New York Yankees

Former Yankees manager Casey Stengel was photographed holding a baseball and gazing at it, as if it were a crystal ball, right after he was hired in 1949. Many Yankee staffers winced when they saw the pictures, but whatever he saw, it must have been good, because not only did he win the World Series his first year on the job, but he won the next four after that.

Stengel would win a total of seven World Series titles in his 12 years with the Yankees.

Who said the Yankees change how they operate now that George Steinbrenner died?

Sure the manager and the general manager gets to stay despite falling short of winning a championship, but it doesn't mean any other people are safe.

Yankees pitching coach Dave Eiland found out the hard way today. He was fired for personal reasons. Count this fan for not buying this baloney.

Despite winning a World Series last fall, Yankees GM Brian Cashman kept busy over the winter.

He acquired Curtis Granderson in a three-team deal that sent top outfield prospect Austin Jackson to Detroit along with lefty reliever Phil Coke, as well as starter Ian Kennedy to Arizona.

Now that the New York Yankees' dreams of a World Series repeat have ended, they enter the most uncertain postseason in recent memory. When they got on the bus at their hotel in Arlington, Texas, it wasn't taking them to Game 7. It was taking them home to face questions not about why they lost, but what they're going to do now.

If you followed the Yankees in the latter half of the 20th century, you know why the team earned the title “The Bronx Zoo.”

From fights between Billy Martin and Reggie Jackson, to routine managerial firings, to passenger seat managing from George Steinbrenner, the Yankees were an absolute mess.

As 2010 comes to a close for the New York Yankees, we are beginning to see a new mess emerge.

NBC Sports Hardball Talk columnist Craig Calcaterra published a blurb asking if the idea of Derek Jeter leaving the Bronx for Boston would be such a bad thing. He even posted a picture of Jeter superimposed in a Red Sox uniform.

I must have missed the memo when Vladimir Guerrero turned into the Buddy Biancalana of the Texas Rangers.

This is a position that the Texas Rangers are all too familiar with. It's a position they've been in through their first two postseason series, and they'll play the role one more time.

What is that role, you ask? It's being the underdog.

When the Rangers made it to the postseason, no one expected them to get past the Tampa Bay Rays let alone be the American League Champions. They weren't supposed to beat the Rays, and they sure weren't given a snowball's chance in hell against the defending champion New York Yankees.

Not only does the ALCS Game 6 loss to the Texas Rangers end the New York Yankees' quest to repeat as baseball's World Series champions, but it may also signify the end of an era.

No, not the end of a dynasty that some have spoken of, that would require more than one World Series title in 10 years to be spoken of in such terms. The last Yankee dynasty ended in 2001, or 2003 if you're generous.

My first weekend without Yankee baseball had me feeling how I imagine Mark Teixeira feels before his postseason at-bats: confused, helpless, and resigned to a fate that cannot be avoided.

The World Series is starting on Wednesday, and I can tell you I'll probably only have a cursory interest in it. Whenever the team that eliminated the Yankees advances to the Fall Classic, I have trouble rooting for anything but horrible things to happen to the American League entrant.