FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH:

•Here come the Yankees, close enough now that the Red Sox can now see them in the rearview mirror.

So give the Bombers credit. All but left for dead on the side of the road a few weeks ago, they have found life at a time when the Sox are playing their worst ball of the season. They also have quieted the noise that always swirls around them, even in the good times, and had turned into a circus with a lot of rings.

And give Joe Torre his due.

Torre’s great ability to is to manage his team through the swirl of being the Yankees in New York, and is never better than when things seem about to implode. Now he’s done it again. And it’s too soon to know that if this is just a mirage, or if the problems that plagued the Yankees the first two months of the season will come back to haunt them again. They are back from the dead, no insignificant task, already back into the wild-card hunt and close enough in the rearview mirror to make the Red Sox keep looking back.

•All you need to know about the NBA Finals is that people who love basketball hated them.

•And all you need to know about the state of the culture is the media’s endless fascination with Paris Hilton going to jail.

•The only problem with one day producing a Roger Clemens movie is that John Wayne is dead.

•We all expect Manny to start being Manny, but he just turned 35 and maybe we have seen the best of him.

•One thing is sure, though: here it is a third of the season over and A-Rod has more home runs than Manny and Big Papi combined, and what were the odds on that back on Opening Day?

•Quiz of the Week: When was the last time the Atlanta Hawks won the NBA title?

•Line of the Week comes from Terry Francona, from his weekly appearance on WEEI: “Just when you think you have enough pitching, go get more.”

•Waitress is about as substantial as a Twinkie, but will grow on you.

•If I were LeBron, I’d spend less time filming commercials and more time working on my jumper, the one flaw in his game.

•Curt Schilling is excellent on the radio, and never better than after he’s lost and been humbled a bit.

•Memo to Theo: Coco Crisp can’t throw and can’t hit, Julio Lugo can’t hit, and J.D. Drew isn’t hitting.

Just in case you haven’t noticed.

•There’s no truth to the rumor that the State House is The Sopranos without guns.

•Could it have hurt the Rockies to give Chris Iannetta, the former St. Ray’s star, a couple of innings Thursday night at Fenway?

•Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, about as interesting a great athlete as there is, has written a book about the Harlem Renaissance, and how it once shaped him, called On The Shoulder of Giants.

•I’ve got better things to do, Bunky, than to try to get inside the head of Paris Hilton. Talk about a journey to nowhere.

•Sports Illustrated’s Peter King is saying that, barring injury, the Pats’ Laurence Maroney will be one of the 10 biggest offensive forces in the NFL this year.

•There are few better success stories in the NBA than former Celtic Bruce Bowen.

•There’s no truth to the rumor that Manny was better when he hit better and played a worse left field.

•Or that if Roger Williams came back to Providence, he wouldn’t be able to afford a condo.

•Yet spare me the Nancy Drew comparisons, even though Nancy Drew the movie opened yesterday.

•You know we’ve all lost our minds, Bunky, when there are now graduation ceremonies for kindergarten.

•Quiz Answer: in 1958, back when they were the St. Louis Hawks.

•Once upon a time, Johnson’s Hummocks was a good restaurant on Allen’s Avenue. Now the building houses a sex club, smack dab in the middle of the city’s burgeoning sex industry. Ah, the Renaissance City.

•The word is that the NBA stock of former St. Andrew’s star Demetris Nichols is rising, with him now being projected as an early second-round pick.

•If Hank Aaron wants nothing to do with Bonds’ record chase, why should we?

•I expect hackers to complain about the golf course. I don’t expect the best players in the world to do the same.

•Let’s see: a big state agency, millions of dollars in contracts, the smell of scandal. Sounds like a Full Rhode Island to me.

breynold@projo.com