There are, perhaps, more ridiculous spectacles to be found in New York than the annual orgy of fretting that takes place among Yankees fans in late April. Full to the brim with cultists, angst-ridden teenagers, the idle rich, fashion designers, bad novelists, drug enthusiasts, diplomats, and actors, among others, the city offers up many preposterous scenes. Few, though, can compete with the frenzy that overtakes rational, educated people at this time of year, faced with standings offering proof that the Yankees have not managed to win their customary 95 games by the end of the baseball season’s first month.

Having won only one of their past nine games, and having lost five of six games against the suddenly strutting and boastful Red Sox, it’s not a mystery that the Yankees have inspired great feats of defeatist rhetoric and a general climate of suffering and gloom. Still, the recent past is, in this case, actually worth remembering. The Yankees may end April having won only nine of their first 23 games and 6.5 games out in their division, but this is exactly what they did in 2005, when their April record was 10–14, which left them 6.5 out. It’s also only marginally worse than what they did last year, when they were 13–10 but sat only 1.5 games up on the fourth-place Orioles, and in 2004, when their 12–11 record had them 4 games out. During those three years, the Yankees managed to average 98 wins despite their unimpressive starts. Will they manage to win about that many this year? I suspect they might.

This may be the view from altitude, but that’s the view baseball demands. It’s a long season. Teams are up, teams are down; some play above their talent for a time, some below it. Players get hurt. People overreact to bad stretches and give themselves ulcers.

I’m highly impressed overall by the way the Yankees have played lately. They lost four of their top six starters to fluke injuries, and a fifth opened the season in a technical funk so bad he had to be yanked from the rotation. Their left fielder, their center fielder, and their catcher, all among the most durable players in baseball, have all been injured. Given all that, a 9–14 record isn’t something of which they should be ashamed, it’s something of which they should be proud. And when you consider that the Yankees have actually outscored their opponents (and, in fact, scored more runs than any team in baseball), meaning that their record doesn’t even really reflect how well this crippled team has played, any tendency toward hysteria is shown to be all the more outlandish.

Panic among fans who live and die with the team every day is understandable, and so are expressions of panic coming from writers and broadcasters who have to fill column inches and airtime while reacting to the events of the day and the general mood of the people. What’s less understandable is when a team panics, which is what the Yankees are doing. There was, first, the decision to call up to prospect Phil Hughes, a defensible move but one that was clearly the product of desperation rather than a considered appraisal of the team’s position and Hughes’s needs. Then came the various rumors and reports that Joe Torre would be fired if the Yankees were swept this weekend, which seemed to come from all corners of the Byzantine organization and to be tied up with speculation that George Steinbrenner has become senile.

I don’t think Torre should have come into this season as the Yankees’ manager, for a variety of reasons, but I defy anyone to explain what new information would make firing the man a sensible reaction to a bad, injury-riddled start to the season. The only real points against him are that Bobby Abreu has apparently read the Roberto Alomar handbook on bunting in RBI situations (not that big a deal, really), and that he’s overworking the bullpen. There isn’t, of course, a manager who’s ever lived who wouldn’t do so with seven of his top eight starters either hurt or ineffective, and Torre has been overworking the bullpen for years without anyone caring. But this is the sort of point that people latch onto when they want to see something — anything! — done, and when they want someone to blame.

There’s no one to blame, nothing to do, and no reason to think much of anything that anyone can control is wrong. That’s how baseball works sometimes. What the Yankees can control is whether they do something really foolish, such as make a horrible trade or put a coach they’ve been grooming for the managerial job in the impossible position of following Joe Torre while being expected to save the season. Fans pay good money for the right to panic; baseball professionals are paid good money not to panic. One way or the other, the Yankees’ ship will right itself — let’s just hope the captain and his minions don’t start senselessly tossing people overboard while waiting for it to do so.

tmarchman@nysun.com