So You Hate the Yanks, but...

So here’s the thing. As a Yankee fan I have to hear crap all the time:
- They have a history as a racist organization that extends beyond the integration of baseball.
- They have spent so much money that any successes they’ve enjoyed should be considered the fruits of the sales of that many souls to Satan.

Well folks, Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby started no great flood from the Negro leagues. But what we see here is that we can bitch about the Yanks in that respect, because they're the Yanks.

I know the Yankees have outspent everyone else, pretty much forever, and thus have so many more World Series wins, that to non Pinstripers, it isn’t funny. Only to a Yankee fan, it’s fun, and to a BASEBALL FAN, it should be as well.

World Series Winners over the last decade, their payroll and where that ranked:

2000 Yankees:
$114 /1st
2001 Arizona:
$81.2/ 8th
2002 Angels:
$61.7 15th
2003 Marlins:
$48.7 25th
2004 Red Sox:
$127.3 2nd
2005 White Sox:
$75.2 13th
2006 Cardinals:
$88.9 11th
2007 Red Sox:
$143 2nd
2008 Phillies:
$98.3 12th
2009 Yankees:
$208 1st

As a Yankee fan, we've lived with the Ed Whitsons, the Kenny Rogers, the Carl Pavanos, and have been told to keep our mouths shut because having so many trophies excludes us, as baseball fans, from the SOUR GRAPES LEAGUE, (as opposed to the Crybaby League). The idea is that if we spend enough money, we'll ultimately get it right and win yet another WS, so we're not allowed to look at the above list and note that the Yanks won 2 out of those 10 titles, though by far having that highest payroll EVERY year, in 2003 even taking a beating at the hands of the minimum wage Marlins!!

So OK, the Yankees are the richest, and will always be told they bought their titles. What exactly does that mean?

Why We Watch:
I saw beautiful, relentless baseball from a bunch of really talented guys the last two nights. I got to see a team that, when working well, was an absolute joy to watch. Joining one of the early NYC Rotissery leagues turned me far more into a baseball fan, in that I paid attention to BASEBALL, not just my favorite team. I came to appreciate performance. When Sugar Ray Leonard (who at the time I was a huge fan of) went into the ring for the first time with Roberto Duran, as a fan, I felt more joy at getting to see such transcendent performances than sadness for Ray.

Enjoying greatness, as we see it so seldom, anywhere in life, is something to be treasured.

So if you can put together a fabulous team that rocks on all cylinders, I'd rather see that than one made up of a handful of guys that shouldn't even be in the majors. When I watch baseball I want to see GOOD baseball from pros. That too, in this day and age, is in short supply.

Yet we've seen excellence, as proven by the above list, from a lot of teams other than the Yankees.

Now, of course, we also watch to see our hometown guys prevail, and our support provides us with a certain vicarious pleasure in helping our boys take the title.

Of course, I'm not an idiot. I'm a Browns fan!!! So, I get it, fellas.

But this just speaks to Yankee hating.

Who Else We Should Hate:

The Yanks and the Sox and the Dodgers pay out, by far, the most into the revenue sharing pot. This is because they are compelled to, no lofty or noble purpose here. It's meant to help level the playing field some, at worst, keeping another team or two solvent.

Check this out: ALL BUT TWO TEAMS IN MLB SHOWED A PROFIT LAST YEAR!

Folks, we have a lot of small market owners who are wealthy and are NOT putting the best team they can on the field. They are doing what happens in Cleveland, picking the two or three guys with some real value and contracts coming up and jettisoning them before they have the vaguest idea if they might have that balance of youth, spirit, energy and veteran talent to be able to get into the playoffs, where clearly anything can happen, and some serious damage might be done... and the Indians show a profit!

While conventional wisdom states that if they do well, that could lead to better attendance the next year, and the foundation to build on, the 'actuarial tables' of MLB's revenue sharing tell us that there has to be a monumental turnaround in literally no time at all to make it worthwhile for the profit seeking ownership of a team these days to follow any success by holding their hand and adding to it.

Dolan, owner of the Tribe, walked away with a profit of $181 million in 2009.

If it does NOT pay to win, the fan suffers. So what needs to happen is there have to be more strings attached to revenue sharing, compelling teams to put a greater percentage of it on the field, so YOU TOO WILL HAVE A BETTER CHANCE OF HUMILIATING THE BIG, CREEPY, RICH BITCH YANKEES AND THOSE OF THEIR ILK!

And I'll get to see overall better baseball being played more often by more teams.

Honesty 101:
If your local team had ownership with buttloads of money, willing to spend a reasonable number of said loads with the intent (successful or otherwise) of putting an awesome to watch and awesome to cheer team on the field year after year, you'd take it without a blink.

Further Honesty:
And you'd all still hate the crap out of the Yankees until the day you die.

I get it. I'm just sayin'...