Hating the Yankees is Such Hard Work

Once again the Yankees look inevitable as champions.  Yet there will be those who will yearn with every fiber of their being for anyone to beat them.  Hating the New York Yankees is not for the faint of heart.  The hours are long; the pay is slavish; and the returns are niggling.  What is there to show for it at the end of the day?  Nada, nein, zip zeroaster (little known religion that worships nothing).  So why do it? 

It is hard to explain.  If you look at the New York Yankees as individuals, it is impossible.  I treasure Derek Jeter as a great athlete and pretty decent human being.  He is a throw back to all of the great Yankees, most notably Lou Gehrig.  Only the consummate Yankees have been captains of the team, Mattingly, Munson, even Clark Griffith (1903-1907).  Jeter belongs in their company without a scant argument.

C.C. Sabathia is a great pitcher and in this season has made that case convincingly.  And he is as lovable as Captain Kangaroo in pinstripes. 

Mark Teixeira is another sweetheard of a guy.  He is hard-working and nothing about him is second rate.  His credentials are impeccable.  He does it all: hits for power, average, has a great batting eye and fields his position like no other Yankee first baseman since…Mattingly and Gehrig.  Of course there is A-Rod who is finally making a statement in the post-season.

It is a rich collection of names, these 2009 Yankees.  They are worthy of all those other names that keep popping up.  There is all of that amazing history: the Yankees of yore and not so yore.  One cannot begin to denigrate that tradition.   The inter-twining of baseball history and Yankee legend is so complete that one could not remove the latter without destroying the former.

They are like the Hapsburgs of baseball, playing in Windsor palace and wearing uniforms as distinctive as those who guard the Tower of London.  How can one dare to disdain such a legacy of greatness.  What low life, Dickensian slumdog could fail to appreciate the high-mindedness of the Yankees?

In the American judicial system, even the lowest of the low are provided a credible defense.  This task deserves a Perry Mason or Melvin Beli, but I chose to defend myself your honor.  

I present in evidence exhibit A: George Stienbrenner.  And as exhibit B: George Weiss.  For all of the greatness of the Yankees there has been a soft underbelly, a constant and unforgivable, scurrilous greed that has made a mockery of the game.

It is after all a game, and as such it demands an equal chance for all–or at least a reasonable chance for someone other than last year’s man.  And yet the owners of the Yankees have sought since time immemorial to stack the deck, to create their own holding pen for talent in Kansas City and then pluck from it as needed in one of the great collusions of all time.

More than anything, they have taken a “class act” and made it into a different kind of class act.  The Yankees are the best, but the greed of those who have owned them over the years has made them into something distinctly less. 

George Weiss was characterized by many–Halberstam and Povich come to mind–as one of the last great racists in the game, the one who fought longest and hardest to keep the American League a bastion of white dominance and more than anyone soured African-American athletes on the game.

George Steinbrenner came close on his heals and is no more lovable.  In 1973 he bought the team for $10 million during one of its worst runs in history.  He has used his vast wealth to parlay that purchase into one of the great economic deals of our lifetimes.   Over the same period of time he has used the same wealth to make an afternoon at the ballpark unaffordable to many American families.

Steibrenner’s clashes with Reggie Jackson and Dave Winfield won him few fans and he may have found his match in temperment in Billy Martin.  But it is not those very public hostilities that make him what he is within the game.  Steinbrenner–more than any single human being–is responsible for driving the price of the game beyond affordability. 

It is not circumstantial that during his tenure as owner 1973-2006, the salary of baseball players eclipsed that of every other economic indicator.  The average baseball salary in 1973 was roughly $36,000.  An average dwelling for an American family cost slightly less.

In 2009 the average baseball salary was $3.24 million, and while the average dwelling was more than anyone in 1973 might have imagined, it was considerably less than the lofty sum of $3 million.

But salaries are just an indicator.  Players may seem over-compensated, but one owner stands above the rest in helping to drive the costs of the game through the roof: Steinbrenner.  Some will point to the MLBPA, the union.  But the owners through their stupidity and greed have been the engine of driving prices up and no one has been there as long, nor worked as steadily at the task as Steinbrenner.

And in today’s world, when stock analysts can manipulate arcane mathmatical formulas into nine-figure compensation packages, Steinbrenner’s genius may seem relatively worthy.  Yet we are back to the inter-twining of things.  Steinbrenner’s ability to parlay television revenues for the Yankees into the best baseball team money can buy is inextricably linked to the exorbitant wealth fueled by Wall Street.

And the senseless greed that is so much in vogue today is the reason your honor that I hate the Yankees.  It is why I was hoping against hope that one of the most workman like players in the game today: Albert Pujols, could pull off one of the great upsets of the modern era.  Alas it is not to be. 

I have not lost faith.  I will root for the Dodgers, because I love the game.  But it is like hoping that the Carnegies or Mellons can overthrow Standard Oil.  Yet such poor contests are all that we have.  It is a tough season for Yankee haters.  But there is always next year.