NEW YORK – They waited 15 years to reach baseball’s biggest stage, only to step back in the biggest moments.

They pride themselves on developing and importing players tough enough for the biggest gaming market – only to then gain exposure themselves when it mattered most.

And when the New York Yankees dispersed for the winter Wednesday night, they did so with the most bittersweet taste imaginable: That they lost that world series playing well below their capabilities.

THE DODGERS WIN THE WORLD SERIES: Celebrate with this commemorative coffee table book!

The Yankees didn’t want to go out like that, but boy, have they ever done it. Let’s be clear: the Los Angeles Dodgers were by far the superior team, a fact borne out by their 4-1 conquest of the Yankees in these World Series.

But in take a five-point lead in the fifth inning of the deciding Game 5 before losing, 7-6, and never being able to get the better of the Dodgers thanks largely to self-inflicted wounds, the Yankees showed they weren’t quite ready for this most broadcast stage in prime time.

And this is how the battle of the super teams unfolded Freddie Freeman, World Series MVP and three-time champion Mookie Betts, year-old import Teoscar Hernandez and relentlessly clutch Kiké Hernandez, all contributing mightily to the series-clinching victory in ways large and small.

The Yankees? They dropped a routine ball, missed a forcing play, failed to cover the first – all in one run – and by missing Games 1 and 5, they wasted a strong chance to win their first championship since 2009.

“I think my failure in the World Series will stay with me until I die,” said franchise player Aaron Judge, whose Game 5 was a trip in itself: a two-run homer to end a lingering slump and give them the advantage in the first. inning, a surprising catch against the wall in left center field to rob Freeman – but then he missed a routine fly ball to pour kerosene on a five-run rally.

“Like any other loss, these things don’t go away. There are battle scars all along the way. I hope that when my career is over, there will be battle scars, but also plenty of victories along the way.

The wound opened during this fifth round could take some time to heal.

It started when Kiké Hernandez had a leadoff single against Gerrit Cole, breaking his no-hitter. Tommy Edman then threw a fly to center that Judge walked in on, leaned down and grabbed. Maybe he looked up too soon. Regardless, the ball bounced off his glove.

And a Yankee team leading 5-0 suddenly felt extremely vulnerable against the powerful Dodgers.

What happened next could partly be described as “It’s baseball” moments, but not entirely.

THE DODGERS WIN THE WORLD SERIES: Celebrate with this commemorative coffee table book!

With two runs, Will Smith hit a grounder into the hole at shortstop. Anthony Volpe’s best move on a strikeout was throwing to third. But Hernandez provided a distraction in the base paths. Volpe bounced the ball to third.

Jazz Chisholm couldn’t win. Bad throw and no help at the other end.

Bases loaded.

Cole – who manager Aaron Boone called “really brilliant” – came close, striking out No. 9 hitter Gavin Lux and Shohei Ohtani. Betts then placed a ball down the first base line.

He rolled toward the bag, spun toward the infield, zig-zagged and zagged in a way that makes a ball when hit awkwardly. First baseman Anthony Rizzo had no choice but to freeze and let the spinning orb stabilize.

Yet Cole – midway through a grueling 38-pitch inning – failed to get off the mound and cover at first. Bets were rushed all over the line. And won the strangest RBI single.

“I think Gerrit – everything he went through in that round, kind of exhausted and kind of coming out of it, just didn’t react quickly enough to get over it.” , Boone said. “Because of the rotation, Rizz had to make sure you secured it somehow.

“It’s hard to get through that ball spinning like that.”

And then the Dodgers pounced.

Freeman hit a two-run single. Teoscar Hernández conceded two more with a two-run double. The 5-0 lead, the hope of it coming back to Los Angeles for Game 6, was gone.

The rest seemed incidental: The Yankees fought back to take a 6-5 lead, but gave it up with two in the eighth, with the Dodgers taking advantage of a depleted Yankees bullpen to cash in two championship-caliber sacrifice flies.

But the devil was in the fundamentals, which often harassed the Yankees during a 94-win regular season and into the postseason.

They’ll likely win Game 1 if Gleyber Torres doesn’t massacre a pitch from the outfield and give the Dodgers a crucial late-inning extra base. They will almost certainly win game five if the fifth set was flawless.

This is the difference between runners and champions.

“You can’t give extra outs to teams like that,” Judge says. “They are going to capitalize – their 1-2-3 at the top of the table, they are not missing it. If you give them a chance with guys on base, they’re going to take advantage of it. We must limit errors.

“That’s what it comes down to. You don’t give your opponent room to breathe. You go back to the first game, with a few mistakes there, it’s a game changer for us. That fifth inning – it hurt us there.

“Even though we were able to fight back and stay locked in, you can’t give them extra takedowns.”

And so the Yankees had to brandish the same word, from Chisholm to Boone and several others: Heartbroken.

They insisted this was a tight group, a special group, a group who left the club doors closed for 45 minutes after the game to talk about how special it was.

By the time they separated, the Dodgers had already hoisted the trophy and were several leaves to the wind a few hundred feet down the lane.

Better luck next year? Soto could be done for. Torres is a free agent. The brilliance of the bullpen when it matters most is a hard thing to repeat.

No, what matters most is probably how the Yankees respond to this lack of attention to detail, to these cracks that appear at the worst possible times.

To find out what makes the difference when October turns into November.

Judge was asked what he would remember from this first World Series experience. He paused, 15 seconds of silence, and thought about his answer.

“A lot of different things, to be honest,” he says. “The chance to see Yankee Stadium vibrate like that was pretty special. To see the city come to life. To compete with these guys, you fight through so much BS throughout the season – ups and downs, winning streaks, losing streaks, tough decisions that don’t go your way.

“It all comes down to these last few games like this.”

Maybe they’ll be better next time.

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This article was originally published on USA TODAY: Aaron Judge’s World Series mistake ‘will stay with me until I die’