Two teams from the American League East are in the league’s championship series, and one of them is not the Yankees. This is the third time in six years and fourth time in 10 years that two A.L. East teams have played for the league pennant, and in every one of those previous instances the teams were the Red Sox and the Yankees.

What has happened to the Yankees? It’s not just that they have been replaced by the Tampa Bay Rays in this post-season; that development could turn out to be a transitory glitch. More significantly, the Yankees have been eclipsed by the Red Sox as the premier team and organization in the division.

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Who said the Cubs were going to win the World Series? Who said their manager would be crowned King of Chicago?

Right now, after the Los Angeles Dodgers swept the Cubs out of the playoffs 1-2-3, Lou Piniella is about as popular on the north side of Chicago as Steve Bartman. Piniella was 11 wins away from being crowned king or even more impressive, being deified. Eleven wins could be a lot, but the Cubs compiled the best won-lost record in the National League during the season and were considered the favorite to win the N.L. pennant and advance to the World Series, which they haven’t won since 1908.

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Home runs and runs were down for the second successive season this year, but do not jump to conclusions.

It would be easy to speculate that the absence of steroids and amphetamines has had a debilitating effect on hitters, resulting in fewer home runs being hit and fewer runs scored. But the reduced numbers aren’t unique to the years when testing scared players off the stuff.

It wasn’t that many years ago that the major leagues experienced a similar dropoff in home runs and runs scored. We need to go back only to 2001 and 2002, courtesy of Elias Sports Bureau, to find the last time those figures fell for two successive seasons.

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