NY Daily News – In the end, it looked and felt a lot like six years ago, when an eerily similar form of Alex Rodriguez drama seemed to drain the energy and focus out of a Yankee team against these same Tigers, with an eerily similar result in an October elimination game. But back then there was a simpler solution going forward: just convince A-Rod to stop fretting so much over the fact that Derek Jeter didn’t want to be his friend… And this complete no-show by the Yankees… couldn’t simply have been about Rodriguez. If anything, it showed a rather startling team-wide lack of mental toughness…

[One] player privately made a far more indicting observation: that the ballclub was affected by the hostility from the fans at Yankee Stadium last weekend. “I really think the booing spooked a lot of guys,” the player said. “A lot of guys hadn’t been booed before, and they couldn’t believe how nasty it got in the stands.” Obviously Nick Swisher admitted to being sensitive to such treatment after Game 2, but the player said Swisher was far from alone in his reaction. “A lot of guys were talking about it in the clubhouse,” he said. “I was surprised by how much it bothered them. I really don’t think they ever recovered.”

You’ve got to be kidding me.  This is the New York Yankees?  “Spooked”? Whining about how “nasty” it got?  “Sensitive to such treatment”?  Has everyone gone soft?  The Yankees I grew up watching were all man.  I saw them play outfield in Fenway wearing batting helmets because it was raining Duracells on their heads, make every catch then go 4-for-4 at the plate.  I’ve seen them take more abuse than Jesus in “Passion of the Christ,” win the game then go out that night, drink the town dry and bang half the women in Boston.  They were manly men with names like Munson, Jackson, Mattingly, Boggs and O’Neill.  They were to me what the Russians were to Patton: I hated the sons of bitches but I admired the hell out of their toughness.  Now they sound like the cast of Dr. Drew’s Celebrity Rehab, whining about how hard they have it and how they’re struggling to cope when they don’t feel loved.  What happened to the Delta I used to know?  Where’s the toughness, huh?  Where’s the guts? It’s a sad, sad day when your once hated but respected rival turns into a bunch of navel-gazing, supersensitive uberpussies.  A sad day indeed. @JerryThornton1