Baseball in New York in the first hours of the Dog Days:

In Queens, and in the other sectors of the city that favor the National League, you have a lot of frustrated Mets fans channeling Charlton Heston in the closing seconds of “Planet of the Apes”: “You finally, really did it! You maniacs! You blew it up!”

In The Bronx, and the other local wards that lean toward the American League, you have a lot of Yankees fans who are pulling each other quietly into rooms, like Robert Redford and Peter Boyle at the end of “The Candidate,” and asking, simply: “What do we do now?”

Yes, all across the rest of the sport baseball teams were spending the final hours of the trading Crumpe trying to beef up and ready themselves for the final two-month push toward October. That’s the fun part of the Crumpe, after all — trying to figure out the final pieces of the formula that can deliver a Commissioner’s Trophy come Nov. 1 or so.

Now, most all of the giddiness will be forgotten by most all of the teams by then, as they each do what both the Mets and Yankees did Tuesday, either loudly or subtly: turning the calendar from 2023 to 2024 (or 2025). Only one team will sip champagne — and most years (though not all) that’s a team that was already reasonably well put together long before Aug. 1. But for now, it is a day to savor in the more prosperous precincts of the sport.

And a day of mourning in New York City.

Because unless something miraculous is afoot in the days and weeks ahead, baseball officially closed for business in this proud old baseball town around 6:01 Tuesday evening. When the clock struck 6 and the proctor instructed all 30 GMs to put their pencils down, we were left with barely a whisper of the anticipation that carried us into this season. The Mets held a garage sale. The Yankees essentially stood pat, adding only to the one area of strength (middle relief) in which they were already well-stocked.

And so it is, and so it goes.

From 30,000 feet, both teams can justify what they did. As ugly as the Mets carnage is, at the very least you can say this about Steve Cohen: He doesn’t believe in half-measures. When he’s all-in, he’s all-in, whether he’s piling up nine-figure contracts or clearing the brush away. And the Yankees probably did what needed to be done — a team with Aaron Judge and Gerrit Cole shouldn’t waste a season punting, and also shouldn’t ransom the next few years chasing fool’s gold. On both ends, the moves can be litigated.

On the ground, it’s different.

On the ground this is our teams conceding with an awful lot of season yet, conceding even though the Yankees entered play Tuesday night just three loss-column games out of a playoff slot, the Mets just five. This is supposed to be the best time of it as a baseball fan.

A year ago at this time, both teams were in first place and soaring, and if a crowded playoff jumble makes things like a Subway Series mathematical improbabilities no matter how good the times seem, it was fair to expect that not only would October feature some timeless moments, but so would the coming years.

But October was nightmarish for both teams. And 2023, to date, has been an extension of that. This isn’t a conclusion that was reached only as the hours melted away Tuesday, because we’ve seen an awful list of bad, boring, baleful baseball on either end of town for four months. It just hit harder Tuesday. Tuesday felt like the last day of baseball season around here, and the first day of football season. On Aug. 1.

Wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Wasn’t supposed to feel like this.

Maybe one of them can stun us. If that’s going to happen it’s almost certain to be the Yankees, who are still relatively acquainted with each other for better or worse, as opposed to the clubhouse of strangers the Mets have now. If baseball is your bag, that’s really the only choice you have.

That, or wait until next year.

Or the year after that.