The Yankees Are Lucky They Didn't Make the Playoffs If You Look at It This Way

Even being a Red Sox fan, I am so very saddened by the loss of the incredible, unforgettable Yankee Stadium.

I am more than anything a lover of history, whether it's "The Ring" and Monaco in motor sports, or Yankee Stadium in baseball.  It blows my mind that money is so powerful these days, that destroying a place like this (for the sake of giving the big guns their new, more expensive, executive luxury boxes) is accepted.

Now, the reason I feel the Yankees are actually lucky that not only won't they make the playoffs, but they are out of contention with this many games left is this: Under any other circumstance, (other than having Game Six or Seven in the World Series be at the stadium if the Yankees made it that far) no person would ever have known "This" would have been the last game: Equivalent to no funeral for whoever your favorite human being is.

By "This" I mean:

A. If the Yankees were actually in a close fight with the Rays or Sox to get in the playoffs and no one knew if the Sept. 21 game was going to be the very last game or not. 

B. If the Yankees got in the playoffs, and the way the Division series five-game set-up went the Yankees leave New York with the series at 2-2 to play Game Five at X's home game, and lose.  Or just that they lose at home in Game Three or Four, and there is no celebration before hand, because you wouldn't want to detour the team's morale.  No one would have known that was it. 

C. If the Yankees had gotten into the ALCS, they leave New York to play X at home for Game Six and Seven, and the series either 3-2 or 2-3.  They go on to lose Game Six (and Seven if 2-3).  And that Game Five at home, whether awful or great, ends up being the last game, again of course with no celebration before hand, because it'd be like saying "Yes, we the Yankees believe we will lose and never come back here so here is our goodbye celebration."

D. Repeat scenario C, with World Series rather than ALCS. 

So in a show of major respect, they should thank the heavens that they weren't in contention for the playoffs (amazingly for the first time 15 years) with about seven games left in this 2008 season, so at least the great New York fans could truly know, for sure, that when they left that stadium on the night of Sept. 21, that was the final goodbye.