A sign of life... or Tex's last dance?

This we know: Mark Teixeira's time in Gotham will soon run out. This winter, he becomes a free man, and with Greg Bird and Tyler Austin at the door, he's more a lame duck than Obama.

But last night, we could close our eyes and imagine what 2016 could have been, if Tex and A-Rod had one last fling with greatness - if they could have gone out like Jeter, Pettitte, Mariano - or David Ortiz. In baseball, ending are usually unhappy. Still, I never figured Tex to fall below .200 on a season. Until last night, he's been a human 0 for 4.

Last night, he beat the Mets. One last clipping for the scrap book. Maybe he'll heat up for a week, forestalling Austin's arrival and audition. (The kid deserves a shot; last night in Scranton, he went 3-4 with a double, lifting his average to .320. He has 17 homers, too. Clint Frazier last night - 1-5 with a strikeout; yep, I have fallen into the habit of paying more attention to MILB box scores than they deserve.)  More likely, he'll skin a nut sack tomorrow and disappear for a month.

But last night, Tex beat the Mets. He beat time. All season, we've watched the Mets preen and piss gold as NYC's premier team, but today, the Vegas oddsmakers have dropped the Mets (to 28-to-1) and left the Yankees stable - at 75-to-1, for winning the World Series. Odds are Tex is done. But not last night.