Starved New Yorkers can dream about a Subway Series again

We will try to be respectful here because there is still much work ahead before we can talk about this for real. The Yankees rid themselves — and their city — of one impediment, the Kansas City Royals, by eliminating them at Kauffman Stadium on Thursday night, 3-1, wrapping up a thoroughly businesslike 3-1 American League Division Series.

So they are four games from their first World Series bid since 2009, and they’ll merrily watch the Guardians and the Tigers on Saturday and hope that they play about 5½ hours and burn through both bullpens.

They join the Mets in baseball’s final four, the Mets on Thursday enjoying the first of three straight off days before they’ll begin the quest to win the four games they require for their first World Series appearance since 2015. They’ll spend a serene Friday night rooting for the Padres and the Dodgers to tangle 18 innings or so before learning if they fly into LAX or two hours south down I-5.

So yes, neither the Yankees nor the Mets even know who their next opponents will be, so it probably makes little sense to start thinking about a Subway Series right now.

You know what?

Let’s start thinking about it anyway.

Let’s start letting our imaginations get away from us a little bit. Let’s think about four more wins from the Yankees, and four more wins for the Mets, and what that will mean for our city, and for the baseball fans who make up this best of all baseball cities. Let’s remember how remarkable 2000 was, and how quickly that moment passed.

Sports are about dreams, right?

Let’s start dreaming little baseball dreams as a possible prelude to the biggest.

“We get to go play for a pennant now,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “And we’re excited about that. I’m really proud of the way we played, we played really good baseball in this series in a lot of games that were tight and close.”

The Yankees’ on-field celebration Thursday was a tad more muted than the Mets had been 24 hours earlier, but that was understandable. They were in someone else’s house. And they had relied far more on their general excellence, far less on the emotion of moments than the Mets had to.

But the clubhouse celebration was every bit as sweet, goggles for everyone, champagne for everyone, joyous bubbly baths for everyone. And as Aaron Judge pointed out, the setting for this jubilation was every bit as compelling as any of the flashpoints the Mets have fed on in the past weeks.

“All I could think about was that in 2023, our season ended here,” said Judge, who began to hit the ball with authority again Thursday night, and sure looks like he’s going to be his usual handful for whoever’s pitchers will have to figure him out next week, Cleveland’s or Detroit’s. “We didn’t want to have that happen again.”

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It’s easy to forget, sure, because 2023 was so forgettable for the Yankees. The Yankees came to Kansas City already eliminated from the postseason. They won the middle game of a three-game series to ensure an 82nd victory and a winning record, the lone consolation of an empty season. They handed the Royals their 106th loss of the season. The games were all played in front of friends and family.

These last two nights, Kauffman Stadium was electric and hopeful for the locals because the opportunity was there for the Yankees’ season to end there for a second straight season. Giancarlo Stanton made sure that wouldn’t happen Wednesday, and Gerrit Cole did his part Thursday.

“What a series for the boys,” Judge said.

And what a time for the city. What a week next week will be, beginning Sunday in California, at either Dodger Stadium or Petco Park for the Mets, then back in New York, back to Yankee Stadium for the Yankees and a Midwestern guest yet to be determined. A week of ping-ponging between East Coast and West. Buy your caffeine in bulk.

We haven’t gotten New York, New York very often in the postseason since the Dodgers left Brooklyn and the Giants left Manhattan. Only twice have the Mets and Yankees ever made it this far in the same season. The first time, Kenny Rogers walked Andruw Jones in the bottom of the 11th in Atlanta, and that was that.

The next time, a year later, we pulled the one-armed bandit on the baseball slot machine and it came up 7-7-7. We got five games. We got Roger Clemens throwing the bat at Mike Piazza. We got Derek Jeter leading off Game 4 with a homer, and Luis Sojo’s 18-hopper off Al Leiter that clinched the parade, and Piazza’s blast off Mariano Rivera that tried to make a bid to tie Game 5 and instead died in Bernie Williams’ glove, and tears of joy from both Joe Torre and George Steinbrenner.

Somehow, that was 24 years ago.

Maybe it’s too early to book anything, but it’s never too early to dream. The Mets have a shot. The Yankees have a shot. The city has a shot.

“It’s going to definitely be a fun time in New York,” Judge said. “It’ll be fun to look forward to down the road getting a chance to face them again.”

Keep your old tokens in a drawer. Get your Omny ready. Get your MetroCard ready. You never know.