By Jim Caltagirone

For the Mirror

As the Yankees and Guardians opened play in the American League Championship Series, the youngest generation of New York fans continued to wait expectantly for a world championship to call their own.

Entering this year’s postseason, it had been 15 frustrating years for New York fans since the club’s last title run in 2009.

That streak of futility was the franchise’s longest since the 16-season drought that stretched from the 1979 campaign to the beginning of the Derek Jeter-led dynasty in 1996.

No World Series was played in 1994 due to the players’ strike.

For teams that have national followings, such as the Yankees, Steelers, Cowboys and Lakers, falling short of winning a championship is never simply a disappointment to fans.

It is always a symbol of cataclysmic failure.

Fans deserve a pass for harboring unrealistic expectations. Any team that dominates its sport for an extended period — the Montreal Canadiens of past years or the Kansas City Chiefs of today — creates them.

While Yankees fans have celebrated an unparalleled 27 championships, detractors have railed against the perceived arrogance, entitlement and extravagance of baseball’s “Evil Empire” in the Bronx.

A comment from Chili Davis, an outfielder and DH who played on New York World Series championship teams in 1998 and ’99, perfectly captured the distinctive standard of excellence that the Yankees aspire to maintain.

“When you go to other parks, they hang banners for the wild-card or Eastern Division or Western Division champions,” he said. “Around here, they don’t hang anything unless it’s for being world champions.”

That’s the type of protocol that raises the ire of baseball fans who loathe the guys in pinstripes.

The Yankee mystique originated with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig and expanded throughout several different eras.

From the mid-1930s through the early ’60s, in particular, Yankee domination fostered eternal optimism in their fans, while instilling a sense of hopelessness in major league baseball communities around the country.

However, parity has ruled the game over the last three decades. Excluding the five titles that the Yankees captured between 1996 and 2009, 15 other teams have combined for 23 championships.

In the seven seasons from 2017 through 2023, the Yankees advanced to the postseason six times without reaching the World Series.

New York produced the best record in the American League this past season. Among most fan bases, that achievement alone would be cause for contentment.

For Yankees fans, earning homefield advantage is a piece of useless trivia unless it paves a path to yet another ticker-tape parade in the Canyon of Heroes.

Nevertheless, the legacy of DiMaggio, Berra, Mantle and so many other Yankees immortals is as distinct as the iconic frieze at The Stadium.

“The essence of the Yankees is that they win,” wrote columnist Dave Anderson of The New York Times. “From in front or from behind, they win. And that’s why the history of the New York Yankees is virtually the history of baseball.”

When Marty Appel was working on his book about Yankees history titled Pinstripe Empire, a friend who rooted for the Detroit Tigers told him to remember that “a down time for the Yankees was a pretty good time for fans of other teams.”

That comment says as much about the unparalleled success of the franchise as any recitation of the past championship seasons.

Of course, the next World Series title is the one that the youngest generation of Yankees fans will forever cherish most.

Jim Caltagirone writes a monthly column for the Mirror.