One of the first things Carol Bartz said when she made her public debut as new Yahoo CEO was that everyone should give the company “some friggin’ breathing room.”

Some heard “frickin’,” while others heard “frackin’.”

Whatever the exact invective Bartz used, the tough talk was presumably designed for maximum impact to impose a definitive I’m-in-charge-here leadership style that had been sorely lacking at Yahoo for a long time.

Bartz has been employing the creative curse word a lot of late, trying to shape up Yahoo as Tom Hanks–playing the grumpily drunk but effective coach Jimmy Dugan–did to the Rockford Peaches in “A League of Their Own.”

But she is certainly going to need a lot more than that kind of mental mojo to get the company going.

And, more importantly, to convince Wall Street that she can cure what has been ailing Yahoo (YHOO) as it announces what will likely be a dismal fourth-quarter earnings report tomorrow.

“I’ve been passively abused for a year now by Yahoo management and I am in no mood to be aggressively abused by them, unless there is some concrete strategic plan soon,” said one major investor.

Well, the abuse might continue a little while longer, as Bartz gets the dubious honor of delivering what most expect to be even weaker results and perhaps worse guidance for the upcoming quarter.

That’s why, if BoomTown were to guess, to focus attention away from the bad news, Bartz seems like the type to unveil some sort of meatier plan this week, including cost cuts and some serious trimming of Yahoo’s businesses.

Bartz has, in fact, been meeting with most top execs over the last two weeks, with no entourage (except her assistant, Judy) and little formality, asking a lot of questions and apparently trying to gauge executive talent.

One exec told me that he expects this will result in a lot more management turmoil over the next few month, with multiple goodbyes–with some departing due to their loyalty to former CEO Jerry Yang and President Sue Decker, some due to not having the perseverance to live through a wrenching turnaround effort and some due to the fact that they should simply be let go.

Not surprisingly, some inside Yahoo relish this, while others do not.

“Carol has been cutting through the BS like a knife,” said one Yahoo insider, who admires her forthright manner.

Said another who does not, calling it too brash: “She is like a buzzsaw who just wants to cut without knowing a lot of what the impact will be.”

(Ironically, Buzzsaw is an “on-demand collaborative project management solution” offered by Autodesk, the software company that Bartz ruled for 14 years until 2006.)

She certainly has to get up to speed. While her hands are clean, with the weak economy and continuing internal turmoil, Yahoo’s financial quarterly report tomorrow is going to be a mess.

According to estimates from MarketWatch, Yahoo will report about $1.4 billion in revenue, up two percent, earning 13 cents a share for the quarter. That’s down from last year’s 15 cents and down further from the year before’s 19 cents.

That’s not exactly the direction one would hope for.

Display advertising, which is Yahoo’s dominant business, is expected to show the worst performance, with its search business stronger.

Still, search is not exactly considered to be Yahoo’s buoy in tough times or for the future, which is why analysts will likely focus on Bartz’s thoughts on a search deal with Microsoft (MSFT).

The last time she was asked at a Yahoo all-hands meeting, Bartz noted that her “gut” told her that selling might not be such a good idea. Of course, this was said exactly as Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock was meeting with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to discuss such a deal.

Other questions high on the list should be about cost-cutting, defining what Yahoo’s core business is and, of course, what she will do about the long discussions her predecessors had been having with Time Warner (TWX) over merging with its AOL online unit.

One thing that everyone I have talked inside Yahoo has said is that Bartz has been asking a lot of questions about all this and more since she arrived.

This is a good thing.

But while she asked–let’s be honest, demanded–some breathing room, after tomorrow is out of the way, the only thing investors and employees will want is some answers, and quickly.

Until then, here’s that great video scene from “A League of Their Own” about no crying in baseball:

Digital Daily covered the Steve Jobs story this week, starting with the all-hands memo in which the Apple (AAPL) founder announced his medical leave and following through with the reactions of both Wall Street and the company’s investors. Then there’s the general response, which has been variously diagnosing Jobs’s health issues and predicting the demise of Apple without him–not without good reason, but quite a departure from the reaction when Bill Gates left Microsoft (MSFT). Digital Daily also noted that even though Palm’s (PALM) stock price made a jump directly after the introduction of the Pre and its new Web OS, the company will need to sell a lot of phones in order to attract a robust community of developers. And let’s not forget the roll call of fallen companies, including two of the latest to fall victim to the econalypse, Nortel (NT) and Circuit City (CC).

Can Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim save the New York Times? MediaMemo had the story of the gray lady’s possible white knight, plus coverage of some recent ideas about how newspapers in general can be rescued from a grim fate. Hint: not by a Facebook event. There are some bright spots for traditional media, though, made possible by the increasingly social Web. Incredible photos are often made available for free and as news is breaking, saving editors from the limitations and high prices they’re accustomed to from established agencies. A perfect example arose this week when U.S. Airways flight 1549 made a spectacular emergency landing on the Hudson. Twitter, a camera phone and an incredible photo almost singlehandedly changed the way people think about citizen journalism–as an aid to, not a replacement for, professional reporting.

At the Consumer Electronics Show, BoomTown moderated the SuperSession panel titled “What Will They Think of Next? Consumer Technology in 2025.” A lot of the discussion involved pretty much the general consensus of what’s on the horizon, but there were some edgier ideas from the panel, which included an interesting cross section of the digital industry. BoomTown interviewed all of the participants on camera afterward about their visions of 2025, and some of the results were pretty funny. Of course, BoomTown had a say about the various degrees of silence and hysteria surrounding Steve Jobs’s health issues, urging people to put things in perspective, and evoking his 2005 commencement speech, in which he advised graduates to “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish.” BoomTown says: Not this foolish. The passing of the leadership torch at Yahoo (YHOO) took center stage last week, starting with the classy exit of Sue Decker and her memo to the troops. Next up: Yahoo’s official announcement of Carol Bartz as CEO and her first words as its fearless leader: “Yahoooo!” and “Friggin’.” Here’s full coverage of the transition.

Walt Mossberg voiced his strong and sensible opinion about the media circus surrounding Steve Jobs’s leave of absence on Fox Business last week, which is, first and foremost, concern for the man and best wishes for his recovery. On the gadget front, he discusses different options for putting e-books on your cellphone and Web OS, the new operating system that debuted with the Palm Pre. Katie Boehret looked at a couple of Web search tools that deliver better results by paying attention to what results you click on.

More next week. Wait–later this week.

Oh, BoomTown really likes Carol Bartz as Yahoo CEO already.

In Yahoo’s conference call this afternoon, she lectured everyone sternly to give Yahoo some “friggin’ breathing room” and also noted that the company “frankly, could use a little management.”

The latter is stating the very obvious, but we like hearing it anyway, and Bartz sounds like she is running the show from the get-go.

It’s like watching a digital version of “The Gladiator”!

So, here is Boomtown’s live blog of the Yahoo (YHOO) call, starring Carol Bartz as its new CEO:

2:35 pm PST:

The conference call started with Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock, who stumbled at first and called Bartz “Carl”–Icahn on the brain?–before recovering and waxing effusively about the new Yahoo CEO and former Autodesk (ADSK) head.

He also thanked outgoing Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and President Sue Decker, who is also resigning, it was announced earlier today. They are not present, it seems.

Frankly, Bostock is the one who should also be on his way out the door, given that he has also presided over Yahoo’s huge decline in market share and its myriad stumbles.

2:41 pm PST:

Bartz’s first word as CEO, of course: Yahoo!

But Bartz crisply took the bull by the horns at the start and said she will “seize the opportunity.” She sounded kind of scary, but in a good way.

She then laid out her many choices–search deal, etc.–but no decisions yet, you impatient curs!

And she calls herself a “straight shooter” in a really straight-shooter tone.

“My focus is on turning the company around,” she said flatly.

Oh, that. But, to be honest, it’s the best idea I have heard from Yahoo all year.

2:45 pm PST:

The floor is open for questions.

The first is about how she was approached and how she looks at Yahoo’s business.

December, she was intrigued, blah, blah.

Bartz then sharply raised the game, noting that Yahoo and its assets “frankly, could use a little management.”

Ouch, Jerry and Sue. A slapfest from the get-go!

She also thinks it “nonsense” to think that Yahoo was not feeling great about itself. In other words, shape up, Yahoo!

Bartz uses the word “nonsense” in that end-of-discussion way, like someone who has kids and knows a thing or two about nonsense.

End of discussion?

Not until she answers another question about Yahoo’s situation by noting that the company needs some “friggin’ breathing room” and that it’s time for all those outside the company who are endlessly yammering about what Yahoo needs to do, to shut their pie holes.

Uh-oh. Carol is not going to like pie-hole-yammering-about-Yahoo-obsessively HQ, also known as BoomTown.

I briefly consider a new career in real estate, before deciding to stay on the Yahoo CEO-stalking beat until she gives in.

A new challenge! Just when I thought the telenovela was lagging, it heats up with a new twist.

And, from the first call, it’s clear Bartz is a very new twist–a tough-talking, take-no-prisoners CEO for a company that needs one desperately.

Of course, Bartz cuts the conference short in about 15 minutes, after just three questions. (She totally did not take mine, which would have been: “Why, Carol, why?”)

She noted that she was off to a management meeting, which is much more important than chit-chatting with annoying press and analysts.

Bartz certainly has her work cut out for her, which she seems to be doing at the start with some verve and sassy punch that will hopefully reinvigorate the troubled Yahoo.

As Maximus said: “I knew a man once who said, ‘Death smiles at us all. All a man can do is smile back.’”

So far, Bartz sounds like she knows how to smile.