New York Yankees Are the Champs

For some people, that sentence is almost as hateful as telling a Republican that Rush Limbaugh is a cross-dresser. (For the litigious among us, please note that I am NOT calling Rush Limbaugh a cross-dresser, nor am I implying, hinting, or otherwise stating that he enjoys mincing around his studio in whatever the Victoria's Secret plus-size lingerie catalog has to offer. These are the jokes, kinda like when he said watching an NFL game was like watching the Bloods and Crips. But I digress.)

The New York Yankees are the champions of baseball; further, they are worthy of being champions. (The author is really, really glad that he's not within hand's reach just now...and he's done digressing...and referring to himself in the third person. He thinks.)

They are worthy of being the champions of baseball for several reasons. They won 103 games in the regular season; no one else won over 100. They validated each of those 103 wins with the way they marched through the post-season. Minnesota was little more than batting practice, going meekly in the minimum three games, with their bags packed and their engines idling. Anaheim took a little more convincing, actually winning the odd game here and there before being shown the door.

Then, there are last season's champions, the Philadelphia Phillies, in search of vindication. After all, paraphrasing Mike Lupica's recent left-handed sport-cup check, that was the Devil Rays they beat last season. These are the New York Yankees. I believe the appropriate Shakespearian quote is "damning with faint praise."

Of course, the Phillies went out and won Game 1 of the World Series and Yankee Nation went into collective apoplexy; and then, reality set in, with an Alex Rodriguez "thud." But for Shane Victorino's Game 5 heroics, the Yanks might've been doing the champagne-in-my-eyes dance in Philadelphia.

The Yankees were clearly and easily the best team in baseball this past season, and they should have won the World Series as they did. So, why the hate?

No, really, why the hate?

(Cue the mouth-breathers on sports-talk radio.)

A-Roid cheated! They bought the Series!

As those two rants seem to be the main categories of anti-Yankee sentiment, allow me to retort. A-Rod says that he cheated while he was with Texas. It would require a stretch of the imagination to believe that he did not continue cheating while with the Yankees, or that he did not cheat before going to Texas, especially since Mother's little helper actually works. However, I'll believe that A-Rod is the last dirty player in baseball when I believe that Peter Edward Rose did not bet on baseball. As neither is likely, I'm giving A-Rod AND Andy Pettite (the other cheater, if we must be honest) the benefit of having at least 'fessed up to something. I don't need some weeping, come-to-Krishna mea culpa with Oprah providing a soft shoulder; if you tell me you did it, I'll believe you. Just don't expect me to believe it was just wheat bread and push-ups, Mark McGwire.

Moreover, as Crash Davis pointed out in "Bull Durham," the difference between hitting .250 and .300 over 500 at-bats is 25 hits; his larger point was that the difference between a .250-hitter's salary and a .300-hitter's salary is a bit more severe. Thus, if it was me, and if I was looking for lifetime security, and someone told me that eating bull-crap would get me that extra 25 hits, my breath would smell like Texas. One would have to be a naif of the first order to believe that A-Rod, and only A-Rod, was indulging in whatever makes a good player into a better one. As I'm not naive, I'll assume that both sides are equally as juiced (shaddup, you, before I start questioning Ryan Howard).

As to the claim that they bought the Series, I say this: Good for them. Right now, there is no salary cap or revenue sharing in baseball. Thus, the golden rule applies: he who has the gold makes the rules. In this case, it would be Hank Steinbrenner, and never did an apple fall closer to the tree. Hank knows that there is one way to remain in the title hunt, and it is NOT to develop one's farm club. No, the way to remain in the title hunt is to let Kansas City and Oakland and other third-world teams develop their farm clubs, and when their best prospects get to the bigs and out-perform those rookie contracts, you send your Yankee emissaries to them with ten-figure deals and titles on the horizon. You swoop in and you buy them and put them on the field and expect them to play baseball better than everyone else because they will be, in fact, the best team that money could buy.

By the way, let's not forget that this is only (!!) the 27th Yankee title. If out-spending everyone else really guaranteed success, the Yankees would be working on, what, their 89th championship? They did go nine whole years between titles, and they most certainly out-spent everyone else in the league over that near-decade, so it might not be as simple as writing checks in February and planning parades in November. (Just sayin'...)

I do not fault the Steinbrenners for wanting to win World Series titles. It is an admirable and honest legacy that will stand them in great stead in the years to come. Think I'm kidding? How many baseball eulogies will be written for that penny-pinching curmudgeon in Kansas City, whoever he is? Who's going to remember the no-name rich guy that owns the Pittsburgh Pirates? George Steinbrenner wanted the Yankees to remain the standard-bearers for baseball, as does his son Hank. Are they making a profit? Absolutely. Will they trim unnecessary salary? Absolutely...which means that we might have seen the last of Hideki Matsui in a Yankee uniform (and, if so, what a way to go out). But if another prime free agent pops up on the market this spring, will the Yankees be in play? You better believe it.

I do not fault the Yankees for wanting to win. I fault other teams for not wanting to win as much as the Yankees do.

The New York Yankees are the champions of baseball.

In other news, gravity continues to work.