Like Rooting for U.S. Steel
Back then the Yankees routinely wasted money on over-the-hill free-agent sluggers — Jack Clark, Steve Kemp, Jesse Barfield — who either stopped slugging as soon as the Yanks got them, or couldn't slug enough to make up for the team's execrable pitching.
I don't remember hearing it through the awful march of lousy arms in the 80s and early 90s — Dave LaRouche, Brit Burns, Steve Trout, Jack McDowell, Ed Whitson &3151; each of whom was heralded as the answer, then heralded right back out again as the problem.
I don't remember hearing it when Andy Hawkins pitched a no-hitter in 1990 and not only lost, but lost 4 — that's right, 4 — to nothing.
It used to be that rooting for the Yankees was said to be like rooting for U.S. Steel. In the 80s and early 90s, it was like rooting for Pets.com.
Come to think of it, I don't even remember hearing the ruining-baseball complaint last September, when the Yankees, in a stunning stretch of futility, lost nearly every game 10-2. This prompted the Washington Post's Tom Boswell — in a rather convincing column at the time — to run the numbers and prove that there was no way that a team that lost so many games, so late in the season, so badly, could possibly win the World Series.
0h, well — Boswell was wrong. It really turned out that the Yankees were ruining baseball.
The Root of All Evil
The Yankees have in Paul O'Neill a veteran outfielder who has seen his best days but survives on guts and skill — ruining baseball!
They have in Louis Sojo a totally non-athletic utility man who is a professional with a penchant for the occasional clutch hit, like the one that doomed the Mets last year — ruining baseball!
They have in Scott Brosius and Tino Martinez — third and first-basemen who have some of the lowest power numbers at their positions in all of baseball, but still contribute their parts to the winning puzzle — ruining baseball!
They have in Joe Torre a manager who loves baseball, knows baseball, and runs a clubhouse with few egos and almost no attitude problems — ruining baseball!
The have in Jeter, Williams, Petitte, Rivera, and Posada organization men, raised on the farm, likely to spend most of their careers with the team, who are the heart of the Yankees — ruining baseball!
The idea that money makes a team an inevitable success, that the Yankees' financing somehow gives them an unfair advantage, makes it possible for them to “ruin baseball,” can be answered in two words: Baltimore Orioles. Actually, it can be answered in three more words: Los Angeles Dodgers.
Yes, money helps, but what is most important is how a team spends it. Most important is not a team's bottom line, but its character. I submit to you that the Orioles were doomed to a couple of years' futility as soon as they signed Albert Belle (now, tragically injured) back in 1999. Money can help build a team, but it can ruin it as well — as Steinbrenner proved in the 80s, and as Peter Angelos demonstrates now.
The key to the Yankees' success is developing good, professional players — a matter of scouting and smarts, as much as money — and then using the franchise's cash to keep them (with the right free-agent acquisitions, like Mike Mussina this year, thrown in on top). This is no small feat, and one that the other big-money clubs haven't quite managed to duplicate.
The Team You Love to Hate
It is true that some teams, even if they can develop the talent, can't afford to keep it. The answer to this problem isn't socialist schemes to even the playing field, which would only serve to punish success and reward failure.
If the Montreal Expos can't manage to maintain a decent team, if the Milwaukee Brewers are in too small a market, the answer is very simple: Move. It's a free country (well, except for baseball's anti-trust exemption, but that's another question). If New York is such an awesome market, bring another team here — the city has supported three teams before.
But I suspect much of the talk about the Yankees ruining baseball has little to do with financial intricacies and more to with a simple impulse: envy.
People love to hate success, and the Yankees aren't just having an extraordinary run, they embody the very idea of excellence in sports — from the smart pinstripes, to the majestic Stadium, to the shrine, to former greats out beyond centerfield.
I don't begrudge people their right to harbor such poisonous feelings (hey, what's human nature all about?). Just don't pretend that it is really a matter of high-minded concern for the health of the game.
No, these critics just hate the Yankees. Fine.
The solution to the “problem” of the Yankees, then, is very straightforward: Beat them. If you can.
(Clemens breaks Walter Johnson's strikeout record in Sports.)
(This article can also be found on National Review Online.)
