Yankeetorial: The end of our season wll look like the reunion show of a long-running sitcom

Old Detective Fish (Andy Pettitte) will be there. Crazy Latka (Pedro Feliciano) will return, along with Rev. Jim Ignatowski (Swish). The once-precocious kids - now grown and with children of their own - (Joba, Cervelli) - will get big rounds of applause from the studio audience. Thurston Howell III (Arod) will bounce in, with a new Ginger (Jack Cust) and Mary Ann (Russell Branyan). Who knows, maybe even our longtime former love-interest, Rebecca Howe (Mariano - or should he be the Fonz?) will make a walk-on cameo!

Let's all be there! Fall will resemble a Cheers-Taxi-Family Affair reunion special - Old Timers Day sans Poligrip - as idled Yankee after idled Yankee sidles from the DL or the Scranton Empire magic bus - like creaky old Batman unpacking his cape to fight Bane. Once the rosters expand, it expect a roll call of old faves and newcomers. Dewayne Wise will return! Austin Romine - the human Brigadoon - will appear. So many prodigal sons will be coming back that - who knows - maybe we'll sign wild Andrew Brackman off a scrap heap and have him toss one straight to the press box for old time sake. (Rhyne Duren... R.I.P.) Look folks, it's Michael Pineda! He does exist, afterall!

But listen: This convergence will not necessarily be harmonic. Reunion shows generally go long on crowd support and short on writing. And cramming nostagia acts onto a 25-man post-season roster could turn into a Cashmanic Apocalypse. (Before you scream that will be easy to leave off Pedro Feliciano, what if he comes back and pitches lights out for a week, and what if our other lefties are hurt or lagging?) (Note: I just spent 20 minutes lying down, trying to get over the migraine from imagining Pedro pitching for the Yankees.)

By October, our August IT GIRL - Ichiro - will either own the ladies of New York or be The Second Coming of Omar The Out-Maker Moreno. If the latter - yeesh, what do we do in the playoffs? By October, Andy Pettitte will either be Andy Pettitte - healthy and full of guile - or one of our tectonic plates just slipped... because he is not Bartolo Colon and cannot be disinvited from the prom. By then, ARod will be two weeks into spring training - and truth be told - Eric Chavez will probably be on the DL - and God knows who will replace our ultimate returning star.

I was wrong upstairs about Arod being Thurston Howell (or anybody being Rebecca Howe; is it my imagination, or has she changed over the years?) Let's face it, Alex will be none other that the ultimate TV reunion of all: The future fated return of Charlie Sheen (Yankee fan, by the way.) Supposedly, they killed him off. Hell, on TV, death means nothing. Eventually, Charlie will come home. They all do. It's the iron rule of TV, and it's the iron rule of the Yankees.

As I write this, Gilligan is clawing his way up through the earth, hoping to meet Skipper Torre one more time.

Let's hope they don't scimp on the writers.