Amid the looming future chaos, the Yankees have a chance to snatch a ring. They better use it.

You cannot predict baseball, Suzy. But you can read the writing on the outfield wall: In Syracuse, it's ads for lawyers and hospitals, engines of the local economy.

On that note, I hereby predict another Yankee post-season - and one that will never be forgotten. 

I believe historians will view the 2021 season as a year of transition, the height of the Plague Era, before the sport declined in popularity. It will have come before the Lockout, before the craziness. Not to get heavy here: America survived Dick Nixon and Sharknado IV; it will survive Bronxie the Turtle. 

But baseball, as we know it, is about to change.

The owners are freaking out over the length of games and lack of action. As they should. The sport has become a tedium of walks and strikeouts, which amplifies the influence - and inaccuracy - of home plate umpires. Eventually, this will bring us  automated strike zones -with implications we cannot imagine. But it will happen.

Nor can we foresee the endgame of this winter's looming labor dispute. It could be a strike. It could be a lockout. At its roots, the battle will rival American politics: It will pit big markets against small ones. Do the bigger cities get to use their financial leverage? For Yankee fans, it's pivotal: If a NY team cannot use its financial advantages, it actually faces a tougher battle than other franchises.

Apparently, Hal Steinbrenner will never sell. Why should he? At 51, he's a billionaire, several times over. Nothing can touch him. Still, it's been 12 years since America's most storied sports franchise won anything, or even reached the World Series. We are a perennial also-ran, a franchise perpetually falling to younger, hungrier teams. And fans can get ornery. (See Sunday's booing of John Mara by Giants fans.)

Soon, we will watch the rise of Baltimore. I know, I know... some of you snicker at such a concept, but it will happen. (Ask Boston, after last night.) It is the Iron Law of Tanking: Finish last enough times, and you build a powerhouse of top draft picks. It happened in Houston. It's happened in Boston several times. But the Yankees will never tank. Like a dog after a milk truck, they instinctively chase that wild card. 

For now, it looks as though the 2021 Yankees will succeed. Barring a huge collapse, we will reach the post-season, at least for one game. We have lost the last four AL divisional series, twice by walk-off HRs. Once upon a time, the Yankees sharpened their spikes for October. Now, they look overmatched. Whatever happens next month, they will have to win in another team's park. 

Tonight, with a little luck and Gerrit Cole, the Yankees will lower their magic number to one. Tomorrow, they can clinch a wild card birth. If so, they deserve our unbridled cheers. Yeesh, it's been a hellish year. They've taken all the bullets, faced everything that could go wrong: Slumps, injuries, mystery ailments, meltdowns - they've been kicked around and left for dead. But here they are, on the verge.

As is baseball. 

And maybe, as is America. 

Let's get ready, everybody. Win tonight and we can rest this weekend. Did you feel that icy breeze? October is coming.