Yankee Hating
The Yankees are not evil. They are just the closest thing baseball has to it.
They have won the American League East every year but two since the expanded playoffs began in 1994.
That would be reason enough, but then there's the economic end of it. The Yankees are the kid in high school who drives a hummer and has nice clothes and goes to all the cool concerts.
The Yankees payroll is nearly five times the size of the Indians this season, and greater, by far, than any other team in the game.
The Indians had super-high payrolls in the mid to late 90s as well, but the Yankees have outdone anyone who dares to challenge them.
I remember in Ken Burns' Baseball (all done prior to the Yankees dominance in the 1990s) Roger Angell said something about George Steinbrenner which is quite profound.
He essentially said that Steinbrenner is an impatient man. He doesn't really like baseball. He doesn't want to wait and let the games be played. He wants to make it so his team can't lose.
Fast forward to 2005.
The Yankees have had success by the standards of other clubs, but haven't won a World Series since 2000. Add to that, the Yankees became the first team to blow a 3-0 series advantage in the playoffs. Oh, and they accomplished this against the Red Sox.
Steinbrenner responded with another spending spree, bringing in Randy Johnson, Tino Martinez and Jaret Wright.
But George has a problem. His team is old. Randy Johnson is in his 40s, Tino Martinez--I honestly didn't know he was still in the league. And then there's Wright, who was salvaged from the junkyard by Leo Leo Mazzone and the Atlanta Braves, but is hardly a proven champion. And he's hurt.
The Yankees are playing as bad as they have in over a decade. They aren't pitching or hitting. Look for Steinbrenner to go after Ken Griffey next(Not that I want him to. I really want Griffey to do well in Cincinnati).
The Yankees are 11-19.
Am I counting them out? No. I am already readying for the "everyone counted them out," remarks. Look, for 200 million, the Yankees may the only team to spend themselves out of this mess.
But there is a chance that this is the beginning of a long season of chaos at the Bronx Zoo. Billy Martin is long gone, but I assume somewhere, he may be getting a chuckle out of this.
Lord knows the rest of us are.