The period was brief and, as it turned out, insignificant. Yet it prompted one of my favorite e-mails of the year.

This happened in September when the Yankees produced their best, albeit brief, stretch of the season. They played so well that they fooled their fans into thinking they actually had a chance of making the playoffs.

Typical of the foolishly fervent fans was a reader, Robert Imperato, who wrote, “I guess you were wrong about the Yankees and Brian Cashman. I hope you acknowledge that one day. Have fun in Paris.”

I didn’t get the Paris reference, but I understood the rest of the reader’s comment. He apparently thought the Yankees were headed to the playoffs and was eager to stick it to me. One problem with that plan. It was premature, The Yankees didn’t go to the playoffs, and their failure, their third in four years, reinforced my belief that the Yankees need a new general manager.

I am not in the practice of advocating the dismissal of a general manager or a manager, but Cashman has had far too long and much too much money not to be able to put together a consistent winner. In Atlanta, John Schuerholz had far less money to spend and won 14 consecutive division championships.

Cashman, on the other hand, has established a record in his 19 years as the Yankees’ general manager that will never be surpassed or matched. Cashman has squandered more money than any general manager in baseball history without reaching the post-season.

Yes, the Yankees have won the World Series under Cashman, but Gene Michael, a Cashman predecessor, a great talent evaluator and a far better general manager, forged the groundwork for much of his success. Money did the rest.

After finishing third in 2008, for example, the Yankees committed $432.5 million to three free agents (Mark Teixeira, CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett). That was only a year after they re-signed Alex Rodriguez to a $275 million contract, biggest in baseball history.

Until a few years ago, when their new owners catapulted the Dodgers into the upper salary stratosphere, the Yankees were the only team that had compiled a $200 million payroll. They have now exceeded $200 million nine times. All of the other clubs combined have exceeded $200 million four times. Those payrolls belonged to the Dodgers. In other words, no team the Yankees compete with for the American League pennant is anywhere near the Yankees’ spending level.

Cashman is competing alone, and he still can’t win. Talk about a level playing field. The Yankees are at the apex of their playing field, and instead of winning they slide down what for them has been a very slippery slope.

In keeping his job as long as he had it, Cashman is just plain lucky. If George Steinbrenner were alive and running the Yankees, he would have fired Cashman five or more years ago. During his tenure running the team, Steinbrenner fired better general managers who didn’t win.

It’s not altogether puzzling why Steinbrenner’s son, Hal, hasn’t fired Cashman. Hal, it seems, is intent on being the opposite of his father. He is quiet, not bombastic; he doesn’t criticize his players or other employees publicly, if at all.

Since it is the Steinbrenner family’s money that Cashman is squandering, it is up to Hal and his brother and two sisters, as well as the family matriarch, Joan, to determine Cashman’s status. But they can’t possibly be happy spending all those hundreds of millions of dollars without getting meaningful October games in return.

Maybe the Steinbrenner clan should study the recent success of the nouveau-riche Dodgers. In four full seasons under the current owners, the Dodgers have had an aggregate payroll of $960 million, more even than the Yankees’ $865 million.

But while the Yankees have competed in a single post-season game in that period, losing the wild-card game to Houston in 2015, scoring no runs, the Dodgers have won four division championships and reached the league championship series, falling two wins short of the World Series last season.

When the new owners assumed command of the team in April 2012, they hired Stan Kasten as president and CEO. A year and a half later Andrew Friedman became free of his Tampa Bay contract, and Kasten swooped in and grabbed him as president of baseball operations.

Before that Friedman stretch the Dodgers had never finished in first place more than two years in a row.

But while the Dodgers under Friedman continue to spend money exorbitantly and win division championships with a chance for more World Series appearances, the Yankees struggle pathetically first to gain and then win a post-season game.

Maybe the Yankees need to look at the numbers in a different context.

During Cashman’s 19-year tenure, the Yankees have opened their seasons with payrolls totaling $3,289,700,000. That astounding total is 33% greater – nearly a billion more – than the next highest, $2,473,100,000, belonging to the Red Sox, the Yankees’ chief rival. The Dodgers are next at $2,370,500,000.

But go back to the Yankees and the Red Sox. For two decades with Cashman operating the Yankees, the teams fought for division dominance, and the Red Sox were at a total disadvantage $816 million disadvantage. That averages to $42.9 million a year.

Clearly Cashman is not playing on a level field, but even with that advantage he can’t win. Take away the Steinbrenner check book, and where would he be?

LABOR PEACE?

Having covered all of baseball’s eight work stoppages – five strikes, three lockouts – I was prepared for No. 9. My fondness for labor coverage was unusual among my baseball-writing colleagues, who hated that part of the job. In 1981, for example, the New York Daily News had three baseball writers, and none of them wanted anything to do with the strike.

As a result, the newspaper assigned its labor writer to cover the strike. Ray Grebey, the owner’s chief labor negotiator, caught on to the fact the reporter knew nothing about baseball labor matters and fed him outrageously phony stories. The reporter won a New York Journalism prize for his coverage.

One owner once said I was for the forces of instability, but that wasn’t it. I just loved covering an important news story, and the strikes of 81- and 234-days were important stories.

So it was in August 2002 that I was ready for No. 9. It was like anticipating the first pitch on opening day. The pitch, however, was never thrown. On Aug. 20, the two sides announced they had reached agreement on a new collective bargaining agreement.

I was stunned. What do I do now? I asked.

Fourteen years and zero labor fights later, I have survived. So have the owners and the players and most importantly so has baseball. Major Leagues Baseball, in fact, has thrived, its revenue soaring from just beyond $1 billion to more than $9 billion. Labor peace has served owners and players well.

The current agreement expires Dec. 1. Two recent reports addressed the subject. One, in The New York Times, was the most shallow, superficial, report I have ever read concerning baseball or any other labor field. The Times would probably have been better off running another soccer story in its place.

The thrust of the article was that the two sides would reach an agreement without a war. That may very well be true, but the article totally missed the one negative development that had crept into the talks. The day after the Times article appeared FoxSports.com reported that the owners were considering locking out the players if the talks failed to produce an agreement.

A member of management said the possibility of a lockout was real. “The talks were going very slowly,” he said, “and we had to do something in case we didn’t reach an agreement.”

That day, he added, the two sides made significant progress and didn’t expect a problem reaching an agreement before the expiration of the current agreement on Thursday.