Yankees: Hate-able Even Before Yesterday

I usually try to stay away from reading sub-par news outlets because if you think the writing by ‘the big boys’ is bad, it is many time worse as you go further down the totem pole.

Like this gem from Newsday writer Ken Davidoff.

Yankees president Randy Levine, on live television yesterday from the old Yankee Stadium, announced, "Today, we reaffirm the Steinbrenners' commitment to Yankees' fans."

For the rest of the world, of course, it meant just the opposite: Time to hate the Yankees again.

Except that it doesn’t, for two reasons:
1. It logically follows that a team owner, any team owner, who spends $243.5 million on players is emphatically reaffirming a commitment to the fans. What I would give for Carl Pohlad to spend like that (actually, glad you asked, it would include my born-again virginity, my luck Twins hat, visiting rights to my dog three days a week and a perpetual 10% tithe payable directly to the Minnesota Twins at 34 Kirby Puckett Way, Minneapolis, MN).

2. Hating the Yankees never went out of style. It never does. Seriously, it just doesn’t. It’s a classic. Like the little black dress, Charlie Brown’s Christmas and a college football national title game that nobody’s really happy with.

There existed, this past year, the tiniest window in which the Yankees made it difficult to loathe them. But they utilized the power left arm of CC Sabathia and the power right arm of A.J. Burnett to slam that window shut.

This is the first time in fourteen years that the Yankees missed the playoffs. Sorry if I am unable to feel the depths of sorrow for the abject failure as I am for, say, the Royals, Reds or Rangers.

And you know what, even in the 80s I still hated the Yankees…even when they are not a good baseball team they are still the richest and most successful sporting team ever in America. Also, their fans are New Yorkers and assorted other bandwagon hangers-on across the country.

The Yankees could play Al Qaeda and I will still be rooting against the Yankees.

So no, one bad season didn’t make it difficult to dislike the Yankees. If anything, it primed me for extra dislike when they inevitably waved their huge checkbook around to the best players in the Major Leagues.

Yankees bashing is back en vogue.

Again, unlike corduroy or hippie hair, it never went out of style.

Spending $243.5 million on two pitchers, at a time when our country is drowning financially, will create some bad will out there.

Though I may have been subtle in communicating this, the Yankees are not my favorite team. But it is hard to fault them for spending money since, you know, they make a lot of money and, you may have heard, they spent their money on good players who will help them win games and, research shows, winning attracts the fans that make teams profitable. So, like most people, and this might hit you like a striper wrapped in yesterday’s Post, I don’t care that they are spending a lot of money as long as they are NOT asking my elected representatives to steal money from me to give it to them and their business.

I may fervently hope that Sabathia and Burnett turn out like Tartabull and Johnson, but I am not angry that they spent their money to buy players. It’s called the free market.

Oh, and it’s what I wish the Twins would do, too.

Quick Hits from the World of Sports

The world of sports is wide, which is a certifiable fact - ABC says so, or at least used to - and that makes it difficult to stay up on all the latest stories. Or at least what passes for stories. They're more like sports-themed filler, kind of like how those convenience store pies are filled with apple-like filler substance that kind of tastes like apple but mainly just takes up the space where you expect something to be.

Yep, these stories are like that.

Furcal spurns Braves, choose Dodgers and their $30 million offer.

"From our perspective, we reached an agreement Monday night," Braves general manager Frank Wren said. "They asked for a term sheet for us to sign on Tuesday morning, and we sent over the signed termed sheet. It was then that his agent [Paul Kinzer] informed us that [Kinzer's] partner had been in contact with the Dodgers.

While trying to decide whether to use a Federal bailout joke on the Braves (tortured, but had potential) or on the agent (spot on, but making fun of the avarice of agents is expected), I re-read the story. Yep, the Dodgers are giving a big contract to an over-30, injury-prone ballplayer whose OPS+ is just under the league average and whose OBP is .352.

Don't worry though, it's the Dodgers. They're usually good about who they give big contracts to.





Hansbrough sets UNC scoring mark

The 6-foot-9 senior needed nine points in the top-ranked Tar Heels' game against Evansville on Thursday night to pass Phil Ford for the record. He tied Ford on a jumper from the left wing with 14:05 left, then set the mark by banking in a turnaround shot with 7:41 left in the first half.

Duly noted and filed under "he's still going to be crap in the NBA." Next.

Sabathia says Yankees Best Place to Try to Win a Title

"I think this is the best place for me to try to win a championship," Sabathia said Thursday, on his way to the news conference where he was formally introduced, along with right-hander A.J. Burnett.

Forget about loser teams like the Phillies or the Red Sox. The Yankees are the team where winning championships is most likely. Of course, they are also the team most likely to give him a seven-year $161 million deal. But it's really about winning.

"Everybody had speculated about me staying in California. I had always talked about winning a championship, and you look at the Yankees, it's something they contend for" just about every year.

Judicious use of "just about" since, you know, last year was one of those years they weren't contending for a championship.

Sabathia was phoned twice during his negotiations by Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter -- recruiting calls -- and Jeter told him about how much fun it was playing in New York.

It's all fun and games until you're mercilessly booed beginning in the second for hanging a slider to Dustin Pedroia with men on base and you have to spend the next five days with the papers questioning if you're cut out for New York, yahoo radio talk show hosts saying that you'll never be a real Yankee and enraged callers to those radio shows threatening to put you in the foundation of whatever stadium has the remains of Jimmy Hoffa and Carl Pavano.

The day after he reached his agreement with the Yankees, he called Jeter, and the friends talked again about what it would be like to play together.

Jeter: "It will be better than Cleveland or Milwaukee."
Sabathia: "Gotta be honest, D, I need more than that."
Jeter: "You'll make $161 million dollars."
Sabathia: "Can't wait to play with you. Can you introduce me to Mariah?"