GREAT GOOGLIE MOOGLIE

Just how good are the 2003 Yankees? Jayson Stark has a column at ESPN that says, well, they are damn good, perhaps great. Of course, it is way too early to be talking about great anything (the mere suggestion makes my Spidey Sense tingle), but considering that they've been without Rivera and Jeter (and a productive Jason Giambi), the Bronx Bombers have done a good job of living up to their moniker, for sure:

"Sometimes in baseball," [Elias historian and analyst Steve] Hirdt said, "you'll see something so overwhelming that you regard it as a special measure of a special talent. Like Kerry Wood's 20-strikeout game. Nobody has a game that good unless they're something special. And these Yankees have had 3¨ö weeks like that.

"It's one thing to have hot streaks. But to maintain it for 3¨ö weeks -- and not just against Tampa Bay, but by going 9-0 against Minnesota and Anaheim -- is kind of a signal. You begin moving away from saying this is an isolated case to where you say, 'This is significant.' "

..."They're like Tyrannosaurus Rex," Torii Hunter said the other day after the Yankees had finished wiping out the Twins for the seventh straight game by a combined score of 49-13. "Get them out of here. I'll get them a cab."