We wish you a Merry Christmas.

"We all know who the best player was in New York in 2017, in any sport."

Rondae Hollis-Jefferson.


"It was the big kid, Aaron Judge, All Rise Judge, around whom the rising of the Yankees was built in October, the kind of baseball October that was once as regular a pageant around here as the tree lighting at Rockefeller Plaza, or New Year’s Eve in Times Square."

As regular as a hack Lupica rehash column.

"And the best of it for me, the best moment, wasn’t the Yankees coming back after they were down 0-3 in the Wild Card game with the Twins before they ever came to bat; or the comeback against the Astros in Game 4, when the new Yankee Stadium finally sounded like the one across the street. No, the best of it was after Game 5, when the Yankees had gone ahead three games to two, and were as close to the World Series as they had been in eight years."

Lupica paid attention to about 15 baseball games in 2017.

Lupica couldn't name the Yankees' starting rotation.


"The best of it was walking out of the Stadium that night with Yankees fans flooding out of the place in this loud, exuberant wave, down the steps at Babe Ruth Plaza, everybody heading towards 161st St. and the parking lots and the subway station, yelling 'Let’s Go Yankees' and '---- Verlander,' "

I don't understand.

What is a Verlander?


 " ...meaning Justin Verlander, whom they knew their team was going to be facing in Game 6."

Oh!

Justin Verlander.

Thank you for clarifying, Mr. Baseball.


"It all went wrong in Houston, of course. Verlander did to the Yankees what the chants said the Yankees were going to do to him."

Verlander ----'ed the Yankees.


"Now they regroup, in such an expensive and showy and front-page way. They go get Giancarlo Stanton from the Miami Jeters, and pick up the kind of contract they once lavished on Alex Rodriguez, everybody’s All-America."

It's a new record, folks: 250,000 consecutive columns with an Alex Rodriguez reference.


Who even cares?

It's all the same observation.

The Yankees might win the World Series and they might not.

I fail to see how adding Giancarlo Stanton, the NL MVP, is a bad move.

The Yankees aren't as "cool" as they were last year, a designation coming from Mike Lupica, a man who had Coldplay as his intro music during his short-lived afternoon radio show and who lists "Love Actually" as his favorite Christmas movie.