The rare scheduling quirk that had both the Yankees and Mets playing in New York this past week provided us with the chance to bounce between the Bronx and Flushing within a 24-hour span.

The experiences were shockingly similar. And not in the ways we would have anticipated back in mid-June.

Hal Steinbrenner and Steve Cohen both spent over $300 million to build what everyone assumed were legitimate October contenders. Instead, what we’ve witnessed over the last 2 1/2 months, and more specifically since the All-Star break, has been the play of pretenders here in August — a degree of failure that was unimaginable when the two New York rivals were penciled in for a Subway Series rematch on June 12.

Not surprisingly, the chorus on both sides of town has struck a familiar refrain, led by

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