It might be up to the Yankees, the most storied and successful franchise in pro sports, to bring the Dynasty back to baseball.

You remember the Dynasty, don’t you? Those periods of time when the game would be dominated by one team, mostly, and cause the rest of the nation to will a pox on that team’s house?

No team NOT named the Yankees has won back-to-back World Series titles since the 1992-93 Toronto Blue Jays.

The 2009 Philadelphia Phillies gave it the best shot of any defending champion in recent years, but the mighty Yanks were too much for them.

So it’s going to be the Yankees, I suppose, who will have to bring the Dynasty back to baseball.

Ahh, but can they?

This group of Bronx Bombers is an old bunch. And, last I looked, the calendar moves forward, not backward.

If the younger Phillies couldn’t do it, why should we believe that a Yankees team one year older can pull it off in 2010?

The ages of the key Yankees players aren’t a figment of my imagination. As Casey Stengel said, “You can look it up!“

Derek Jeter: Will be 36 in June 2010
Johnny Damon (free agent): Just turned 36
Jorge Posada: Will be 39 in August
Andy Pettitte: Will be 38 in June
Alex Rodriguez: Will be 35 in July
Mariano Rivera: Will be 40 on November 29

Yes, there are some younger players who contribute. But this list of six are hardly benchwarmers in their own right.

Bottom line: the prospects of a Dynasty look bleak, although who knows what free agency and trades and homegrown kids might bring?

It may seem, on the surface, delectable that no team in recent years has been able to win more than one World Series in a row. Parity, that vanilla sports word.

But I submit to you that pro sports are more interesting when one or two teams are Kings of the Hill, and the others take turns trying to knock them off.

This is coming from a Midwesterner, by the way—-not an East Coast/New York snob.

It would have been nice, then, to see the Phillies win the World Series again, using my postulate for maintaining interest.

Two-time defending champions. Has a nice ring to it.

The Phillies were the first defending champ to even make it to the next year’s World Series since the—-surprise, surprise—-Yankees of 2001.

I know this isn’t a popular viewpoint. I understand the allure of variety. But variety can still come from the different challengers.

I’ll use boxing as an example.

When was boxing more fun and interesting—-when Muhammad Ali ruled it, or afterward, when barely anyone could name you the reigning world heavyweight champion?

Baseball needs a team to step up and be the game’s beasts for several years running. Makes it more compelling. My opinion.

That said, it doesn’t have to be the Yankees. I’m hardly a fan of theirs. But it’s not about whether you’re a fan of the dominators. You think the Chicago Bulls were America’s Team during Michael Jordan’s heyday?

It’s part of the fun—-to see the mighty toppled once in a while. But this jazz of a new champion every year, for nine years running now? Not liking it so much.

The Yankees might not be the team to save baseball, for the reasons stated above. It could still be the Phillies; if they win two out of three World Series, that’s a start. They’d be the first three-time defending league champions in the National League since those great Braves teams of the 1990s.

Right now, the only Dynasties we have are the reverse, anti ones.

The Nationals, Pirates, Royals, Orioles and Padres are annually bad. Every year, almost, they scrape the bottom of the standings in their respective divisions.

So there’s that to count on.

Hail to the losers!