I want to say a quick word about the Yankees. The Yankees have long been one of my least favorite teams in professional sports. I grew up in Milwaukee, and though it was fun to watch the Brewers routinely trounce the Yankees throughout my childhood when Steinbrenner was grossly mismanaging the franchise, they always struck a nerve with me because of the big market/small market contrast with my favorite club.
There are plenty of reasons to dislike the Yankees outside of that. They are arrogant, from the top to the bottom. New Yorkers in general (and unfortunately rightly so) feel that the Yankees are the superior team almost every time out and they let you know about it if you are in a sportsbook in Vegas while the Yankees play. The announcers routinely dismiss woebegone franchises in commentary and even ex-Yankees. I distinctly remember my skin crawling when Jim Kaat commented how Ricky Ledee has never recovered from being traded by the Yankees. That is about as arrogant as it gets.
The Yankees now even have their own network, which in itself is incredibly annoying. Twenty four hours of Yankees programming with replays of games, interviews with ex-players and far too much pregame and post game coverage for a sane person to handle. Though other teams do own networks, only the Yankees are arrogant enough to include their name in the name of the network (Yankees Entertainment & Sports network).
I sat the other day, watching YES with delight as the lowly Orioles beat Mariano Rivera in a game Roger Clemens started at Yankee Stadium when something occured to me: The Yankees deserve every bit of success they get. Outside of their arrogance, a trait which every franchise should have to a certain extent, what is there to hate about the Yankees?
They maximize their place in the market they are given by both expanding outside of just baseball games to make money and using that money to buy key parts of their team. They hire arguably the second most capable color commentator in the business (behind Joe Morgan) to keep their fans sharp to every aspect of the game. They enforce strict dress and appearance codes to reinforce the team concept. They take care of small problems immediately no matter what the cost rather that having their athletes be bothered by it. They develop their young players into stars at key positions like catcher, shortstop and center field. And they play the game the right way without excuses.
In the world's largest sport, soccer, the economic situation which in large part makes the Yankees so hated exists to a similar degree. Great players from smaller clubs are routinely snatched up by larger clubs with no compensation outside of money given to the club that developed that player initially. And while soccer does not have the discrepancy in television money that exists in baseball, clubs are basically left to their own devices to create revenue to buy new players for continued success. Essentially, unless you play on a top flight team, there is no loyalty and you will almost certainly move to a larger club once you reach a certain level of success.
It makes for a frustrating path to success for smaller clubs, but for the sport as a whole, there is some good. Games that smaller clubs play against the big boys are major events and showdowns between the big clubs are can't miss spectacles. One could even argue the current economic system works in baseball for the same reason. Sure, Kansas City has little chance of winning a championship, but their home games against the Yankees draw huge crowds and matchups between behemoths like the Mets and Braves are big attractions for all baseball fans.
Of course the current system isn't equitable, but you have to give the Yankees credit for running their organization with class all the way around. Like them or not, the Yankees do things the right way and achieve success that teams with similar economic resources in other sports fail to achieve. I'm sure they will remain a hated team, but think about that before you join the anti-Yankees bandwagon.
There are plenty of reasons to dislike the Yankees outside of that. They are arrogant, from the top to the bottom. New Yorkers in general (and unfortunately rightly so) feel that the Yankees are the superior team almost every time out and they let you know about it if you are in a sportsbook in Vegas while the Yankees play. The announcers routinely dismiss woebegone franchises in commentary and even ex-Yankees. I distinctly remember my skin crawling when Jim Kaat commented how Ricky Ledee has never recovered from being traded by the Yankees. That is about as arrogant as it gets.
The Yankees now even have their own network, which in itself is incredibly annoying. Twenty four hours of Yankees programming with replays of games, interviews with ex-players and far too much pregame and post game coverage for a sane person to handle. Though other teams do own networks, only the Yankees are arrogant enough to include their name in the name of the network (Yankees Entertainment & Sports network).
I sat the other day, watching YES with delight as the lowly Orioles beat Mariano Rivera in a game Roger Clemens started at Yankee Stadium when something occured to me: The Yankees deserve every bit of success they get. Outside of their arrogance, a trait which every franchise should have to a certain extent, what is there to hate about the Yankees?
They maximize their place in the market they are given by both expanding outside of just baseball games to make money and using that money to buy key parts of their team. They hire arguably the second most capable color commentator in the business (behind Joe Morgan) to keep their fans sharp to every aspect of the game. They enforce strict dress and appearance codes to reinforce the team concept. They take care of small problems immediately no matter what the cost rather that having their athletes be bothered by it. They develop their young players into stars at key positions like catcher, shortstop and center field. And they play the game the right way without excuses.
In the world's largest sport, soccer, the economic situation which in large part makes the Yankees so hated exists to a similar degree. Great players from smaller clubs are routinely snatched up by larger clubs with no compensation outside of money given to the club that developed that player initially. And while soccer does not have the discrepancy in television money that exists in baseball, clubs are basically left to their own devices to create revenue to buy new players for continued success. Essentially, unless you play on a top flight team, there is no loyalty and you will almost certainly move to a larger club once you reach a certain level of success.
It makes for a frustrating path to success for smaller clubs, but for the sport as a whole, there is some good. Games that smaller clubs play against the big boys are major events and showdowns between the big clubs are can't miss spectacles. One could even argue the current economic system works in baseball for the same reason. Sure, Kansas City has little chance of winning a championship, but their home games against the Yankees draw huge crowds and matchups between behemoths like the Mets and Braves are big attractions for all baseball fans.
Of course the current system isn't equitable, but you have to give the Yankees credit for running their organization with class all the way around. Like them or not, the Yankees do things the right way and achieve success that teams with similar economic resources in other sports fail to achieve. I'm sure they will remain a hated team, but think about that before you join the anti-Yankees bandwagon.
