My private Fall Classic

some loser New York site

    Well, since we’re in fall, aka autumn, aka a tad cooler in Florida, let’s briefly recap the Major League Playoffs so far:
   The Yankees are out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
   {okay, slightly old news, but I just have to repeat ...
  The Yankees are out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am so stoked}
   That sorry sack of egocentric losers that has cost hundreds of millions of dollars for the last decade-plus for “talent,” cannot beat a “team” with far less payroll but far more role players.
   If the Occupy Wall Streeters get bored they should traipse on over to Yankee Stadium and shame an organization that has a $500 million payroll and can't even sniff the World Series, much less win it all.
   Trouble is; there’s a number of players associated with the Bankees worthy of praise. Curtis Granderson, Mark Texiera and Robinson Cano are flat-out studs. Then there’s a second tier which includes the wheezing Jorge Posada and the creaky yet dashing Derek Jeter.
   Probably one of my most wonderful autumnal traditions is watching the 'fall' of the Skankees. It's just Classic to me and a sure sign that all is as it should be in the Universe.
    It was a good year for baseball overall with one of the most dramatic pre-post-seasons ever in the sport: September, 2011 — Boston imploded, Tampa Bay exploded and St. Louis has 30 wins in their last 43 games, vaulting into the World Series with the relentless Texas Rangers.
   This, about St Louis, from ESPN's Jayson Stark:
   "How do you wind up in the World Series when you're 10½ games out with 31 to play, when you're 8½ out in September, when you're 7½ out with 20 to play, when you're three games out with five to play? There are teams that have come close to pulling off a finish that wild. No team has ever done ALL of that. Trust us. We've checked."
   So, good for the Cardinals. But I'm thinking the Rangers may take them in six.
   In any case I'll be smiling.
   Because the Yankees, in classic form, went out of the playoffs on Oct. 8, wilting a gang of 50,960 in Yankee Stadium. It doesn't get much prettier than that.
   Play ball!
   To be fair, all Major League Baseball players are paid far more then they are worth; it is, after all, a game.
   The price of tickets has risen to such astronomical rates that if I want to take my wife and daughter to a game, we'd be in for about $150 for the trip when you consider gas, food, and reasonably decent seats to view the players.
   If major league players — of any professional sport — would funnel their millions to support the former players who are now in their 70s and 80s or plow their bucks into the communities they came from, we'd be a much better nation.
   I can't for the life of me understand how these athletes are amassing such wealth and for what? What do they do with it all? Buy jewelry? Get more tattoos?