Boone has managed to attain midseason blather form

Hot scoop: Aaron Boone is excited!

"With reasonable health around and some guys returning to form, then it’s got a chance to be a special lineup," he told reporters yesterday. "The left-handed presence - you guys know how much I obsess on the balance sometimes, especially when we haven’t had it... I believe it has a chance to be a tremendous fit.”

Yep, there you have it. It's Dec. 27 - spring training two months away - and Boonie is already writing out his lineup with a Sharpie. And, dagnabbit! he's right! If the Yanks have reasonable health, and a few guys return to form - the AL East had better guard its nuts sack, cuz - SING ALONG! - the Yanks are comin', the Yanks are comin,' and we won't come back 'til it's over over there! 

Insert sigh here.

And so, dear comrades, do we prepare to conclude yet another lost year - 2023 - in much the same way that it began: With Skipper Boone - having somehow survived another management guillotine - perched on his haunches and braying to the moon about what could happen in an alternative Yankiverse - one where gonads don't tweak, aging sluggers reach their peaks, and he doesn't have to cower like a tortured hostage in nightly postgame shows. 

It's the universe where kids grow up dreaming of playing for the Yankees, the world's greatest collection of men, who stand for everything that's exceptional about America. It's a world still comprised of those who love or hate the Yankees, with everybody else merely passing time until their team - the Royals or Twins, who cares? - visit the Bronx to be tested.

This is a Yankiverse that basically disappeared 20 years ago, and it won't come back, whether or not it's over over there. The Yankees used to have something, a mystique, you might say, and they pissed it away long ago to cut their luxury taxes. I'd like to think they still possessed the grandeur as late as 2019, when Bryce Harper and Manny Machado both pleaded for the chance to wear pinstripes, and the Yankee ownership hid under the bed. Or maybe it ended a few years earlier, when they ceded Robbie Cano to Seattle - yes, big-spending Seattle. 

Oh, well, it doesn't matter, does it? Four days from now, the calendar will turn, and it will be Groundhog Year, with Boonie once again warbling about a grand and wondrous future. And why not? The Yankees yesterday traded Estavan Florial for a bullpen lug nut whose main virtue is multiple roster options, which translates into numerous rides on the Scranton shuttle. And soon they'll sign somebody - anybody. You can almost hear the organ grinder playing "Aude Lang Syne" for Frankie Montas, while we run in circles and gather coins from the onlookers. 

It's going to be a long, hard year - a bullpen year - coupled with a presidential election, the Olympics and God knows what. Still, Boonie can't wait to fill out that scorecard. And if everybody stays healthy, and a few players return to form, well... it could be really something!