KANSAS CITY — It was just an allusion, still too early in October to bookmark the clip for history. But it’s a familiar and comforting visual that has preceded champagne before: with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, a New York Yankees center fielder in a gray uniform glides to his right to track a fly ball, then squeezes it to end a postseason series.

Two dozen years ago, it was Bernie Williams at Shea Stadium. This time it was Aaron Judge in Kansas City, snagging a routine fly from Yuli Gurriel, pumping his fist and pointing to the sky. Onward they go.

Get ready for chicken buckets in the Bronx!

The @Yankees are heading back to the #ALCS!

(MLB x @BudweiserUSA) #CLINCHED pic.twitter.com/JrFHzavHIF

— MLB (@MLB) October 11, 2024

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The Yankees finished off the Kansas City Royals in Game 4 on Thursday, 3-1 on the scoreboard and 3-1 in games for this American League Division Series. They are the second MLB team to earn an invitation to the league championship series and, yes, they’re aware of the other: the New York Mets.

“It’s going to be definitely a fun time in New York, man,” Judge said, after the usual boozy revelry in the visitors clubhouse. “They’re having a great season, and it’s going to be fun to look forward to, down the road, getting a chance to face them again.”

For the Yankees and Mets, those roads rarely converge this time of year. In the 55 seasons of LCS play, this will be just the third to feature both the Yankees and Mets. You might remember the others: 1999, when only the Yankees won, and 2000, when New York City had the World Series all to itself.

The Mets and the Yankees met for five thrillers, each decided by one or two runs. The series was purely delectable, right until the waiter took your plate too soon. When Williams caught Mike Piazza’s drive to end Game 5, it left fans starving for more.

We’re still hungry — at least in New York, where the World Series seemed like a birthright in the years before expansion. From Game 1 in 1949 through Game 2 in 1957, 44 of a possible 48 World Series games took place in New York. It couldn’t have been much fun for the rest of the country, but in the land of Yankees, Giants and Dodgers, it must have been a delight.

Lately, the World Series has mostly taken place elsewhere: 80 of the last 83 games have been staged outside of New York, dating to the Yankees’ last championship in 2009. The Mets reached the World Series in 2015, but the Yankees have dropped their last five appearances in the ALCS, three with Judge as their centerpiece.

“It means everything,” Judge said of this latest chance. “Since I’ve been here with the Yankees, we haven’t secured a pennant. The group that we have, how special this is — just excited for this opportunity. It’s going to be something special.”

The Yankees’ last division series victory was a choppy, waterlogged mess: five games in eight exhausting days against Cleveland in 2022. They had no days off before a series with the Houston Astros, then the defending AL champions, who had three days to rest and rolled to a sweep.

This time, the Yankees will be rested, their opponent rushed. By winning here on Thursday, the Yankees earned a three-day break before Game 1 in the Bronx on Monday against the Guardians or Tigers, who will settle their ALDS on Saturday in Cleveland.

“In ’22 we kind of limped into it a little bit,” manager Aaron Boone said, recalling the late-season injuries and punishing division series. “I remember getting into Houston middle of the night — not an excuse, but I feel like we’re in a better place right now, just from a roster standpoint, health standpoint.

“But you get to this point, now we’ll be down to the final four. Everyone is feeling pretty good about their teams. That’s the case for me.”

The Yankees are doing what good teams should in October: protecting late leads, playing solid defense and wearing down the other team’s pitchers. The bullpen spun 15 2/3 scoreless innings against Kansas City, novice first basemen Jon Berti and Oswaldo Cabrera played flawlessly, and Yankees hitters drew 27 walks — while striking out just 28 times — against a Royals staff that had prided itself on control.

“The way that the whole lineup was able to work at-bats, make the pitchers work and get the next guy up,” catcher Austin Wells said. “That’s been what we’re trying to do here, so I think (we’ve) done a really good job.”

The Yankees never trailed in two games here, but the opener last Saturday was the first postseason game ever with five lead changes. The Yankees prevailed that night, and that’s what Judge cited when asked what gives him the most optimism now.

“I think (it goes) back to that first game,” he said. “We faced a lot of adversity in the regular season, a lot of ups and downs, a lot of tough times, a lot of good times. To come away with the best record in the AL was huge for us, and then you go to the first game where they punch us, we punch them, they punch us back, we take back the lead. Just a lot of back and forth, which that’s what’s going to happen in the postseason.

“You guys have been watching the postseason and what’s been going on. Just a lot of lead changes and who can keep throwing punches when you’re getting beat on. A lot of fight out of these guys. Just never quit.”

It’s the same story with the Mets, who staged comeback victories in their postseason clincher in Atlanta, both of their first-round wins in Milwaukee, and two of their NLDS victories against the Phillies.

The Yankees are not surprised. They revere the Mets’ manager, Carlos Mendoza, who coached on Boone’s staff for six seasons before switching boroughs last fall.

“I knew he was fully ready for that job,” Boone said. “Connects well with people. He’s obviously bilingual and he’s very good at communicating with anyone. You realize what a good dude he is, and you recognize his intelligence, too. So he’s just the real deal.”

Imagine a World Series pitting Boone and a protégé; the Steinbrenners and the Cohens; the homegrown sluggers (Judge and Pete Alonso); the imports who seem made for New York (Juan Soto and Francisco Lindor); the Bleacher Creatures and that Grimace creature.

OK, so we don’t even know the LCS matchups quite yet. Four other teams are also desperate to crash the stage in late October. But for right now — for a New York minute, you might say — the only ones who know they’ll be playing for the pennant are the Mets and Yankees.

A Subway Series? In 2024, they could make it there.

The Athletic’s Brendan Kuty contributed to this story.
(Top photo of Francisco Lindor and Juan Soto in July: Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)

It hasn’t taken long for New York Giants rookie Malik Nabers to show why he was one of the first wide receivers selected in the 2024 NFL Draft.

The No. 6 overall pick’s 35 catches through four games leads the league. But Sunday will mark the second consecutive game the star wideout will miss due to a head injury. On Friday, the Giants officially ruled Nabers out of New York’s Sunday night game against the Cincinnati Bengals.

Although Nabers has not been able to practice the past couple of weeks, he did recently spend some time enjoying a concert at the Giants’ home stadium in New Jersey.

A video surfaced on social media showing Nabers entering one of the stadium’s tunnels as security personnel held some concert attendees back.

Nabers was one of an estimated 60,000 fans who watched hip-hop star Travis Scott perform in support of his “Utopia” album in East Rutherford. “Utopia” became the bestselling rap album of 2023.

NFL GREAT BELIEVES PANIC IN JETS’ ORGANIZATION PLAYED A ROLE IN ROBERT SALEH’S FIRING

While it is unclear where exactly Nabers was on his road to recovery, loud music and bright lights can often worsen concussion symptoms. However, teams typically handle each concussion based on the unique circumstances and how a given player responds over days, weeks or even months.

New York Giants wide receiver Malik Nabers (1) is helped off the field after an injury during the fourth quarter against the Dallas Cowboys at MetLife Stadium.  (Brad Penner-Imagn Images)

Nabers most recently appeared in a game in Week 4 when the Giants lost 20-15 to the Dallas Cowboys.

New York Giants wide receiver Malik Nabers (1) looks to run after catching a pass at MetLife Stadium.  (Julian Guadalupe/NorthJersey.com)

Giants head coach Brian Daboll was asked to share his thoughts on Nabers’ appearance at the concert. But the coach stopped short of divulging any details. 

“I’ll keep that in house,” Daboll said.

Nabers has 386 receiving yards and three touchdowns so far this season.

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The refrain felt frustratingly familiar. Here again, in the wake of another disappointing defeat, was the same rosy message from Lincoln Riley, reassuring the public that USC was really just a few plays, a few stops, a few inches away from where its coach wanted them to be.

It’s all a matter of perspective. Still, however close USC might have come, however “battle-tested” it might now be, the harsh reality is Riley has lost seven of his last 12 as the Trojans coach. That’s equivalent to the worst 12-game stretch of Clay Helton’s tenure as USC’s coach.

With No. 4 Penn State on tap Saturday at the Coliseum, the Trojans now find themselves playing for their College Football Playoff lives in mid-October, with zero room for error.

“I promise you,” Riley said this week, “we’re still a very confident team. This isn’t some team that has two losses where we got our ass kicked. No, that’s not the case. We know what we’re capable of.”

Miller Moss had a lot of time to consider that subject on the long flight home from Minneapolis on Oct. 5.

“The most important thing for us right now,” the quarterback said, “is everything we stood for, we worked for, all the messages we said to the team that said what we were about, when you face adversity like this, that’s when that gets tested the most.”

Coming up, against Penn State this weekend, is that fork-in-the-road moment.

“We have two pretty clear choices,” Moss continued. “Double down on who we are and get closer as a team and go forward with the great opportunity we have this weekend, or let this affect us and deter us from what we ultimately want to do.”

We should, by Saturday night, have a much better idea which path the Trojans have chosen.