I hate the Yankees. That alone hardly puts me in unique company, the Yankees are one of the most divisive professional sports franchises in the world. As the old saying goes: you either love ‘em or you hate ‘em. And I hate ‘em. But I think I may hate them more than most, and I can’t keep it in any longer. With apologies to those friends I have who do, inexplicably, love that team, I’ve got to let this out. The Yankees are the purest evil that isn’t an actual despot dictator or corrupt government. They are more despair inspiring than the entire cast of The Hills and a greater barometer for sweeping social decay than the mortgage crisis, political scandal and Miley Cyrus’ career combined. The Yankees have taken two of our most storied American institutions (baseball and New York City) and turned them into lessons in oppressive monopolism and narcissistic self-obsession being sold to us as confidence and sportsmanship. As a nation of sports fans, we deserve better, and we should demand it.I swore that I would not watch the World Series upon learning the Yankees would be participating in it. I had watched the majority of the playoffs, and enjoyed the competitiveness and the annual demonstration by the baseball world that most expensive team is not necessarily the “best”. And with that cathartic proof less and less likely, I settled comfortably into the football season and put off thinking about baseball until next summer. But I did give one caveat: that if they would start throwing baseballs at Alex Rodriguez, I would tune in. In fairness, I said this mostly a as a throwaway - conventional baseball wisdom would nearly prohibit plunking a team’s best hitter; especially in the championship series. And Alex had, of late, come perilously close to actually earning a fraction of the quarter billion dollars he was being paid to consistently hit baseballs. But after news came over the wire that, impossibly enough, A-Rod had been hit three times in two games, I made good on my promise and tuned into the Fall Classic. I wish I hadn’t. Watching the Yankees win the World Series was like watching the rich kid in your class get the girl you had a crush on; or watching Goliath beat David. No moral, no inspiration, no joy. Just the affected and rehearsed mirth of a couple dozen millionaires and the smug applause of sixty thousand or so New Yorkers who seemed more relieved than actually excited. The Empire had struck back, and to my horror and disgust, evil had finally prevailed.
To be clear, I don’t hate the institution that is the Yankees. To love baseball in any capacity is to appreciate who the Bronx Bombers used to be. You can hardly talk about the lore of our national pastime without mentioning Micky Mantle, Lou Gherig or the largest character of them all, Babe Ruth; each of them Yankees, and remembered best in their pinstripes. But the modern day Yankees are no more that institution than Megan Fox and Kate Beckinsdale are Marilyn Monroe and Greta Garbo, Ryan Seacrest is Dick Clark or in terms closer to my heart, the Notre Dame football team is the same storied group that inspired ‘Rudy’, gave us Knute Rockne, or was even worth watching. At some point, as institutions mature and adapt over time, many of them lose so many of the identifying characteristics of their historical namesake that the name is really the only thing they’ve retained. So it is with the Yankees. Aside from playing in New York City and wearing mostly similar (albeit updated) uniforms, these are not your father’s Yankees.
The Yankees payroll last year was just under $210 million. Half of that was accounted for by just four players, and nowhere in that four was their World Series MVP or their fabled closer, Mariano Rivera (one of the few Yankees I do not hate). The Yankees overpay for talent like normal people overpay for movie popcorn. The real problem with this is that that’s $60 million more than any other team is paying, and it’s more than the four lowest payroll teams combined. Oh, and it’s near $100 million more than the team they were playing in the aforementioned World Series. In a nation where we demand fairness in our competitions, and talk of “even playing fields” has dominated our political and social landscapes since time immemorial, our appointed “national pastime” allows and even celebrates this inequity. So, in effect, we’re using the Iranian election method to determine a baseball champion.
So, how did this happen? It happened because Major League Baseball doesn’t have a salary cap, they have a luxury tax. Which basically means that if you spend more than a certain amount on your payroll, you have to pay a little more to the League. That’s right, the punishment for spending too much is, well, more spending. I’m not quite certain how requiring extra money from a group who can’t control their spending is an actual deterrent. I’m just glad the penal system doesn’t use this same methodology to control rape and murder. And who are the primary proponents of this “luxury tax” plan? The ownership of the Yankees. So to be clear, we’ve given the folks in New York City the opportunity to give the League and the rest of the country the middle finger and be the best by buying away every other team’s best players, and it’ll just cost them a little extra cheese? The same people who will spend in excess of $2,500 a month for a 500 square foot studio apartment, just for the privilege of living in their city? Normally you have to be a member of the Lohan family to get that kind of enablement.
And what of the lesson this teaches to those kids whose dads take them to the ballpark? I can just picture a father leaning over to his begloved son, face still stained with ballpark mustard and fingers still sticky from his first real box of Cracker Jack and passing on the timeless knowledge: See son, winners don’t make money, money makes winners. Wow. I can almost smell the American pride from here.
But I would be remiss not to mention the thing I hate most about the Yankees. And that’s Alex Rodriguez. "Pay Rod" is the most easily hate-able sports figure since Barry Bonds. Just a few years ago he was cast as the player who would save us from the Bonds scourge by wiping his name from the record books and doing it the proverbial “right way”. Ha! But it’s not solely the Yankees to blame for blowing up Alex’s head like a party balloon. After all, it was the Texas Rangers who gave him a 10 year contract in 2000 worth $252 million dollars. It was simply the Yankees who provided welcoming arms for a player who ultimately grew to believe he was actually worth that kind of money, and possibly more.
I could mention his marginal performance on the field (or at least marginal for someone making $200,000 for every game he plays), his recently admitted steroid use, his marital infidelity (and with Madonna, no less), or his notorious indifference over his own failures, but that’s really not it. It’s really the way he appears to be keenly aware that he’s Alex Rodriguez and that you’re not, and he’s bent on making sure you understand that. It’s really the way that he celebrates even his most benign accomplishments as though he’s some sort of underdog, and not one of the highest paid athletes in the world. It’s really the fact that you don’t just want him to fail, you want him to fail profoundly. You don’t just want the pitcher to strike him out, you want the 98 mph fastball to go cruising into his dome hard enough to wipe that damned smile off his face. It’s really that he is the consummate modern day villain: overpaid, under-talented and generally indifferent about the fact that he’s an absolute ass.
The modern day Yankees are, in many ways, simply a reflection of what we have all become, and in that, perhaps we have only ourselves to blame. We worship at the altar of material wealth with such great fervor that it has seeped into other, previously inviolate, areas and given us a single measuring stick for personal value. Nearly gone are the days of underdogs, hometown heroes and rags-to-riches fables. We’re left only with the hyper-rich becoming hyper-richer and overpaying to simply bear witness from our firmly entrenched seats in the proletariat. But for those of us who can’t or won’t give in to this sad reality, who believe there is something more and something better, and who love sports for the fairness it offers in an often unfair world, I offer you a start to your salvation in the form of a little sports hatred, or on the off chance you’re a major league pitcher, in one good hard throw at a guy’s head you can’t possibly miss.
4 comments:
aah Glenn, I too dislike the Yanks, just as my own cross town rivals (both of them!). Fortunately, I waste enough energy cursing those two teams that I don't have any energy left for Pay Rod!
-Jess
The Steinbrenners that run the Yankees are idiots in my book. A-Roid opted out of his contract a few years ago, thereby relieving Texas of their requirement to share in his contract. But then A-Fraud dumps his agent and crawls back to the Yankees to talk...and they take him back! With a frikkin' pay raise of which the Yankees are paying 100%! WTF??
It's hard to be a Yankees fan these days. I am and always have been a Yankees fan. My tag reads BX BOMERZ. I grew up in the Bronx during the 70's when it was all about Thurman Munson, Billy Martin, Reggie and Boston Sucks. I was the only guy in a packed bar in Macon, GA rooting for the Yankees when they beat their beloved Braves in '96. I flew from L.A. in 2000 to scalp tickets outside Shea for Game 5. I flew up from Tampa a couple of weeks ago just for the night to go to Game 2 ($400 Bleacher tix - you can check out my photos on FB) But I have to admit that I agree with most of what Glenn writes about and can totally understand it - especially the part about being more relieved than excited about their winning. People tend to forget, or perhaps have never known, that the Yankees have pretty much always gone out and gotten whoever they wanted but before free-agency began (was it with Catfish Hunter?) the amount of money had never been as obscene. Baseball has always been first and foremost a business and those with money love to make more of it - and few things in baseball make more money than winning it all. The Yankees have always been at the top of the spending heap and much of that is due to the brilliance of George & Co. and what they'd accomplished with the development and acquisition of great talent and, most recently, with the YES Network - that's really where the majority of the money comes from these days - that and $500 seats and $10 beer. But what I and most true Yankees fans hate, especially for the last 9 years is not how much money they have, but how they've squandered it by trying to buy a World Series rather than by working with their farm team and building from within as they had in the early 90's. That seemed to work out pretty well. That method cost a whole lot less, not just in dollars but in whatever you want to call the sense of awe the Yankees used to get. I hate the Red Sox - but over the last few years I came to realize that my 'hatred' was inspired by fear and respect. Now those feelings have been tempred by my now knowing that Papi and Manny were juicing, but I think it's going to take some doing to get fans into hating the Yankees for the right reasons - fear and respect - rather than because they're the best team money can buy.
Great comment, Larry
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