Yankees fans complaining about Dodgers should remember how their own dynasty soured

Once upon a time, the impenetrable trio of Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and John Smoltz could not be beaten in a short series -- until they were. Repeatedly. The Yankees did it a few times.

Those Yankees who first vanquished the mighty Braves, in 1996, where faced with an impossible task. Atlanta was the defending World Series champion. They had the 1995 league MVP. They had a pitching staff stacked stem to stern with Cy Youngs. At the horn, they added a 19-year-old with the poise of Mickey Mantle. They took a 2-0 series lead on the Yankees in the Fall Classic with a battering ram, headed home to seal the deal.

You think the Dodgers have a "guaranteed World Series" in January? That Atlanta team, two wins away from a title ... that was a guarantee.

And yet the Yankees, not yet a dynasty, hung with their fingertips on the edge of a skyscraper, watching the clock tick closer to Game 6, realizing that they were not dead yet. No one is, until the very final out.

After the Dodgers signed Roki Sasaki ... and after the Dodgers signed Blake Snell ... and after the Dodgers brought back Teoscar Hernández ... and, yes, even after they signed Hye-seong Kim, a player who most fans only learned about/got angered by after he joined the Dodgers, the prevailing sentiment has been that the rest of MLB is screwed. That this is over. That it's unfair that one team could sign every star.

If you're a Yankee fan, this should sound familiar. You've heard it before. This is what everyone was saying about you ... well, right around the time the dynasty ended, actually.

2024 Dodgers resemble 1996 Braves just as much as 1998 Yankees

Because, notably, the 1996-2000 Yankees were built on shrewd drafting, both in the first round (Derek Jeter) and in the middle (Jorge Posada in the 24th, Andy Pettitte in the 22nd). They were built on hidden international gems, like Mariano Rivera. They were built on subtle trades for Paul O'Neill (using a distressed asset former elite prospect in Roberto Kelly) and reinforced by deals for Scott Brosius types. Would anyone have tweeted that the season was "over" when the Yankees nabbed Brosius off the A's bench? No. But it was.

Many associate Roger Clemens' arrival in 1999 as the moment the Yankees transformed into a death star, absorbing the talents of other teams and regurgitating them without beards. That was certainly a defining moment. Maybe Chuck Knoblauch really set you off and that was the point of no return. In reality, though, the Yankees' dynasty was predicated on an entirely different foundation. Their next generation, as O'Neill, Brosius, Bernie Williams and Tino Martinez moved on, was the one marked by hoarding assets, no matter the sense of the fit.

Jason Giambi in 2002: let's shock the world! Jose Contreras: gotta win that bidding war with Boston! Gary Sheffield. Kevin Brown. Randy Johnson. Carl Pavano. Kei Igawa. Bobby Abreu. A-Rod. These were the Yankees teams that had nothing. They were just winging it. Each spring, they'd broken baseball. Each October, someone else had broken them.

So, yes. The Dodgers have overflowing chemistry. They have impossibly deep pockets. They somehow have 37 active roster spots. They're the defending World Champions. And they have a rotation of steel; their No. 6 starter might be stronger than the Mets' ace (but at least Juan Soto has a suite!).

But so were the 1996 Braves. And they were dethroned by a cobbled-together, veteran-laden, budding young core that refused to give up. The season's only over if you let it end.