Longoria's a One-Team Guy, but What About Cano? There was a time Evan Longoria would have been the ideal young veteran star to come save the tumbling Yankees. For much of the last four decades, spanning the Steinbrenner era, someone like Longoria - charismatic, skilled and strong - would have filled the gap likely to be left at third base next season by the diminished Alex Rodriguez. Longoria grew up in California, admiring Derek Jeter, who was a fixture in his postseason television viewing. A shortstop in his college playing days, Longoria wanted to be much like Jeter, just not necessarily in Yankees pinstripes. "I realized from a business standpoint that baseball has changed in the past 20, 30 years, and you see less and less guys that stay with the same team for a long time," Longoria said. But I always say that a guy like Derek had an impact on my fandom, the way I grew up watching baseball and what I really respected. It was one of the core values I wanted to live up to, follow through on. I always wanted to be kind of a benchmark player, the guy that you could think about or associate with the organization. Rather than plot an escape from a team that plays in a charmless domed stadium and ranks last in major league attendance, Longoria last November signed an upgraded contract that could be worth as much as $144.6 million and keep him with the Tampa Bay Rays for another decade, or into his late 30s. Longoria, 27, pledged allegiance to a fan base that collectively would yawn if the Rays picked up and left. He called it "a no-brainer to stay in the same organization that I was given an opportunity to play at the major league level with." He said this in the Rays" clubhouse Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium before going out to homer twice - his 30th and 31st of the season - in an 8-3 victory as the Yankees were eliminated from playoff contention. That made Thursday night's series finale quite the occasion for the Yankees, their first home game in 20 years in which they had no mathematical chance of qualifying for the postseason. The retiring Mariano Rivera's first Stadium experience with irrelevance was also his last game there. So too, possibly, for Robinson Cano. This is what it has come to for the Yankees as they hurtle toward the competitive unknown at the end of a regular season that will feature low-budget clubs from St. Petersburg, Oakland and Pittsburgh playing on into October. While Longoria could say he had committed to an organization that "is winning and is going to continue to give me a chance to play in the postseason and win a World Series," Cano, the Yankees" best player, was offering no assurances of re-signing with them as a free agent. With reports swirling that Cano and his agent, Jay-Z, have asked for a 10-year, $310 million deal, he said he would go home to the Dominican Republic, consult with his family, take his sweet time. Asked if he had spoken with Rivera and Jeter about the benefits of being a career-long Yankee, Cano said: "No. I haven't. But that's a good one. I might sit down and ask them, now that you mention it. It's a good question and those are the guys to talk to while they're still here about playing your whole career with one team. In the case of Rivera, at least, he was almost out of time. Though the Rays finished off the Yankees" slim hopes with consecutive lopsided victories, it was Longoria's opinion that Cano would not become that rarest of commodities - a star-level talent who would walk away from the Yankees" largess on multiple levels. "I'm sure Robby realizes that his organization is never going into a year saying they are rebuilding," Longoria said. You can't not like that, or respect that. The Rays" ability to develop pitchers and use that depth to trade for another budding hitting star in Wil Myers convinced Longoria that he made a wise choice. Can Cano be certain there is a quick fix or even a pragmatic strategy that will soon change the perception of the Yankees as an old, deconstructing team with punitive contracts and newly adopted salary constraints? Longoria surely could have made more money at some point through free agency. He chose familiarity and trust over enhanced celebrity and cash. "Initially it has to be about security for your future," he said. We all have to make money. But in the end, there definitely is a large differentiation between players, with what they want to get out of the game. What does Cano most want, and where can he get it? If a competitive bidder should offer much more for the 30-year-old Cano than a Yankees ownership that regrets a similar commitment to Rodriguez, can Cano even bank on the franchise's history of making every season a championship crusade? There is also a difference between intention and execution. Fixing these Yankees will take much more than communing with ghosts of championships past. Nor does one meaningless home game in 20 years make the Yankees a budding doormat. Alfonso Soriano, who played in 38 postseason games with the Yankees from 2001 to 2003 and 6 since, and none in the last five years - returned to the team of his youth this season and became a revitalized slugger just by the scent of the wild-card race. "When I played with the Cubs I always gave 100 percent physically," he said. But it was harder to do that mentally. Here, it's different. When I came back I said, I'm the same player, the same man. But I just play better because the organization wants to win so bad, they want to win now. That was Longoria's point, except he was making it while wearing the uniform of a team whose under-$60 million payroll could not afford the infield the Yankees hoped to have this season. But the Rays will play on toward October, while the Yankees have nothing to play for at all. Yes, there was a time when Longoria wanted to be like Derek Jeter and it seemed like every star wanted to be a Yankee. But times have changed. And in the case of Longoria, credit or blame Jeter - presumably a Yankee for life - for helping to have changed them.