they are in a fade, too. Los Angeles? They can afford him. So can the Phils, the Braves, the White Sox, the Minnesotas. Lots of contending young clubs. T

The Yankees by this profound structural error have shattered their image.

Nobody fears them any more.

Some one needs to come in and fix it. Bring in Joe Girardi for the stretch run. Joe Girardi never made excuses. He never whined. Or hire Joe Madden.

In the glory days when the Yankees lost, they lost tough. They never whined. the stalked off the field with pride. The Yankees showed you how a winner loses, with class and dignity.

They have lost that heart.

The Yankees now have to play the AL EAST the toughest division in baseball to make sure they make the playoffs, and if they do make it they will face good pitching every game. Without finishing first they could be one and out as a wildcard.

The big story in New York’s lackluster newspaper sports sections is their utter ignoring the baseball season. No box scores.No standings. And absolutely no coverage of the Yankee collapse. The heart is gone out of the sports sections too.