The Gammonites smell 1965, but – and you read it here first – 1965 CANNOT happen again

(NOTE made later: OK, I blew some numbers in this; should blog drunk, but I was preparing to see the Yankees in Bradenton. Comments section takes me to task, but I stand by the point anyway: The new system will mask the collapse that's already underway.)

Today, between updates on the Elisabeth Hasselbeck situation on "The View," both the Gray Lady and Murdoch Mush opine that the Retrieval Empire ™ is about to slide back in time, to the dark era known as 1965, when the great war wagon of Mickey, Roger and Elston lost its wheels and went into repose... Roger Repoz, that is. And clearly, when you study the '13 Yankee roster, you see players mulling the Early Bird at Denny’s, or broken in bone, if not spirit. When Brennan Boesch is the hope, you’re the Walking Dead, whether you know it or not.

But to everybody who thinks the Yanks will goosh like a water balloon and miss the next 11 years - nope, can’t happen. It’s not that we won’t be mismanaged –  or mis-owned - by heirs who count pennies while nickels flee the exits. It’s the Selig Parity Safety Net, the new reality of NFL Baseball.  

In 1965, the Yankees collapsed under Johnny Keane and finished second in the AL. Today, that would have generated a playoff birth. Who knows? They might have won. Nobody would even remember a failure.  

In 1966 and 1967, they finished fifth out of 10. Again, in the modern AL, fifth-place gets a one-game wild card. Collapse? What collapse? And in 1968, they came in third. Good grief, they’ve done worse than that in recent years, while the streak of post-season appearances has been maintained.

In 1969, they fell below .500. Realistically, that’s the only year they were absolutely destined to finish in Urinetown. That was our 2008. In 1970, they won 93 games. They didn’t make the playoffs, only because baseball hadn’t yet become the NBA.

So let’s ponder a few thumbtacks of unconventional wisdom:  The Yankees collapse is already underway. We haven’t been the dominant team in baseball for years. The Red Sox were for awhile  in the 2000s, and now it’s the Giants. It soon will be the Dodgers and Angels (or maybe not; I’m not buying into their ascension, just yet.) Our collapse has been masked by the expanded playoff structure. And though this year certainly looms like doomsday, we’ll still be in the chase through August, because everybody is. Nobody get eliminated in June and July. (Well, maybe San Diego, but that's it.) That is parity, folks. Everybody spends the same, everybody wins the same, and nobody gets eliminated. There is no New York Yankees... just 26 Kansas City Royals.

It’s not 1965, folks. Oh, no. It’s something much-much worse.