We can't yet see it from here, but a Yankee championship season will mean avenging a long and painful vendetta list

This we know: Father Fate is a maniac. The great spring can become a long, hot summer. The best record in baseball means nothing... in May. As a bathroom wall once told me:

April may...
But June julys.

Still, let's face it: We're smitten. We're guzzling the Kool-Aid. Going forward, anything less than a 2022 Yankee world championship will mean a disaster - that the ghosts of 2004 still rule our universe.

This must be our year. It's all or nothing. I never thought I'd say this, but if it means trading prospects at the Aug. 1 deadline, so be it. The Yankees cannot squander this opening without a meltdown/letdown of epic historical proportions, and I don't need to see a replay of Javier Vasquez pitching to Johnny Damon. 

I don't mean to heap more pressure on the Yankees, by why kid? This is no year to chase a Wild Card. We must win the AL East, decisively, and lock down home field advantage through October. This is the year we must face down the demons that have tortured us over the last two decades. 

It must start by dominating Boston, who currently has the seventh worst record in baseball, 12 games behind us. Despite their issues, the Redsocks are merely 4.5 games out in the Wild Card - it's May, after all! We won't see them until early July, just before the All-Star break. 

Until we beat Boston, we haven't beaten Boston. 

We must continue through Tampa, currently second in the AL East. Ten days from now, we visit them in a four-game series. Ten days is a lifetime. 

Until we beat Tampa, why should we believe we can beat Tampa?

Then comes Houston, currently with MLB's third best record. We play them four times, beginning June 23. That's way too far ahead to speculate. 

Until we beat Houston, we have never avenged their cheating - which they now downplay with The Big Lie. And when they beat us, it lets them say, "See? We've always been better! There was no cheating..."

Of course, we must beat the Mets, whom we won't face until late July, days before the trade deadline. They are NYC's most popular team, whose owner more resembles old George than the son who reputedly shares his DNA. (I think Hal was adopted from a sperm bank run by the Dolans.) 

Until we beat the Mets, they carry the swagger and the pride of New York.  

In the end, it will bring us to the Dodgers, the best damn franchise in baseball. It's been a quarter century since people looked at the Yankees and said, "These are the perennial front-runners..." 

Until we beat the - oh, fuck it - it's too far out to speculate. It's like those NASA pictures from deep space - somewhere in those strange and exotic pinpricks of light are the answers of the universe. But all we see is a mosaic. 

You can't predict baseball, Suzyn. But here's a prediction, anyway: 

Anything less that a trip down the Canyon of Heroes, and 2022 will sit atop my list of late-life Yankee disappointments. Get ready to bundle the prospects, Cash. It's all or nothing. The universe is calling. Buckle up! Here we go!