NEW YORK – Another day was peeled off the calendar in the Randy Johnson vigil – with no real progress anywhere, all parties whispered. “It’s still early,” one general manager said. When it comes to the July 31 trade deadline, the last 11 days feel like a separate lifetime.

That doesn’t mean the engines of backroom maneuvering aren’t humming. The Diamondbacks are taking a second sweep of the Yankees’, Cubs’, and Angels’ respective farm systems. The Red Sox are still pushing for a three-way deal with the Cubs. The Cardinals are desperately looking for a way to finance the remaining $22 million Johnson is owed through 2005.

And the Yankees? They’re sitting in perfect silence, knowing they hold the greatest trump card of all: Johnson only wants to come to New York.

Obviously, the Yankees are delirious that a future Hall of Famer is fixated on wearing pinstripes. No one dares to question why Johnson is turning his back on the D-Backs; it’s intoxicating enough for the Bombers to imagine Johnson blistering Manny Ramirez with his 98-mph fastball, if not this weekend at Fenway, then in September.

If Johnson has issues, the Yankees insist, it’s with Arizona, not with them. But it sure says plenty about the Big Unit’s character that he wants to quit on the team that took him to the World Series just three years ago – not to mention the same team that gave him a contract extension in 2003.

Why the sudden freeze-out? Simply because Johnson doesn’t like being in last place.

To which every fair-minded baseball person should respond, “Too bad.”

When Johnson signed on for two more seasons in 2003, he did more than accept those monstrous biweekly checks. Johnson and the D-Backs created a marriage, with the same tenet that holds spouses together: for better or for worse. But Johnson wants out because he’s sick of losing, and will ultimately force the D-Backs into a lopsided trade with the Yankees.

Imagine if every major-leaguer decided in July he was unhappy with his team’s won-loss record and started looking for the door. Send me to the Yankees is the cry we’d hear round the world. What if the sport were infested with dozens of self-centered players such as Johnson, right before the trade deadline?

To be fair, the Yankees are guilty of nothing except having the most attractive franchise around. They have money, a winning pedigree, and a clear, unfettered path to the postseason. They did not solicit Johnson’s interest, nor have they attempted to hurry along a trade by offering the D-Backs extra cash, which they so desperately need.

In fact, the Yankees have done little more than make seats available to the D-Backs’ scouts. So far, the bird dogs have returned a dismal verdict to their bosses in Arizona: The Yankees have nothing in their farm system to justify this franchise-altering trade.

But the Yankees aren’t panicking, because they know Johnson has no interest in the Angels, who have plenty of prospects. He doesn’t care about the Cardinals, despite the fact they’re the hottest team in baseball lately. He won’t play for the Red Sox because he can’t stand Curt Schilling. It’s the Yankees only, because Johnson has the veto-power to bully the Diamondbacks and isn’t embarrassed to use it.

It might be easier to sympathize with the Big Unit if he were on the doorstep of retirement without ever having made it to the Fall Classic, like Don Mattingly in 1995. But Johnson won a world championship in 2001, and in the last 10 years, has pitched for six first-place teams, two second-place clubs, and a third-place finisher.

Johnson has decided he wants another ring, and standing on the side of the tracks, wants to leave his beleaguered teammates behind and hop the bullet train to October. He might be right about betting on the Yankees. But the lefty is mistaken if he thinks he’ll glide through the last three months in New York. Even in first place, the Yankees exist under enormous pressure, where even a two-game losing streak causes corporate discomfort.

The Big Unit also will discover the Yankees live in a media hell, where players are expected to answer wave after wave of questions. Some Bombers, such as Alex Rodriguez, handle this chore well. Others, such as Mike Mussina, don’t. But no one gets away with running away from the press, the way Johnson often does in Arizona.

After games in which he’s pitched, he fires off one or two responses to a local TV crew, then waves everyone else away.

That won’t work here. If he thinks Schilling is a loudmouth, Johnson will find New York is full of loudmouths. The press, the fans, the vendors, even the owner. As one baseball executive said Monday, “Wait until Randy finds out he’ll be working for the biggest (jerk) around.”

If Johnson becomes a Yankee, he’ll be expected to take them straight through October. There will be no room or time for adjusting – just pure heat down the stretch. No slumps. No excuses. Even at age 40, Johnson is skilled enough to meet this challenge. But a much greater test would be to remain in Arizona and try to rebuild his broken team in 2005.

Instead, Johnson, the 11th-hour Yankee, will enter the Hall of Fame with his own asterisk: Took the path of least resistance.