The New York Yankees are everywhere.

The country has been struck by an intoxicating strain known as sentimentality by rooting for the most hated team in sports. A Yankee win will encourage people to feel chipper again, because we all love New York, don’t we?

Tomorrow morning, I wouldn’t be surprised to find mini-Yanks in pinstripes popping up in my Corn Flakes and buttering my toast because, shucks, they just want to help people. Heck, that’s why they’re playing baseball – not those fat contracts.

They just might want to help me swallow my cereal, bite by bite. Yeah, swallow this middle finger, Pinstripe Punks. I’m not taking this lovey-dovey, Sinatra-swing-me, baby, Day-O! bullshit anymore.

The lovefest is over.

There is a reason why baseball is deteriorating faster than a carcass in the hyena pit at the Bronx Zoo. It’s the Yankees and their inability to lose the World Series. The Team of the Ages. The Kings of the Sandlot. Listen closely; even the hyenas are cackling at all those suckers out there for following the playoffs on their ham radios.

Even a Monday Night Football laugher with the Skins and Boys had a larger audience than a thrilling game-five Yankee win against the Oakland A’s.

Before this season, everybody with half a brain – and the other half as a formaldehyde specimen at John Hopkins – knew the Yanks would prevail. A cadaver two years ago could have bet his life on New York in 2001 and he’d still be hunkering around with gold chains and that irritating accent.

I knew the Yanks would win before spring training. Matt Heitner knew the World Series was all NY. Nostradamus, who placed his bets with the bookie behind the Bastille prison, knew that Pinstripes were golden.

Enough already! I hate the Yankees!

The Yankees are on the verge of winning their 27th World Series, their fourth in as many years. They own 38 pennants. They brushed aside 116-victory Seattle Mariners like they were dandruff. They overcame the feisty and more talented Athletics. The Yanks had all the breaks.

I also can’t stand most of the bums on this team. NY has darling Pillsbury Doughboy lookalike Derek Jeter scooping up grounders and smirking to 12-16 year old teenyboppers across America. Shane Spencer is the smug benchwarmer with no skill basking in the glory of his shittiness. Scott Brosius in the man with clay hands and a creakier swing than Nosferatu.

And George Steinbrenner. The owner’s a walking monument to the birth of the insult. He’s a curmudgeon who thinks he has a “KICK ME” sign on his back and believes New York is the only metropolitan city that exists. The press has slackened on the guy because other owners have picked up on his 1001 Ways to be an Asshole-the media’s not eating the bait.

I’m going to throw my support for the Arizona Diamondbacks, but they won’t win. The Yankees are going to win, and my TV will hum rowdily while I watch “Blazing Saddles” with a bag of Doritos.

Screw the Yankees. Mongo just cold-cocked a horse.