Sometimes, it seems as if 2006 happened in the Dead Ball Era, in a time before moving pictures, before motorcars, before the invention of the wheel.
A lot can happen in four years: A politician voted into office in a landslide can be ushered out just as easily. People born on Feb. 29 get another year older. Wheaties finds a whole new generation of Olympic stars to slap on the front of cereal boxes.
And the Great New York Baseball Revolution can feel as if it all happened during the Taft Administration.
You remember 2006, right? The Mets were hot, on the make, tearing up the National League with a team that landed on the cover of Sports Illustrated, embodying the culmination of baseball¹s melting pot. Two runs shy of the World Series, they seemed poised on the precipice of enormous promise and potential.
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The Yankees? They were overpriced, overpaid, overhyped. In October, they were chased out of the playoffs by the Tigers, with Alex Rodriguez suffering the indignity of hitting eighth in Game 4. Joe Torre very nearly was fired, was brought back reluctantly, and became a lame duck.
Four years ago. That¹s all it was. Four years ago.
“Sometimes,” David Wright said toward the end of last summer, “it feels like all of that happened in another lifetime.”
It is 2010 now, and the world once again has been shaken upside down. The Yankees are defending World Series champions, their fans savoring the 27th title in team history, their manager having already upgraded his number to 28 to alert the world that repeating in the land of pinstripes is not a goal, but a mandate. They bid farewell to a couple of popular October heroes, Johnny Damon and Hideki Matsui, but rolled out the welcome mat for Curtis Granderson, and re-introduced themselves to Nick Johnson and Javier Vazquez.
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The Mets? From the brink of glory in 2006, they found themselves pressed right against the edge of the abyss in 2009, and the hits kept on coming once the calendar clicked forward a year. Carlos Beltran defied the team and had surgery. Jose Reyes’ thyroid betrayed him and kept him on the sidelines for most of spring training. Johan Santana has looked like a lesser facsimile of himself in Florida.
One team seeks repeat.
One team seeks redemption.
And as always, this all will be played out upon the grandest stage in baseball, a place where 7 million people turned out to watch baseball last summer in the midst of a choking recession, a place where Yankees fans rejoice and Mets fans recoil, all the while believing in better days and the ultimate return on their emotional investment.
“Every year is a special year if you’re a baseball fan in New York,” Joe Girardi said in Tampa not long ago, “but especially if you¹re defending a championship. I know what that feels like. And I know how special a ride that can be, every day.”
“We owe something to our fans, let’s not kid ourselves,” Jerry Manuel said in Port St. Lucie earlier in the spring. “But we owe something to ourselves. … Believe me: These are guys who do not want to live the rest of their lives knowing they couldn¹t achieve what they wanted to achieve. It’s one heck of a motivator.”
And a terrific scene for both teams, for all of New York¹s baseball fans.
You know Yankees fans, for all the good feeling of spring, left over from fall, will entertain a crisis of confidence between now and October. And you know Mets fans, battered and bleeding, cynical and skeptical after all they¹ve seen, will almost against their will accept the promise and the fresh slate April promises.
Maybe it will all snap back into place again thereafter. And maybe not.
There are 324 separate chapters awaiting us across the next six months. It ought to be a fascinating read.
michael.vaccaro@nypost.com