The last time the Yankees won the World Series, they were so, so old. In 2009, the team was led by Derek Jeter (35), Alex Rodriguez (33), Jorge Posada (38), Johnny Damon (35), Andy Pettitte (37), and Mariano Rivera (39). Five years later, the only one of those players left on the team was Jeter, and he was 40 and on his good-bye tour. In retrospect, the 15 years it would take them to reach another World Series shouldn’t have been the least bit surprising. The 2009 World Series was exciting, but it was the end. It was the last gasp.

This current Yankees team has a few old guys, too. Aaron Judge is 34; Gerrit Cole is 36; Giancarlo Stanton is almost 37; Paul Goldschmidt is 39. But none of them had anything to do with the Yankees’ full-on vivisection of the Red Sox in the American League Wild Card Series the last couple of days, a series they swept on Wednesday night with a 9-2 win, a series in which they outscored their hated rivals 18-2, a series in which they ignited Yankee Stadium without seemingly breaking much of a sweat. They did it all with young guys.

In game one, 25-year-old Cam Schlittler, who is about to become the seventh pitcher in Yankees history to win the Cy Young Award, struck out ten batters and........

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