This Holliday/Halladay Season

If confetti is anything like the pine needles from a real Christmas tree, there's probably some lingering evidence along Broadway, Manhattan's Canyon of Heroes, of last Friday's parade to honor the New York Yankees.

If you, unlike me, were a face in the crowd, I hope you had a grand time among the hundreds of thousands in enhancing your memory of this year's baseball season, one capped by a championship for the Yankees --- the 27th in their history.

Some folks might grouse and grumble over the parade's cost to New York City amid a terrible recession. But opportunities pay no mind to convenience. We only get just so many chances to join in a public party for something that means as much to total strangers as it does to us.

If you love the New York Yankees, this was one of those times.

A few years ago, I wouldn't have been so magnanimous when it comes to the Yankees and the people who live and die with the outcome of their games. There was a time when their reasons to celebrate were the same things that made me want to hurl myself into a dark closet, pound my fists and tear my hair out as I practiced primal screaming for a good hour or two.

Now, with the holiday season almost upon us (retailers working on a shorter calendar would have us believe it's been here since the day after Halloween), what better time than this to admit that Charlie Dickens was right: things can happen that soften a person's view.

For me, the great catharsis took place in 2004, when the Boston Red Sox -- the American League team I've rooted for longer than my favorite National League team, the New York Mets, has been in existence -- finally won a World Series without Babe Ruth. Then, for good measure, they did it again in 2007.

Two Red Sox championships in my lifetime. Imagine that.

I don't know if that helps to explain why I have such good feelings towards Derek Jeter or am glad that Hideki Matsui was named the World Series MVP.

But I do believe that if the Red Sox had been smarter about their plan to sign Mark Teixeira as a free agent during the last off-season, instead of giving the Yankees the opportunity, this year's championship parade would have taken place in another state.

This time around, since they didn't get Teixeira, the Red Sox should find a way to acquire first baseman Adrian Gonzalez from the San Diego Padres. But the lure of another ace pitcher in the form of Toronto's Roy Halladay is just as strong.

Of course, slugging outfielder Matt Holliday is out there as a free agent. So whether or not the holiday season is under way might be a matter of opinion right now, but the Holliday season began the moment after the Phillies' Shane Victorino grounded out to end the 2009 World Series.

Unlike the Red Sox, who have young talent to spare as chips for swapping, the Mets are ill-equipped to be players in any off-season trading game of major significance, which would preclude them from pursuing Halladay. But no question, they can spend some of the money they made this past year in getting the public to buy into an inferior product --- and that's where Matt Holliday comes in.

In truth, the Mets should not only go out and get Holliday, but drop another free agent, pitcher John Lackey, into the shopping cart as well. Or is 2010 the year that Ollie Perez, the $36 Million Man, finally puts it all together? Yeah, right.

Of course, the talk about next year started early for the 2009 Mets. When the highlight of a ball club's season is the firing of an executive, you know it's been a rough year. Okay, maybe that's a bit extreme; rate the ouster of Tony Bernazard as the second-best highlight, after the trade for Jeff Francoeur.

Then again, if I think about the shabby dugout coup that did in my man Willie Randolph, nothing the 2009 Mets did tops the long delayed but always hoped for axing of Bernazard. And at the risk of sounding like the leader of the Willie Randolph Revenge Squad, as much as the Mets could use starting pitching, I ask you: does anyone really want them to re-sign Carlos Delgado and count on him to boost the offense?

So, when next Opening Day rolls around, I want to see Holliday on the Mets and Halladay on the Red Sox.

Meanwhile, should the Yankees get in the way of these things, it's probably a safe bet that I'll be feeling like my feisty old self again before too long. Even for a '60s peacenik, two championships in six years buys only so much harmony.