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Championship No. 27 is in the books for the New York Yankees, and SportsCenter has been officially ruined for me until at least the middle of next week. I, like every Boston Red Sox fan, cannot stomach watching ESPN drool over New York and tell me how great a guy Joe Girardi is because he “froggered” across the street to help a woman who was in no way in need of his assistance after the game. I refuse to believe anyone whose teeth are as hideous as his is a good person.
Convincing myself of this about Girardi, muttering obscenities whenever I see a story about the Yankees and taking jabs at Alex Rodriguez makes this situation easier to deal with, but this championship is more than just an annoyance to Red Sox fans. It is a message to the rest of the league that money really can buy you a championship. I am not saying the Yankees did anything reprehensible. They operated within the boundaries of Major League Baseball’s salary cap-free structure and used the resources at their disposal to put a winner on the field. The problem is with the system. It allows for too much trial and error, too much groping at chemistry, too much winning ugly, overpaying and not being penalized for it.
In the NBA, a few bad personnel moves can put a team in the cellar for years. Just look at the New York Knicks. In the 2005 offseason, Isaiah Thomas decided to pay his “roly-poly” front line of Jerome James and Eddie Curry by weight rather than basketball ability and placed the team in financial purgatory until those contracts came off the books this summer. When the Yankees make personnel mistakes, they can simply eat the contracts because they have the revenue and financial backing to make as many mistakes as it takes to get rewarded. It’s like a boxer going out wildly throwing haymakers just waiting for one to land a knockout blow with no fear of vulnerability. Even Yankees fans should be able to admit they have been a sinking ship since they won their last championship in 2000. They have been calling in big-name free agents to bail water for the past nine years and finally plugged all the holes with the offseason acquisitions of C.C. Sabathia, Mark Teixeira, A.J. Burnett and Kate Hudson — to hold A-Rod’s hand and wipe the tears from his eyes when the New York media hurts his feelings.
Any Red Sox fan who has grown up to hate the Yankees with the unflinching passion that one hates cancer or airline delays has a right to be angry. It is just a question of where that anger should be directed. Sure, the Yankees’ $201 million payroll (18 billion yen, for Hideki Matsui fans counting at home) is akin to entering a monster truck into a demolition derby, but if overspending is the issue then the Red Sox cannot be absolved of blame either. Their $122 million payroll — 4th in Major League Baseball—could have rivaled the Yankees this year had they not been outbid in the Mark Teixeira sweepstakes. The Yankees simply have the most resources and are the most willing to use them.
I think their approach cheapens their victory and undermines the scouting and player development processes that separate baseball from the other major sports, but it doesn’t make it any less credible or any less real. The only direction an abject fan can point an unhypocritical finger is straight at Major League Baseball and the Players’ Union, both of which have failed to adopt a thoroughly restrictive Collective Bargaining Agreement. Without one, the spending wars continue unchecked and small market teams can’t compete consistently with the juggernauts of the league.
The gap between the highest payroll — the Yankees — and the lowest payroll — the Florida Marlins — last year was $170 million. With that kind of disparity, MLB teams are not playing on a level playing field that fosters the sort of natural competition sports are intended to cultivate. Imagine if boxing eliminated weight class restrictions and Mike Tyson ended up fighting some hot shot from the paper-weight division: That guy is gonna be lucky to get out of there with just a mangled ear, let alone his life.
That is what it is like for Major League Baseball. There are the heavyweights and the lightweights, the haves and the have-nots and in the current system that can’t change.
Colin Cowherd argued on his radio show that the Yankees won on passion rather than money because their passion created the revenue that enabled them to assemble their team. In some ways I agree, but the passion for teams like the Yankees and Red Sox is founded upon a rich history. Now, up and coming teams are not able to foster their own passionate fan base because they are being out competed by the established franchises. For baseball to create a level playing field they need to draw on the collective passion of baseball fans who want to see a competitive product and institute a salary cap.
