That should make it more exciting, not less so. And before the Yankees spent the rest of the game into submission, we’d have been drooling over the possibilities and permutations, arguing long into the night which of a host of flawed teams might emerge as a favorite to win it all. It wasn’t that long ago, just a dozen years, when that was the case, when the stories were about who might succeed instead of about what the elephant in the living room was going to do next.

We’ve become so used to having the Yankees as baseball’s all-powerful monster that it’s hard to think of the regular season as a fair fight. Instead of appreciating what we have, we’re consumed by what we don’t have. And we keep imagining that the real Yankees — like the real Mike Tyson — will suddenly emerge and give us the thrill of the massacre again.

It’s not going to happen. But it takes a while to get used to the concept of the Yankees being just another team and the races for the playoffs a contest among teams that all have flaws or injuries or both. In the meantime, it just looks dull.

Over the past decade, teams chasing New York had an underdog’s nobility. If a team won a division with 88 victories, it wasn’t a failure, because the game’s Mt. Everest remained for the season’s survivors to try to climb. And when they did, as has happened in the past four postseasons, it was a moment to savor.

Would the Red Sox’s victory last year have been as sweet and memorable if they had not had to go through the Yanks? Would the Angels’ first world title? Would Arizona and Florida have celebrated with the same gusto if they had beaten Cleveland instead of New York. (No need to answer that. All you need to say is that Atlanta’s only title came by beating the Indians, and if I were a Braves’ fan, the losses to the Yankees in the Series remain more painfully memorable than the victory over the Tribe.)

Slide show: The Week in Sports Pictures   Oct. 3 - 9 Images from the baseball playoffs, NFL, college football, and more.

It’s possible that my view of things is warped by being too close to the gravitational field of Yankee Stadium. Elsewhere in America, baseball fans may well be consumed by what their teams might accomplish rather than by what the Yankees might not.

Still, what the Yankees do is always at or near the top of the daily “SportsCenter” broadcast. Still, the joy of watching the Yankees suffer is as great as the joy of watching your own team prosper.

They’re not a good team anymore, and still they dominate the way we view 30 teams and six months of competition. These are good races we’re watching. But without the damn Yankees leading the way, it’s hard to see them that way. If the Yankees aren’t great, nobody’s great.