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...