The spin of the New York Yankees’ hierarchy rationalizing the team’s loss to Houston in the American League wild-card game, that “no one expected us to be here,” is as lame as the effectiveness of the Yankees’ general manager, Brian Cashman.

It is true that the Yankees exceeded expectations, but so did other teams – the Astros for one – and when they saw the possibility of post-season participation they took steps to enhance that possibility.

Cashman didn’t. Whether it was out of ignorance or arrogance, he sat on his hands and watched his counterparts on other contenders play a game of musical players, advancing one square on the board here, another square there. Cashman’s pieces remained stationery.

I have long questioned Cashman’s ability as a general manager, going so far as to suggest the Yankees …

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If, as it has been said, misery loves company, the Houston Astros will love this list. Bob Waterman of Elias Sports Bureau has compiled it at my request.

After their Sept. 14 game against the other Texas team, the Astros were in first place in the American League West. Only 18 games remained to be played, and the Astros were on the verge of winning the division championship after six successive losing seasons, including three straight with more than 100 losses.

It’s not as if the Astros were visitors to first place. They led the division for 132 of the first 164 days of the season. They owned first place. Suddenly, though, when they went to sleep Sept. 15 they were no longer in first place. They weren’t there when the season reached its last weekend and worse, they weren’t even …

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When Bud Selig was Major League Baseball’s commissioner, he had a stock answer when anyone raised the question of minority hiring. “I can’t tell the clubs whom they should hire,” he would say, though he most likely was not so grammatically correct.

Although I haven’t heard Rob Manfred, Selig’s successor, make a similar statement, I would guess he has. However, according to an executive with an impeccable record of years of accuracy with me, Manfred has done just that with the hiring of a new general manager in Milwaukee.

My knowledgeable executive told me Manfred pushed – that was his word – the Brewers to hire David Stearns, a 30-year-old Harvard graduate, who has been an assistant general manager with the Houston Astros the past three years.

Why would Manfred take such an aggressive interest in Stearns’ status? A little knowledge of …

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