End of an Era [Robert A. George]

Guest Post from Ragged Thots:

After the New York Yankees collapse in Motown, it looks like the decade-long ride for Joe Torre is done.

Eleven playoff appearances, ten AL East Division championships, four World Series wins, losses in two others (including the epochal 2001 seven-game Series against the Diamondbacks). Not a bad ride, Joe, and nothing for which you should be ashamed. Hey, when you go to work for Steinbrenner, you know how these things work out -- and end.

Besides, it's not like you begged the Yankee front office to get Alex Rodriguez. Funny how Alfonso Soriano -- whom the Yankees traded to Texas for Rodriguez -- was a more clutch, big-game, player in his 2001 rookie year than A-Rod will ever be. Recall that Soriano hit the home run off Curt Schilling that put the Yankees ahead in Game 7 agains the Diamondbacks. Unfortunately, Mariano Rivera happened to turn up human that year and blew the save and the Series. Buster Olney called that the "Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty."

Even with the emergence of Robinson Cano at second base (the same position Soriano played for the Yankees), the Soriano-Rodriguez trade may turn out to be the one that triggered the full collapse of the current Yankee "dynasty" period. Yes, Soriano had a bad 2003 World Series, but nowhere near the consistently collapsing-under-pressure that A-Rod has demonstrated over his career.

And now Pinella is supposedly on deck -- the most successful Yankee manager to never get the team to the playoffs. With A-Rod, he managed to get the Mariners to the playoffs multiple times -- only to lose to Torre's Yankees. Let's see if he can manage to get clutch performers over the supposedly best player in the game.

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