The Coronation

The Yankees had been tortured by the own high expectations for 9 long years. Not by the supposed "Championship or Bust" mantra that for the most part is wildly overplayed, as much as their actions as a franchise. Even if they had pretended like they didn't care that much about winning, it would have been painfully apparent that they did.

Since 2000, the Yankees have spent over $1.5B on player's salaries, let alone the amount paid to coaches, training staff, front office personnel, scouts, minor league operations and countless other employees singularly dedicated to assembling the best baseball team possible. And last night, it's seemed like it was all worth it.

If the last nine years have taught us anything, it's that you can't buy championships (despite the common Yankee-hater refrain). You can certainly try. You can buy extended streaks of regular season success. You can come pretty close to buying a playoff berth. But you still have to run the gauntlet of a three-tiered playoff system which was a lot harder than it seemed back when Paul O'Neill, Tino Martinez, David Cone, Bernie Williams & Co. were still wearing Pinstripes.

This year, it seemed easy again.

The Yankees cruised through the second half of the season, didn't face elimination once in the playoffs, and the Phillies didn't have the tying run on base at any point after the third inning last night. After Damaso Marte impossibly mowed down Chase Utley to end the 7th inning and Ryan Howard to begin the 8th with 2 strikeouts six pitches, we could relax and savor the moment.

Last night was a coronation of the a team who, despite what Jimmy Rollins wants you to think, was the best team in baseball for most of this year by a considerable margin. It was validation of the last 9 years of aggressive free agent spending and high-upside drafting.

It was a celebration for Hideki Matsui and A-Rod and Sabathia and Burnett and Cano who will never have the fact that they haven't won a World Series held against them again. And probably just as sweet for the guys who played supplemental roles and ended up in the right place at the right time. It was a culmination for Jeter, Pettitte, Posada and Rivera who amazingly won a 5th title together 9 years after their last. This is as good as it gets.

We were all in vastly different places in our lives 9 years ago. I was a 16 year old kid who was a Yankee fan but didn't really know that much about baseball. I couldn't have told you what OPS meant or who Bill James was. The Yankees had just won 4 out of 5 years and if you had listed the players the Yanks were going to acquire and told me it would take until now to win again, I would have thought you were batshit insane.

But it did take that long. Which makes it that much sweeter.

11 Hours To Go

Good morning, Fackers. Today is the big day. Well, one of at least four big days, anyway.

When was the last time you were this excited in anticipation of a sporting event? If we're talking strictly about baseball, it's obviously the '03 and '04 ALCSes. Being out Boston at the time, it was engulfing. Professors talked about it in class, everyone with a hat of one team or the other had it on, and you overheard conversations about it where ever you went. I couldn't think about much else during the days when games were played - I just wanted it to be game time.

If we're talking about sports other than baseball, Super Bowl XLII was probably the last event that came close, but no one thought the Giants had much of a chance. Big Willie Style, Sampson and I had celebrated the NFC Championship like it was the Super Bowl, going out to the college bars around 80th and Amsterdam, staying out until three in the morning and handing out spontaneous high fives to complete strangers. Needless to say, we all took that Monday off.

It felt like the Giants had just earned the right to lose to the Patriots in Arizona, but that didn't really matter at the time. We were just happy that the season wasn't over and were celebrating the incredible game they won in arctic temperatures in Green Bay. The Yankees are never going to be the underdogs like the Giants were that season, but after the last six years, it still feels like an accomplishment for the Bombers to have made it this far.

Not everyone shares that sentiment, however.

There was someone conspicuously absent from Sunday night's champange celebration. Reggie Jackson was there. Hal and Jennifer Steinbrenner were there. Hank wasn't there because they don't allow smoking in the clubhouse and you know how he gets when he drinks. But there were probably numerous members of the front office partaking the festivities after Gary Matthews, Jr. went down swinging.

Brain Cashman was nowhere to be found. Some had speculated that it had something to do with his meeting with Aroldlis Chapman. It turns out that wasn't the case:

[Cashman] purposely avoided the scene, saying he simply chose to stay away and leave it to others.

"I'll wait to participate if we have an opportunity to win the whole thing," he said.

Yet another reason I like the cut of Cashman's jib. I realize that this would never happen, but it would be incredibly bad ass if a team didn't go for an over-the-top celebration unless they won a championship. Maybe something when they clinched a playoff berth or won the division but not in the LDS, or LCS. Save the bubbly for the ultimate glory.

Players deserve to enjoy their accomplishments and the champagne lubricates those celebrations in more ways than one - it would be awfully awkward were players just jumping around and hugging each other with dry clothes in a well-lit locker room. But at the same time, wheeling out the carts when they swept the Twins seemed a little contrived. By the time the World Series winner is awarded, we'll have already seen 14 other locker rooms protected by tarps then laden with libations.

Celebrating every step of the way is the one thing that really undermines the "championship or bust" mantra that the Yankees swear they have. If they were the one team that really was only satisfied with winning a World Series, then they shouldn't pop the Perignon until they do so. It would make it a whole lot sweeter when it finally came.

Cashman is the only guy who really thinks this way. He's got no choice. He's gone too long as the General Manager of the team with the highest payroll in baseball without winning a World Series to consider anything else a success. Let's hope he gets to taste the Taittinger soon enough.

My Back Pages

We say this every morning in the form of the typical greeting, but today truly is a good morning, Fackers. The Yankees clinched their first playoff berth under Joe Girardi. Sure it had been a virtual inevitability for a good month or so, but it feels a lot different now that it's locked up. It didn't hurt that they won a back and forth game against a potential postseason opponent to do their part of it, either.

The Yankees did it the right way, and didn't go for the over-the-top champagne celebration, or really any celebration at all, actually. Joe Girardi gathered the team and simply said "Congratulations, and let's keep it going". He acted like he had been there before, even though he hadn't as a manager. You've gotta respect that.

Make no mistake, the reason that this is even remotely satisfying as fans is because of last year. Had the Yankees just clinched their 15 consecutive postseason berth, no one would have batted an eyelash. In '08, I remember watching the odds of the Yankees qualifying the playoffs dwindle down to 10 and then 5 percent and trying to talk myself into believing that a miraculous late surge, coupled with a Rays' collapse was in store. Needless to say, it was not.

A lot of the post season magic and luster was lost in 2004, but it wasn't until last year that the Yanks truly hit rock bottom. Simply playing out the string last September and watching the Old Stadium close down was humbling in ways that I didn't expect.

I think before that, most Yankee fans, especially my age, thought of a playoff bid as something of a birthright. The last time they actually missed the playoffs before '08 was 1993 (they were the best team in the AL in 1994 before the strike hit). I was 9 years old at that point and obviously wasn't yet a Saturday Package holder and a daily reader of Yankee blogs.

This year, it seems like a new experience. The twenty four months that have passed since the Yanks lost the Bug Game and were unceremoniously bounced three nights later by the Indians is an eternity in baseball years. The Yanks might not want to stop to enjoy this moment, but we will, at least momentarily. There are bigger and better things in store for this team, but the significance of this moment is not lost around these parts.