The New York Yankees have completely lost their aura.

This is Game 3 of the World Series. The Yankees have their backs against the wall. They trail the series 2-0 and are down by three in the fourth inning – with Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Jazz Chisholm Jr. all coming on. The home nine desperately need a win to get back into the series and keep their title hopes alive, while also restoring some of the aura that used to define this proud team. A three-round deficit could evaporate in the blink of an eye, and with the crux of the order approaching, this particular moment seemed like the time to strike. Sitting high in the right field bleachers where the Yankees had set up their auxiliary press box (“auxiliary box”), I rose with the crowd (who hadn’t seen a World Series game at Yankee Stadium in 15 years) and felt the rush of October baseball.

As I looked around at the anxious faces that made up the crowd, the ghosts of Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle swirled in the autumn air, but something was wrong. A new character has appeared. As the entire section clung to each pitch in hopes that Judge could start the rally, a digital glow crept into the corner of my eye. The guy in front of me took out his iPad. Peter Griffin has been tearing through the Fortnite universe.

This isn’t meant to be some kind of defining statement about Generation Alpha, but rather about the state of the New York Yankees. That aforementioned aura, which all previous generations of sports fans were innately aware of, has gradually dissipated with each of the last 14 World Series that did not feature the boys in pinstripes. There were glimpses of his comeback during the Game 4 win and in the early stages of Game 5, but when the Yankees suffered a Deepwater Horizon-level disaster in the fifth inning, the aura headed for the ledge. He rose up as New York’s bullpen faltered in the eighth and surged as the final out was recorded, sealing the brutal defeat on the biggest stage. Yankee, New York Yankeesbecame the first team in Major League Baseball’s incredibly long history to lose a World Series clincher by blowing a five-run lead. For people of a certain age, the idea of ​​the Yankees losing a literal World Series so dramatically is inconceivable. When things started to fall apart in the third game, it did so in a way that may have… was less exciting than a YouTube video of someone playing video games. It’s not the child’s fault, it’s just the world he was born into.