The Flying Dutchman

Hey gang:  want to have a little fun with numbers during this most dispiriting of all World Series???

Just take the record of the Yankees in 2017, when they got off to their stunning, 38-23 start, before Chris Carter and Tyler Clippard cost them an 11-inning pineapple in Anaheim on June 13th, that sunk them into a seven-game losing streak.

Next, take their September 1 through the end of the 2017 season tear, when Aaron Judge finally seemed to heal from the shoulder injury the Yankees steadfastly denied he ever had, and went 20-9, almost overtaking the Red Sox for the division title.

Got it?  Great!

Now take the Yanks' blazing, 50-22 start at the beginning of 2018, when it looked as though they might really be one of the greatest teams of this era.

Add it all up, and what do you get??

Yep, that's right!  A record of 108-54, or the very same that the soon-to-be-world-champions-yet-again Red Sox ran up this year!

What we have to face is that that Yankees team, which so bedeviled us, was the Flying Dutchman of baseball.  That is to say, a mirage.

During the early decades of the colonial era, there were many such sightings of ghost ships, riding either the waves or the clouds—usually spotted by sick or starving European colonists in the Americas or Africa, desperate for relief.

That Yankees team was out there, all right.  A glimpse of what might have been a dynasty about to come in, that somehow never made it to dock.  Think of it as what might have happened if, say, Brian Cashman had taken over the Yankees in 1921, or 1936, or 1948.

It's gone now, sure as the Dutchman always vanishes, sooner or later.  We probably will not spot it again in our lifetimes.  But we know it was all there.  We saw it with our own eyes, dammit!

And maybe, someday, when the last Steinbrenner has finally crumbled and gone, it will come again for real, many, many years from now...