Reality Sets In

From Bob Klapisch (The Record):

ST. PETERSBURG – It’s been five years since the Yankees’ last appearance in the World Series, eight since they actually won it. That’s enough time for GM Brian Cashman to be able to watch the Fall Classic without bitterness or rage or even regret.

“I’m not sitting at home, watching the TV thinking, “that should be us.” It shouldn’t be us. We didn’t deserve it,” Cashman said by telephone on Wednesday, hours before the Phillies took Game One, 3-2. “This World Series is about two teams that fought to get there. In the Rays’ case, it was a long road for them.”

Eleven years, to be exact, including last season’s last-place, 97-loss season. No one saw the Rays coming in ’08 – at least not as American League champs. But Cashman is the first to admit the Rays thoroughly out-played his depleted Yankees, and broke the Red Sox’ hearts, too.

So Cashman’s message to Andrew Friedman, his counterpart in Tampa, is: enjoy the run. Don’t take it for granted, it never lasts as long as you think. Here is where the subject becomes touchy for Cashman and the Yankees, who once ruled the baseball world with maddening ease.

Maybe they made it look to easy, which is why Joe Torre became so unpopular with many fans in his last two seasons. Just getting to the post-season wasn’t good enough for a fan-base that’d developed a voracious sense of entitlement about the World Series.

October was supposed to belong to the Yankees. Not the Mets, not the Red Sox. Certainly not the Rays. Not only is that unrealistic rooting, it’s rejected by the Yankees themselves, Cashman in particular.

“Getting to the World Series and winning it in the period of time we did (four times between 1996-2000) was remarkable, I just don’t think people appreciated it,” the general manager said. “Maybe now they’re beginning to understand how hard it is to be a champion. Maybe reality is setting in. Re-creating that (golden era) is obviously very difficult.”

While I agree that reality has set in for many Yankee fans, as seeing their beloved pinstriped brethren finish in third place, behind the Rays and Sox, does that. However, I also hope that Brian Cashman is enjoying his sober dose of the real stuff, as well. He has been constructing lineups that are essentially offense-based for years now, and, finally, the offense just didn’t deliver this year. When you think about Cashman’s plans for rotations, you can’t help but to think of how tremendously lucky he has been. If you want proof, look no further than Aaron Small, Shawn Chacon, or even Chien-Ming Wang. He has basically thrown hail mary after hail mary and has gotten lucky, a bunch of times (sometimes, that luck will lead us to someone like Wang). This year, the luck stopped and reality has set in… for Brian Cashman.