A lot changes in one game, huh?

"Gone are mystique and aura, the two temptresses of the Bronx, who blessed old Yankee Stadium with kismet and joy and brilliant baseball. In their stead are apathy and malaise, a couple of hags from Yonkers. They embody the new Yankee Stadium, a sarcophagus if ever there was one: no matter how gorgeous and ornate the outside, it remains filled with lifelessness. 

No wonder Game 2 of the ALCS featured thousands of empty seats, like Game 1 before it, and like the do-or-die Game 5 of the ALDS, too. New Yorkers understand a fraud when they see it. They pay for expensive seats, drink overpriced beers, buy exorbitant merchandise and fund a $200 million joke, a team that for the second straight game couldn't score a measly run off the Detroit Tigers' Nos. 3 and 4 starting pitchers. These Yankees earned every last boo."

The Yankees are going to lose in the ALCS.

This $200 million joke won 95 games, won the AL East, and won the ALDS.

It's not satisfying for a fan base which expects a lot.

But I'd only take Passan seriously if had written this article in the top of the 10th inning on Saturday night.  Mystique and aura are gone from the new Stadium, except when Sabathia throws a complete game in Game Five and when Ibanez's two-out, ninth-inning HR clears the fence.