Subway Series? Good for N.Y., bad for baseball

The momentum is beginning to build. The baseball stars are starting to align in a perfect storm of bloated payrolls and big-market self-importance. The Subway Series Part Dos is coming.

When the Yankees celebrated at Shea in 2000, did anyone see it? (Getty Images)

The New York Mets vs. the New York Yankees ... in the World Series. It's heading that way. The buzz in New York about the possibility is beginning to grow, while the rest of the country starts to wince in pain at just the thought.

Please don't let it happen.

Please, please, please. On the knees, begging, hoping something occurs to derail what seems to be the inevitable.

One New York team in it? Cool. Fantastic. Both? A total disaster for baseball.

Yankees versus Mets. Again. Yucky. Sucky.

Don't think it will happen? Just glance at the standings. The Yankees took the Boston Red Sox, bent the organization and its neurotic fans over one knee, and spanked them into oblivion. Even for Red Sox fans, who take pride in wallowing in their misery, that piece of total obliteration caused massive therapy bills. That series propelled the Yankees to the best record in the American League East.

(Meanwhile, Alex Rodriguez has been able to remove the "Kick Me" sign from his back. His bat is getting warm at just the right time.)

The Mets do play in the junior varsity that is the National League, but they remain the most dangerous team in baseball, owners of the best record in the sport and a club capable of beating any team, anywhere. They are that good.

So here we go. Baseball's brash bullies, their big, fat hulking bank accounts prepared to again collide, the two rich kids on the block racing their yachts to the finish line while the rest of baseball shakes its head in disgust and wallows in their tiny payrolls.

"Brother, can you spare some salary cap cash?" the Tampa Bay Devil Rays ask.

Subway Series Part Dos -- "This Time It's For Real!" will be the slogan. It would be splendid for New York, but absolutely, positively horrible for baseball.

What the sport needs is diversity. It needs a World Series that features new names and franchises and rivalries. Not the same old superpowers battling it out with their hefty savings accounts.