Derek Jeter Day will save this franchise even in retirement.

My thoughts on the game last night are summed up as such:...
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There are no words.

I was at that game. I spent $300 of money I didn't even have to get a left field bleacher ticket (which sidenote wasn't that bad of a view- about 10 rows back of exactly where Jeter hit the double). I told my father, and he thought I was crazy. He was at Mariano's game last year (a 3-0 loss to Tampa with only an inning and a half of good things happening for the Yankees), and he was telling me that I was gonna spend all that money to chant Jeter's name and then proceed to miserably watch him go 0-4 in a 5-2 loss. And after the 2nd batter in the first, I thought he was gonna be right too.

But then he hits the double, then the double play overturned on review. Then Brett the Jet Gardner breaking up the double play, giving Jeter the go-ahead RBI. Then of course the 9th. The despair when that tying homer hit the seats and the jubilation when Richardson scored. I don't think I even cheered that loudly; I was too busy picking up my jaw up from the floor. I saw it with my own freaking eyes and I still can't believe that just happened.

And for the first positive Yankees piece of analysis this site has seen since 2009: that game will help propel the Yankees and current ownership to great things in the future. I left that Stadium thinking there is no way you could top that. If the Yankees were to ever jump the shark, it happened on September 25th, 2014. If you're a Yankee fan and you aren't hungover from last night, you don't have a pulse.

But there is a next season. A whole 81 game schedule where Hal Scrooge McSteinbrenner and his lovable band of front office minions will have to sell tickets to, gain TV ratings for, and shill $10 beer and $35 t-shirts at. And a preliminary look at the roster shows this list of reliable players for the Yankees:
-Brett Gardner
-Dellin Betances
-J.R. Murphy

Robertson is a free agent. McCarthy and Headley are free agents. Kiroda might not come back. Tanaka will still probably need Tommy John surgery down the line. Nova is coming off TJ surgery. Sabathia is all kinds of question marks. Pineda still is Spanish for Pavano. Ellsbury (although he was healthy this year) and Teixeira (although he was as healthy this year as that Heart Attack burger in Vegas) are still injury prone. Brian McCann still has a job. Stephen Drew proved the impossible: you could actually downgrade from a past-his-prime 40 year old shortstop.

The Steinbrenners will look at this game, and naturally want to start preparing for next season. And when they start that preparation, the rude reality will hit them like 100 tons of bricks. This team is a disaster. And the worse part is there is no retirement tour to sell next year, no RE2PECT shirts to sell, no motivation to spend $300 on a bleacher ticket to see a game where your favorite team has already been eliminated, no random sucker willing to give Brandon Steiner (who has become one of the worst people in America over the past 2 months) $450 for JJ Hardy's gameworn socks. They still might be content with Cashman this offseason out of loyalty, but the bottom line from yesterday's game and the bottom lines from next year's games will put the fire under his seat.

And if this team doesn't get better, the message will get to Hal eventually through the only language he speaks (the language of money): Cashman's gotta go