THE YANKEES ARE DEAD

The Yankees are dead; the corpse arrived in the Bronx in the early hours today, with no George Steinbrenner on the scene to snap at the bones. Embarrassingly swept by the Tigers in four games in the American League Championship Series, they scored a total of six runs in this usually engrossing or thrilling semifinal. More accurately, they scored four runs in the bottom of the ninth of Game One, erasing a four-run Detroit lead, before losing that game in the twelfth, and then two more over the ensuing thirty innings. Nothing like this batting collapse exists in the annals; nothing comparable comes to mind. Something beyond base hits is missing as well, because the sweet autumnal sadness that creeps over us when the last local team goes down clearly isn’t something to fall back on this time. Let’s settle for relief.

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