01:00 AM EDT on Thursday, April 29, 2004

Yes, the Red Sox have the best record in the American League, and they're off to a great start, but they are not the story of this young baseball season. Not even close.

The story of this baseball April is the status of the Yankees, the supposed best team money can buy, a team now lingering below .500, a team that's nowhere near what it's supposed to be. A team that seems so confused you almost feel sorry for them.

Almost.

So what's wrong with the Yankees?

Let us count: We all know the obvious problems, how they have not hit, how A-Rod got off to a terrible start, and how Jeter is now in his own funk at the plate. How Jose Contreras, the object of a bidding war between the Sox and the Yankees two winters ago, is a bust, and how there is no fifth starter. How the starting pitching, long the staple of the Yankees' success, is simply not as a good as it once was. Or maybe all you have to know is that the Red Sox now have better pitching than the Yankees, and who would have believed that four years ago?

But there are other reasons why the Yankees no longer seem as intimidating as they once did, even with their bloated payroll.

In a sense, they've become a collection of stars, a group whose whole doesn't equal the sum of the parts. This is the danger of always throwing money at problems, the eventual result of a farm system bled dry, the best prospects traded away for more and more high-priced talent. Or when's the last time the Yankees developed a starting pitcher?

That's not the only question.

Why, on a team with a payroll north of $180 million, is the limited Enrique Wilson starting at second base? Why are the lefthanded relievers so ineffective? Why, on a team where money doesn't seem to be an issue, are there so many older players, so many apparent holes?

Maybe more importantly, for all of George Steinbrenner's money, the great Yankee teams of the '90s were a team, had a common identity. Now they seem like a collection of all-stars brought together for the weekend. Jason Giambi? Gary Sheffield? Kenny Lofton? Hedecki Matsui? Alex Rodriguez? These are Yankees like Paul O'Neill, Tino Martinez and Scott Brosius were Yankees? Not really. They are rent-a-stars, mercenaries in doubleknits.

Overstated?

Maybe.

But for the all overdone hype of the "Cowboy Up" phrase last October, there's the sense the Sox have a common identity, even with the idiosyncratic personalities of Manny Ramirez and Pedro Martinez. They have a core that's been there for years, a group that's come of age together. It's what the Yankees used to have, but no more. Now all that's really left from that is Jeter, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, and Bernie Williams, and Williams is clearly in the twilight, more about memories than the present tense.

The problem is that all these shortcomings are difficult to fix. Great teams are a little like great wine. They take time. Time to find their own rhythm. Time to find their own identity. Just wearing the same uniform is not enough.

But is there time in the Bronx?

This is a team that heard boos during last Sunday's loss to the Red Sox. This is a team that's expected to win everything, a team that plays in a climate where nothing but the best is tolerated, a fan base both spoiled and believing it's their birthright to always have the Yankees win. A team that plays in the toughest city on the planet when things are not going well.

So far, anyway, Steinbrenner has not had a public meltdown, even though this is a season that's starting out to be a personal nightmare, his Yankees underachieving and the Red Sox off to a quick start.

"It's up to them," he's said about Joe Torre and general manager Brian Cashman.

We know better, don't we? It's just a matter of time before the Boss erupts like some bull in a field of lilies, trampling everything in his path, despoiling the landscape, making things worse.

And, yes, the Yankees are going to hit. They are too talented, and there is too much bad pitching in the game for them not to. Yes, Torre is a calming presence, the best of all managers in times of turmoil. Four months from now the Yankees' current malaise may be irrelevant, having no more significance than batting practice before an individual game. Four months from now we may look back on this and wonder what all the fuss was about.

But they are flawed in ways they were not supposed to be, flawed in ways that are surprising. Flawed in ways that might not be all that easy to fix, even when they start hitting. Flawed in ways that have made them the story of this baseball April.