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Date Posted: 16:26:36 12/06/01 Thu
Author: sjb23
Subject: Re: The Yanks
In reply to: Jason 's message, "The Yanks" on 14:18:13 12/06/01 Thu

Isn't it getting almost ridiculous? Of course the Yanks are only playing by the rules,so how can we blame them,just because they are able to do it better than 29 other organizations? In the same light,Jason,here is an article in today's New York Daily News,written by Mike Lupica...


There is the Opening Day for the Yankees in April at Yankee Stadium, when we celebrate all the things that make them the Yankees, both the history and the place. But there is just as much an Opening Day every December, when the Yankees begin the process of signing whatever free agents they want and spending whatever they need to get them. It has become as much a part of Yankee tradition as anything else, as much as all the close ballgames they win in the playoffs.

The Yankees almost always get their man. Even when they lose somebody one year, they make up for it the next. George Steinbrenner and his front office people close the way Mariano Rivera does.

So now the Yankees are prepared to start their buying season by signing Steve Karsay, a good New York City guy, for more than $20 million, as a way of making up for the loss of Jeff Nelson last year. They could have had Nelson for half as much as they are paying Karsay, but overplayed their hand and lost him to Seattle. No matter. Money is no matter with the Yankees, even if they keep acting as if they have more budget worries than a working mom.


Mike Mussina
When they want another starting pitcher, they don't just buy any starting pitcher, they buy Mike Mussina, the best one out there. When they need a hitter, they don't just go for any hitter, they go for Jason Giambi, who could easily have been the Most Valuable Player in the American League two years running. They get a big colorful slugger with a ton of personality and even more colorful body art than any New York Yankee in history.

They have to keep making big buys. Steinbrenner owns his very own television network now. It means the Yankees are more than a ballclub. They are product. They aren't just any hit show on YES, for now they are Steinbrenner's only show, the first baseball team in recorded history to warrant a one-hour pregame show. The postgame show will probably last longer than "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone."

You can only wonder what afternoons will be like on the YES network. Maybe "Yankee Jeopardy" followed by a Yankee version of Jerry Springer, with players from dysfunctional Yankee teams of the late '80s and early '90s trying to beat the living hell out of each other.

Maybe a version of "Who Wants to Be a Yankee Millionaire?" Except we know who wants to be Yankee millionaires these days: Almost everyone.

As long as baseball has the economic system that it does, the Yankees will always be favorites. And the offseason will always be full of stories about how they are getting the setup reliever they want and the first baseman they want and the left fielder. Maybe they won't make a big buy at third base, just because they don't want to look as if they are making pigs of themselves.

This is good news for somebody like Karsay, out of Queens and Christ the King. He is the best guy available at a position the Yankees need to fill, and a local one on top of that. He gets his $20 million.

These are the Yankees. Yankee fans love to point to other big payrolls and say spending $100 million or more on a team guarantees nothing. The Orioles spent like crazy, the fans say, and never won. The Red Sox spend like crazy. So do the Dodgers. These are arguments for shout radio. Just because those teams couldn't buy a World Series doesn't mean you can't.

Of course the Yankees have a wonderful farm system. Of course they have wonderful scouts. Of course some of their big guys came up through that farm system, and Gene Michael used to make smart trades like the one that brought Paul O'Neill here for Roberto Kelly. But the idea that money, and a lot of money, had nothing to do with the successes of the past six seasons is for knotheads.

They traded for David Cone and then spent huge money, more than once, to keep him. They got Roger Clemens in a trade, but it was the same as a free-agent signing because it was clear that the Yankees were more than willing to pay Clemens $30 million for a contract extension. When they had to spend on Bernie Williams and Derek Jeter — spend what turned out to be nearly $300 million — they did it. So it goes. There is the business of playing ball the way Joe Torre's Yankees have played it, and there is the business of $20 million setup men and Jason Giambi and whatever they are going to have to spend to get another free agent like Moises Alou to play left field for them.

The system is working just fine around here. The Yankees break no rules. They just play by rules made for them. Yankee fans don't want it all to be about money, and it's not all about money. But a lot of it sure is. And now that the Yankees have their own network, there is more money where that came from. The Yankees pay to keep a championship team up and running the way NBC has to pay the cast of a show like "Friends" or "ER."

The Yankees always get their men. They have gotten everything they want lately except the last couple of outs of Game 7. Now, in this wounded New York, in this economy, they want a new stadium. At a time when they make more money than anybody else in baseball and spend more money, the taxpayers of this city and state are expected to help build them one. The outgoing mayor, a cheerleader for the Yankees to the end, doesn't say no to YES. No one does.

E-mail: Mike@Lupica.com

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