Those Goddamn Yankees

Alright, let's get something straight here, and Kyle, please back me up on this: the way that the Yankees conduct business in Major League Baseball has become completely unacceptable. Cashman and Steinbrenner, they're like insolent children who got into their dad's closet and are screwing up his broadcloth button-downs, except that instead of dress shirts, we're talking about the fabric of the way in which American sports and the economy are interconnected. The contracts the Yanks have processed this offseason remind me of the way that Oprah gives away Toyota Carollas and Disneyland season passes. For those of you who hide under a sports rock--a considerably insulting and somewhat unthinkable offense to my and my ilk considering that midnight baseball and streaming podcasts are as much a part of my life as showering and dairy--here is a brief but poignant list of the temerity of the Evil Empire:

1. Tex for 180 over 8.
2. CC for 161 over 7.
3. Burnie for 82.5 over 5.
4. Leaked conversations that revolve around signing Manny.
5. 423.5 in contracts since November. By far the largest payroll in baseball. $27 million in 2008 luxury tax ALONE.
6. Jason Giambi's 2009 buyout--5 million United States dollars--is more than 75% of the players who are actually playing for the Giants on the everyday roster.

Even though Pavano, Giambi, and Mo are all off the books, if the Yanks keep Matsui and Nady, they'll break their own atmospheric record set last year at $207.1 million, at reset it $222 million; the second place team, the Metropolitans, paid their players $137.4 million, which is just a touch under two-thirds of the Yankees' salary. By contrast, the median mark is in the low 70s and the lowest is 27 (owned by the Florida Marlins, who came in third place in their division, just like the Yankees did, and who finished only 4.5 games behind the team that spent nearly 8 times as much money on its players). And it's not just a recent phenomenon: the four highest contracts in history were for players inked by the Yankees, and Manny would be the fifth. All this in an economic environment which, according to baseball insders and specific GMs, is making people around the league "raise eyebrows".

Major League Baseball, it has been demonstrated, is very much an old boys club type of organization. You do things wrong, and it gets handled in-house, if it gets handled at all. Public admonition of the Yankees' spending habits highlights the amount of discomfort and disapproval that the baseball community at large has with their flamboyance, and suggests an enduring meta-problem with their philosophy: no one else matters, and it doesn't matter. I can't conceive of a team or a city being satisfied with itself if its owner and general manager tosses around this sort of disgusting unitarianism. Can't you feel it, New York? You are despised by fans from all over the nation, but at least a little bit of that is jealousy. You are disowned by high administration in the league of which you are a part, but a little bit of that is likely displaced frustration. But you are objectively wrong, here, and that is a condition from which there is no reproach.

Oh, and all you Boston area sports fans? Here's a bit of scalding rebuke for you, too. Hating New York philosophically does not preclude me from hating Boston pragmatically: how about this. The next time I hear you honking down the street or wearing your stupid cursed faux-fade Sox cap, I get to remind you, way out loud, that the only reason you can see the sun today is that you live in California. Oh, the Celtics are great? The Pats are your team? Go freeze, then: take your T, and your 8 degree weather, and go fight with New York for who can buy the best team. Also, that accent makes my ears want to jump off a goddamn roof. You're lucky you had the Kennedys. Otherwise, everyone would be okay with hating you more openly.