Bronx, N.Y., Oct. 11 — Well, it’s back to a place we’ve been before, we Yankee fans and, more specifically, fans of this team, the one that has crafted this great run. And truth be told, although it takes milling through quite a few great memories to get back there, it’s really a pretty happy place.

In 1995 the road was a painful place as our team, newly emerged from the tawdry years of losing and stumbling to second-place (or worse) finishes, traveled to Seattle in need of one win to advance to the ALCS. Through three nights of yo-yo games and emotions we fought, only to have it all disintegrate in an ugly dome whose instantaneous annihilation I celebrated just a couple of years ago.

No, the season from which we can mine the fortitude and steadfastness to weather the current storm was the one in which this caravan first tasted baseball nirvana, 1996. We joked in the stands tonight how it was OK that we were trailing in Game 2, because there’s nothing like coming from behind. And coming from behind in the bottom of the ninth? That’s the ultimate.

Or so we supposed. The ultimate is traveling to an unfriendly city to be hosted by a team with great pitching, and if you can’t find a way to win two straight, your road travels (as a team) are over. And in ’96 we weren’t merely beaten by two runs apiece in Games 1 and 2 in the Cathedral. We were outclassed, outhit, outpitched, outhomered, outfielded — we had had a whooping put on us.

So we’ve flourished as road warriors before, and we can and will again. I will be forced to travel to the Bronx Monday, and I won’t be standing outside the Cathedral like a Middle Age supplicant in need of sanctuary. No, the gates will fly open, what light the setting sun and rising moon afford will be overcome by the megawatts the Yankees will provide. I’ll be there, in Box 622, and whatever time mlb and the country and the TV networks conspire to stretch that classic game to, I’ll be there to witness its conclusion.

I’ll have to won’t I? How else to realize the joy of surviving being 0-3 or whatever I’m dealt next? I’m living on the edge, and I like it.

See you Monday.

YANKEE BASEBALL!!!