Well, this year that game came early. It's this week.
(OK, I know what you're thinking: Yes, this is ridiculously premature and overstated. We all know this. A million factors can save or kill the Yankees' year. In fact, usually, the big game in August, that one we target, doesn't truly make or break our season. But this IS it. All those other times, when we're wrong? Forget them. THIS IS IT.)
This week, the Yankees could be chosen by Masahiro Tanaka as winners of the 2014 International Star Award, vaulting us into contender status in the AL East - and the land of 35 percent luxury taxes. If Mr. Tanaka selects us - and we hope that he is reading this, and recognizes how much we love him - who knows? We could win something.
If Mr. Tanaka bypasses the Yankees, Brain Cashman will likely run to sign Ervin Santana or Ubaldo Jimenez, the sloppy seconds of 2014's winter. This news will be met across the Yankiverse with a collective sigh of hopelessness. All season, we will be playing for the one-game wild card.
There is a third possibility: That if we whiff on Mr. Tanaka, Hal 9000 directs the Brainster to stay within the infamous payroll target of $189 million. We would be biting the bullet. Over the long haul, this could be the best thing that ever happens to the Yankees. If they could shed the luxury tax burden, retool the farm system, and develop two or three solid players, the franchise could rise in 2015 in the way Boston did last year. (Big if's, though.) But 2014 will be a blank spot on the fossil record.
In other words, folks, everything, everything, EVERYTHING! hinges on the next few days.
I would have read this post but I was hypnotized by the still frame from The Time Tunnel. Loved that show as a kid, especially how everyone in every era of time everywhere spoke English and looked like people from the 1960s with funny clothes on.
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