Sometimes evil wins…
“You can call us anything you want. You’re also going to have to call us world champions.”
-Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman, on the premise that the Yankees bought their title.
It’s an important lesson, kids. Sometimes you try real hard, you work night and day, you go beyond every limit you could have imagined. And finally, when the chips are down and your back’s against the wall…a really rich guy swoops in and beats you.
The Yankees had the best record in baseball and won the World Series without a serious challenge from any of their playoff opponents. And still, after it all, I can confidently say, “Yankees Suck.” Because they do. You know how I know? I haven’t congratulated a single person today. I haven’t heard a single person congratulated today. And I live in New York. Yankee fans are delighted and everyone else is filled with a combination of disinterest and disgust. It’s like watching the prom king and queen hug and cry and carry on after they’re crown. “Hey great, another success in your personal lives. We were really pulling for you. It must have been hard to be so blonde and attractive and charismatic your whole life. You really earned it.” Or, as the great Jake Johannsen says, “Thanks for taking time out from fucking to be here.”
Is it worth winning if the world is going to hate you all the more for doing it? Probably. It’s sort of tragic when you think about it. The one thing the Yankees are supposed to do – win championships – is the thing we hate them the most for doing. It’s like seeing a swan and saying, “Just look at the way he swims. It’s so obnoxious. Swans really piss me off!.” Truly, it’s impossible for the Yankees to succeed without pissing the rest of the world off. I almost feel sorry for them. But then I remember. The Yankees suck.
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Balk over at theawl.com echoes your sentiment:
Congratulations to the New York Yankees, who have proved once again to the whole world that if you spend massive amounts of money on the best available players and manage to string together enough wins during three short series, you will, at least once or twice in a decade, eventually take home a title.
http://www.theawl.com/2009/11/sports-teams-massive-financial-advantage-finally-pays-off
And I agree with you both. Nice detail about no one congratulating one another.
I disagree that you can buy a World Championship: spending money doesn’t hurt, but putting a bunch of highly-paid players together does not immediately translate into a ring. This is evidenced by, among others, the Yankees themselves. Did they not have the highest payroll, or nearly so, from 2001 – 2008? From ‘79 – ‘95? How about Boston or the Mets?
The Yankee’s spend the money. Nothing’s preventing other clubs from doing the same (except those clubs’ inability to build a fan base, multiple revenue streams, a farm system, player loyalty, etc.)
Maybe successful franchises should be forced to share their success with the other teams in the league who can’t get their shit together – oh, wait: THEY ALREADY ARE.
In last year’s Series, the Phillies’ payroll was $100MM; Tampa’s was $40MM. I don’t recall seeing the stories about that tainted ring …
So, the Yankees suck because they hire expensive talent. Google sucks because they hire expensive talent. So does Microsoft and Apple and The New York Times and any other business that’s grown beyond a small core of the good and talented. The only cool people are losers. Boo hoo.
These “they spent their way to the top” pieces also conveniently neglect to mention that Posada, Jeter, Melky, Canó, Rivera, Pettitte and others didn’t come aboard as high-priced talent: they grew up in the Yankee system. You can name very few other teams in all of sports who’ve built solid core like that.
Don’t worry, Brian – I promise sometime in the next 86 years, the Red Sox will win another ring. Their roster will be filled entirely with pro bono players doing it solely for the luvadagame; the capacity crowd at Fenway will be served gratis Sam Adams by the unicorns whose methane expulsions also power the towering video screens. If I’m wrong, please come see me to collect in 2095.
Wow Steve. Nicely done!
Well, Steve, worry not. We already won a second ring a few years ago, so we’re cool.
Nobody mentioned the Phillies’ payroll last year because $100M is a reasonable amount to spend on a baseball team in today’s market. 225 isn’t.
And saying that several Yankee players were home-grown really has nothing to do with it. Every team grows good players, but few can afford to keep them. The Yankees keep their own, and everyone else’s too.
But no, you’re right. It’s not fair to say the Yankees suck because they win. And truly, that’s not what bothers me or other critics. It’s that many of their fans and some of their players give off the air that they deserve it. That’s the sucky part, and doesn’t have much to do with the team, really.
The sense of entitlement that Yankees fans exhibit is most risibly exhibited in their desire not only for people to recognize their “superiority” (“They’ll have to call us World Champions”) but in their wish for everyone to think that they earned it fair and square. Like you’re supposed to pat a millionaire’s son on the back because he was born rich, and participate in his self delusion that he’s self-made. In this weird universe, the Yankees don’t win because their payroll is exponentially larger than everyone elses, it’s through grit, or determination, because of their stable of home-grown players, or because of the magical pixie dust that exists in whatever incarnation of the fabled “Yankee Stadium” they happen to be playing in. Sports is never played on a perfectly even field, of course, but in no sport is the inequity so pronounced. But to a Yankee fan, the fact that they’ve spent, in the past decade, a billion dollars more than the average franchise on payroll has little to do with their success.
In fact, the Yankees are the absolute worst team if payroll is correlated to number of games won. Of course, inefficiency in allocating resources is not a category of sports statistics, but it is something that every other team has to worry about, and it does put in perspective the Yankees “achievement.” Brian Cashman has the easiest job in sports: keep buying the biggest talent and you’ll get in the play-offs. Once there, it’s always a crap-shoot, but if you’re there every year, you’ll eventually win a couple.
Finally, I have to address the idiotic lumping together of other big market payrolls with the Yankees, as if $60 million, or a hundred million a year over several years is a trifling amount. Does anyone think that the Phillies, augmented by another $100 million of talent (say 3 Mark Teixeras and two Sabathias) wouldn’t win this series? Even without the mystical energy of Mickey Mantle’s ghost, I somehow think, yes, definitely.
So, Yankee fans should enjoy their purchased championships, and fans of every other team should enjoy the fact that the Yankees wins will always be tainted by the huge structural advantage they enjoy, and their championships, whenever they come, will be that much more meaningful. That’s the difference between being a Yankee fan and everyone else.
At least in my own case, what you describe as “entitlement” is what I call “being a fan.” Silly as it is, I like it when “my team” wins and not so much when they don’t. (I’m a Jets and Knicks fan, too, so I know from “not so much”).
The interpretation that Cashman’s statement includes something about how they earned it is a stretch – when he said “They’ll have to call us World Champions,” I took that to mean “We’ve just won the Series. Folks can complain and call us whatever they want, but they’ll also need to acknowledge that we’ve just won the Series.”
To your question Does anyone think that the Phillies, augmented by another $100 million of talent (say 3 Mark Teixeras and two Sabathias) wouldn’t win this series?
First, there’s no way of knowing. Secondly, per one of my earlier points above, the Yankees have themselves spent $60-$100MM more in a season than others who’ve won the Series. Spending money doesn’t equal a Championship.
People can – and do – dislike the Yankees, but it’s disingenuous to disregard the myriad factors involved in going all the way – this includes luck, investment, talent, chemistry, Ryan Howard having an awful post-season, and having the most dominant closer in the history of the game. And the Yankees just went all the way.
Success begets success, indeed, and this is a “structural advantage.” I don’t know how it can or should be reconciled – perhaps their opponents should be allowed to give the Yankees’ starting lineup charlie horses before they take the field. Regardless, I’ll work on not letting it get in the way of enjoying this Championship.
In response to another comment. See in context »What I find interesting is how much energy Yankees fans expend arguing against the obvious monetary advantage they have in the game. I mean I understand it psychologically; you want to feel the championships are an interesting story–those plucky, gritty Yankees, with all their chemsitry, and cream pies sounds a lot better than Goliath defeats David. But if Yankee fans “enjoy” these championships so much, why are they so defensive? Bad conscience?
But to your points. No one is saying money = championships outright; this is a straw man. First of all, as I said, the playoffs are a crapshoot. But the question is where on the list of factors that produce success does money fall? I think it is quite high–and statistics agree with me: http://www.dugoutcentral.com/blog/?p=2202. Perhaps they’ll do a study correlating team mystique and wins and you’ll prove me wrong, but if I’m betting real money, I’m going to go with who has the better players, and not which team decides to play without players names on the backs of their uniforms.
Anyway, your examples of the myriad factors of why the Yankees won almost all come down to money. Investment, obviously is about money. Talent, by and large, equals money (Yankees scouts weren’t onto some secret tip about Teixera, Sabathia, Burnett, A-Rod, Clemens, Abreu, Matsui…shall I list them all?) Ryan Howard playing badly in a way comes down to money, because the Phillies wouldn’t have been as dependent on him if they had spent more money on talent, and he had a Teixera or A-Rod batting in the line-up with him (and that would still leave the phillies $60 million short of the Yanks.) Having Mariano Rivera, equals money. (Do you think Mariano Rivera had come up as a Royal, he would still be in their organization?)
The structural advantage is that the Yankees enjoy an enormous fan base, world-wide brand recognition, an owner who will spend anything to win. And more power to you guys. You’re not cheating. But don’t expect non-Yankee baseball fans to get excited when you win, or expect us to think that 1/4 of all championships played were won by one team because of some kind of magic combination of factors, when Occam’s Razor is screaming: they spend $100 million more than the average team! $60 million more than the next highest payroll! And don’t expect us not to point out that the smug sense of superiority many Yankees fans wear so easily (that charlie horse line was a doozie) is just the sad, nervous laugh of the small-souled, who know not suffering with their cheap, borrowed glory. We choose to be fans for all sorts of reasons–it’s to a certain degree an aesthetic choice, and I can speak only for myself when I say that I could never take pleasure in rooting for an overdog with such a gross disadvantage. You, as you say, like to win, and you’ve made the correct, easy decision for yourself. I’m sure it brings you lots of easy pleasure. But please don’t expect us to think that it’s difficult or particularly compelling, because it really isn’t.
(And there is a solution to this situation: a salary cap. No one would protest harder than Yankee fans if such a system were put in place, and I think that would say a lot about what the real secret behind the franchises success is.)
In response to another comment. See in context »You want some moldy cheese to go with your sour grapes whine Brian? I don’t know where you live here in the city, but here in Washington Heights as soon as the game was over the street erupted in cheers and blaring car horns. Maybe you live in a Met’s neighborhood, aka Looserville
Haha, I love it! I’ve written about a huge range of topics here on T/S – health care, politics, gay rights, even Mad Men sucking…and by far the most contentious comment run was born from the classic Red Sox vs Yankees vs Spending argument. Love to see it.
I hate the Yankees because it’s in my blood to do so. I’m guessing JeffAle is in the same boat. And Steve of course, is wired as well, but in the opposite direction.
I will say this: it’s obvious to me that the Yankees have a distinct advantage over everyone else in baseball. Depending on the market, that advantage varies, but it is universal nonetheless. Yes, Steve, you’re very right that the advantage doesn’t grant them automatic championships. They still need to put it all together in a given year, even though they start a few paces in front of the pack. You see their victory as still a great accomplishment, I see it as a mere fulfillment of their payroll’s obligation. We’ll never agree of course, but I certainly encourage everyone to keep fighting!
I’d say you could write about the Texiera / Rodriguez / Burnett love triangle blooming during Tex’s run for Public Advocate (d*mn that Mark Green!) as A-Rod was forced to use state-sponsored doctors for his bionic hip implant while they all wore smart clothes from the 60’s, but my soul is too small.
Lots of fun, Brian – please keep it coming.
In response to another comment. See in context »“I haven’t congratulated a single person today. I haven’t heard a single person congratulated today. And I live in New York.”
Me too! That was the weirdest thing! I remember living here in the late 90’s, and it was a little different. Yes, they were an over-funded team even then – and I was not a fan – but compared to the prissy hitmen that currently make up the team, the Yankees of that era were a bunch of selfless go-getters.
This year’s Yankees might be best summed up by their ludicrous post-series deification of their universally-despised, convicted Nixon-money-launderer-for-hire [quasi]former owner – the guy who forced us to pay for that asinine new stadium, then didn’t even let us take our messenger bags with us after we paid $80 to get crap seats in our own goddamn ballpark. What a perfect encapsulation of our collective Stockholm Syndrome toward the American oligarchy currently screwing us out of everything we earned: George Steinbrenner: Hero to the Common Man.
Barf.