Pic of the Week

Derek Jeter fractures his ankle. Note the position of the
left foot under the right ankle.

It is a given in this particular corner of the Internet: Baseball is better when the Yankees lose.

They haven't lost often over the past decade and a half. Oh, the Yankees don't win the World Series every year, or even most years. But they win. A lot. Too much.

Even this year, when they got swept — and, really, embarrrassed — in the league championship series — they still had the best record in the American League.

But there is a sense out there that last week's humiliation at the hands of the Detroit Tigers marks a turning point — that the Yankees have finally gotten too old, too frail, too expensive to recover. Joe Posnanski gives voice to that idea, with detail, quite well here.

I hope he's right. But for years I've fooled myself into believing that the Yankees dominance of the American League, if not of the majors, is ending, and I'm tired of clinging to that illusion.

I'll believe it when I see it.