Yankee Statement from the "Young Bosses".

[Sam56]

I was going to print this last week. Since there is no "farewell" Yankee's WS Championship statement in our baseball area, I thought this would be a very fitting one from the "Young Bosses".

By Marc Carig/The Star-Ledger
 
November 09, 2009,

"Yankees managing partner Hal Steinbrenner thanked the team's fans for their support this season. NEW YORK -- Hal and Hank Steinbrenner issued a joint statement on Monday afternoon thanking fans for their support during the season.

The statement:  After the overwhelming public response to the historic achievement of our 27th World Championship, I would like to thank our fans for their highly spirited and remarkably steadfast support this season.

The New York Yankees have long enjoyed the positive effects of the world's greatest fans. It is a real and tangible benefit to our success every day and every game. Each and every fan contributed this season, from the 3.7 million who attended our home games to the millions more who lined the ‘Canyon of Heroes’ for our victory parade.

Throughout the season, the team found inspiration in the very essence of New York City and its people. By persevering and never wavering from our goal, the Yankees reflected the true spirit and determination that defines the city of New York."

[NYSPORTS]

  very touching.

Will the payroll hit $300 million within 3 years?   

[Sam56]

Who cares what their payroll is?

It's a business. As long as they follow the rules, how much money they spend is their business, not mine or yours.

All I care about, is that they follow the rules of MLB and WIN. The past nine years they followed the rules, spent a fortune and LOST.

Their WS Championship will be around long after we are all gone. Their payroll is just that, their payroll.

BTW, besides a World Championship, I'll bet dollars to donuts regardless of the payroll, they still turned a nice profit this year!!

[Gmo11]

Jealousy does not become you NYSports.  The Yankees have finally realized that you, in fact, CANT buy a championship and that is precisely why they won this year.  Sure the big signings make the headlines and persuade outsiders into thinking its "Yankees spending wrecklessly again" but the fact is that they cut more money than they added and, for the first time in a decade, they took into consideration more than just numbers when it came to their team.  I hate AJ Burnett on the field because he has so much talent and he just can't harness it, but I love him in the locker room.  Those pies that he started are just a small example of the effect guys like him and Swisher have behind closed doors.  That effect had as much to do with the Yankees winning as their total salary, probably more.  Let's see how the Yanks operate this year. 

I'm willing to bet that they don't make any big changes to last year's team and not because they won the World Series, instead because there aren't a lot of good fits for this team out there.  Holliday was a disaster in the AL with Oakland, and while Lackey is a fantastic pitcher, monetarily it doesn't make sense for the Yanks to offer him what he will get from other teams so I doubt they end up with him unless he takes a discount.  Besides those two guys who else really could be considered an upgrade to the Yanks own roster? Either Damon or Matsui or both will be retained and the team will basically remain the same.  But I guess that would still mean the Yanks are just buying wins again, even if they don't spend a dime outside of their own roster right?

[NYSPORTS]

The Yankees missed the playoffs and responded by paying an absurd amount of money.  If a Yankee fan can't recognize this it has more to do with denial than others being jealous.

Opening day used to be a time in which all teams had dreams of making the playoffs and winning a championship.  Those day are long gone as it's a foregone conclusion that one playoff spot is taken by a team in the Bronx before the season begins.  To miss the playoffs in 2008 was a comical disgrace and the Yanks followed up this disgrace by buying a championship.

Baseball has become a joke and Yankee fans thinking otherwise are no better than the clueless Michael Kay's of the world.  The Yanks are abiding by rules yet you're living in total denial if you think the rules haven't destroyed the game.

If a Lamborgini defeats a Honda Accord on a racetrack, followed by an obnoxious celebration by the Lamborgini driver, is the Honda Accord driver jealous b/c he lost?  The world knows one car/team is clearly better than the other.  The Lamborgini driver/Yankee fan however, is so obnoxious they actually take the pathetic postion of "well, you should have bought a better car, nobody was stopping you".

Ever heard Steeler nation on the road?  Those fans are certainly louder than Giants fans on the road.  Of course those same fans following the Steelers are considered low on the baseball food chain when the Pirates are mentioned.  What makes those quieter Giants fans so high on the food chain when the Yanks are mentioned? 
Must be Susan Waldman syndrome "welcome home"? Roger Clemens.  What a joke.

[ps11yat14]

GMO;

Jason Bay Inc. just turned down a 60 million / 4 year offer from my beloved Sox.  Do you think the Yanks will make a run at him.  That has been the rumor running around Red Sox nation for several months.  The report is he wants a 5 year deal.  He certainly would be an upgrade in left field.  Damon has no arm and Matsui has terrible knees and can't play left.  It would not surprise me to see JB Inc. wearing pin stripes next year.

Bill

[Gmo11]

Thats a tough call.  Probably not for that amount of money.  The Yanks have kept saying they want to improve athletically and defensively and Bay seems to be a downgrade from even Johnny Damon in both categories.  They don't need another power bat as much as they need a defensive left fielder who can hit .275-300.  Bay has never had a great average and his defense while adequate could certainly be better.  One rumor I heard and thought had some merit was Mark DeRosa.  Not sure about his arm, but he fits the profile of the type of guy they are looking at for Left Field if they do decide to not bring Damon back.  I'm still not certain that they have closed the book completely on Damon yet either.  It really will just come down to is anybody out there a better fit for this team than Johnny Damon and without looking closely at the list of free agents (it is football season after all) I haven't seen anybody that makes me jump out and say "yes thats the guy they need."  If thats truly the case they may as well bring back as many of the same guys that won it all last year, as long as Scott "The AntiChrist" Boras doesn't step in and ruin everything.

[dasher]

as long as Scott "The AntiChrist" Boras doesn't step in and ruin everything.GMO- well said. Just as you look at Scott Boras as ruining everything by driving up the price of Type A free agents the Yankees buy, then everything is cool.  The rest of baseball can't compete today with the Yanks - tomorrow will be impossible. I think NY SPORTS nailed it right on target, there is no opening day hope for most of baseball.

[Sam56]

"the price of Type A free agents the Yankees buy"

I keep laughing at the people who come up with the BS about the Yankee's money being the reason they are numero uno because they can just buy players. Before free agency ever existed in MLB, they Yanks won over TWENTY WS titles. HOW DID THEY PERFORM THAT MAGIC WITHOUT BEING ABLE TO GO AND "BUY" BALLPLAYERS FROM OTHER TEAMS???

From the 19th century through 1976, baseball players were bound to one team for life because of the reserve clause. Teams could renew contracts for one year for as long as they wanted to keep the player. Yet the Yankees won and won and won.

When I was 7 and had just become a Yankee fan in the late Forties (WAY BEFORE FREE AGENCY), the Yankees won FIVE straight WS titles from 1949 through 1953.

Without FA, how the hell did they ever find and sign DiMaggio, Mantle, Ford, Lopat, Raschi, Sain, Carey, Collins, Martin, McDougald, Rizzuto, Keller, Woodling to those later Forties and early Fifties teams?

Matter-of-fact, they won again in 1956, 1958, 1961 and 1962 before FA. Than I hit the ripe old age of 20. No free agency. Just good farm teams, great front office decision makers, managers like Casey Stengel and Ralph Houk (still alive at 90).

And NO STEINBRENNERS. Does anyone think all the other teams were owned by paupers over the many decades from the Twenties on???

BEFORE Free Agency ever existed the Yankees won WS Titles in the Twenties, Thirties, Forties, Fifties and the Sixties.

Oh well, even before FA and the invention of computers, losers always had to moan and complain. As a Knick and Ranger fan growing up in the Fifties, early Sixties, I always bitched about the Celtics and the Canadians. And the Knicks and Rangers kept losing and the the Celtics and the Canadians kept winning.

Hope I read these complaints again after the next baseball season has ended, it will mean the Yankees won again (you don't read many of these when the Yankees lose, believe me).

 

[Gmo11]

You can't have it both ways.  If you are going to make the claim that the Yankees bought this year's World Series, as stupid as you may sound, you then HAVE to explain why the Yankees have done the same thing for the past decade and won exactly 1 (ONE) World Series in that time.  The fact is that the Yankees, nor anybody else, cannot buy a championship even if they want to.  They need pieces of a puzzle just like everybody else and if those pieces don't fit that team doesn't win regardless of the payroll.   Look at all the other world series winners this decade.  How many of those were bought by your estimation?  Is it only because this year's team wears pinstripes that they are assumed to have bought it?

By the way, as dumb as th baseball system is one thing nobody can deny is that its FAIR.  How is it fair you ask?  Well its fair because any one of these billionaire owners have the right to spend as much freakin money as they want on whatever freakin players they want.  Whether or not they choose to do so is entirely up to them.  Don't blame the Yankees or Steinbrenner for wanting to win more than some of those other teams because thats what it comes down to.  Some teams want to win more than others. 

Oh and one more thing.  Sure the Royals and Pirates had no chance to win anything at the start of this seaon, but what about the Nets or Knicks in basketball, what about the Lions or Rams or Browns or Raiders or Chiefs in football.  What exactly did those teams have hopes for before the season started.  I could go down the line and list about 30 different teams from all the sports combined who had absolutely no chance to win anything from day one but what would that prove?  It would just prove that while fundamentally flawed, and thoroughly stupid, baseball's system is just as fair and likley to provide "Haves" and "Have Nots" as any other system.

[NYSPORTS]

I’m a NY Rangers fan and I applaud Gary Bettman for not allowing the Rangers to ruin hockey.  Bettman created a clause that any Type A FA (it’s basically a star prior to age 30) who is signed away from a team, the signing team owes the other team 5 (FIVE) #1 picks.  Besides the Avalanche resigning Joe Sakic whom the Rangers attempted to sign, this clause prevented the Rangers from ruining hockey.  The Rangers could basically only sign players over the age of 30.  Thus, the Rangers were pretty awful for 7 seasons.  

Had Bettman not stepped in the Rangers would have certainly increased the likelihood of winning a championship.  Watching a Rangers team rape opponents rosters and feature a line of (Sakic, to Sundin, over to Jagr,etc) would be a disgrace.  Rangers fans would certainly celebrate a championship yet who the heck would the Rangers be fooling?  They’re supposed to win.

Yankee fans support their team and deserve to celebrate a championship yet to think this championship was a heart/gut wrenching and was monumental victory think again.  The rest of the sports world is rolling their eyes as the Yanks have become this generation’s version of the Central Red Army.  An all-star team vs lesser opponents.  Hardly the miracle of turf when over 50% of baseball has a payroll not within $100 million of the Yanks.

Why you bring up teams like the Rams, Brown, Raiders, etc is beyond me.  What’s the point?  Without Wellington Mara the NFL would be a screwed up as baseball.  I’m sure Yankee fans would want it no other way.
Yankee fans can live in denial all they want.  Nobody is buying their b.s.  Congrats on your all-star team finally winning a championship after spending over a billion dollars.  What a moment  

[Sam56]

 "I'm a NY Rangers fan and I applaud Gary Bettman for not allowing the Rangers to ruin hockey. this clause prevented the Rangers from ruining hockey."

As a Ranger fan for well over HALF A CENTURY, I had to laugh at the above statement!

The Rangers were founded in 1926.  In the past EIGHTY PLUS seasons the Rangers have won a grand total of FOUR Stanley Cups (27-28, 32-33, 39-40 and the glorious 93-94 season).

Guess the Rangers NEVER RUINED hockey because they were never much of a winner in the NHL over the past NINE DECADES. I was born in 1942, started following the Rangers about 1949/50 and had to wait until 1994 (52 years of age) to see my FIRST Cup winner. It was always the Canadians as winners who people would compare to the Yankees in all my years of following the Rangers when I lived in NY, never the Rangers.

One thing I can say for sure, as an over half century Ranger fan (one Stanley Cup title) and over a half century Knick fan (two NBA titles), I cannot say I was ever worried about either franchise ruining the NHL or the NBA (except by numerous seasons of embarrassingly pathetic play for their fans hungry for a title).

[NYSPORTS]

Unless you've been living on the moon 1940 economics is a lot different than today.  Why do you think Bettman put in rule in place?  He had nothing better to do?  Hello?

[Sam56]

Goodbye!!   

[Gmo11]

If the Yankees are capable of simply buying a championship whenever they want why did they not do so the past 9 seasons?  I'm still waiting for any sort of explanation on that one.  Also, what about all the teams that did win the World Series without buying it as the Yankees did?  If its such an advantag surely a team like the Cardinals could never win a World Series...oh wait they did. Well then a team like the Rockies could never ever make it to a World Series...oh wait they did.  Well then a team like the Indians with their miniscule payroll could absolutely never take out a juggernaut of a payroll like the Yankees in a playoff series to make it to the ALCS...oh wait they did that too.  Unless somebody can intelligently explain how A) its possible to buy a championship AND B) Why the Yankees haven't won it more than once this decade then I'm not really interested in listening to any more arguments.