So this is my final Extra Innings column for the school year. It amazes me that the year has flown by this fast. It amazes me that I’m going to be a senior next year. You know what amazes me the most though?

During my time in college, I’ve yet to experience a New York Yankees championship.

I know, I know … blasphemy, you cry. How could any person be forced to crawl through college without watching the Pinstriped Ones celebrate at the end of October? Sad, absolutely sad.

When I entered Fisher, the Yanks were at 26 World Series victories. Now, with only one year left to go, the Yanks remain at 26 World Series victories. In the meantime, I’ve had four different roommates, grown a beard and had my first legal beer. In fact, the Yanks haven’t even made the World Series during my college tenure.

My freshman year, I was subjected to the three Boston Red Sox fans along on campus with the dozens of bandwagon Red Sox fans harassing me as the Curse of the Bambino fell. I miss that curse.

This is a drought of epic proportions for the Yankees. Never in my lifetime – an illustrious 21 years – has there been a championship lapse of this length. (OK, so I lied. The Yanks didn’t win a World Series until just around my eleventh year of life, 1996, but this makes for a more emotional story.) It’s been over six years now since the Yankees last won it all. Six years. I was a freshman in high school.

You know what? Looking at high school, that was a pretty pathetic championship portfolio too – only one over four years. I watched the Yankees win World Series in two out of my three years in middle school. You may see that as spoiled, but I see it as almost perfect.

In terms of sports satisfaction during college, I’ve been left unfulfilled. I’ve scratched the Bills off my list of teams that can actually win – they appear to have given up at this point. So that leaves the Yankees. The greatest team in the history of sports.

This year can be the year. Our trio of future Hall of Famers – Joe Torre, Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera – are playing in what could be their final season together. Torre’s career in New York could be over after this season, and Mariano’s contract is up at the end of the year. The great Andy Pettitte has returned to the Bronx to reclaim the glory of Octobers past. New blood Robinson Cano and Chien-Ming Wang are coming into their own as Yankees. And even the much-maligned Alex Rodriguez is finding his groove in pinstripes.

I want this to be the year. I need this to be the year. I’m a Yankee fan. Our time scale is so much different from other teams. Yeah, the Cubs may be a century without a championship and the Red Sox may have gone 86 years without one, but the Empire isn’t built that way. Over half a decade is long enough.

I have one final go ‘round of the MLB postseason. Come October of my senior year, I want to be able to write an Extra Innings column about how it great it was to once again bask in the glow of a Yankees championship.