THEY’RE AT IT AGAIN

By Edwin Cooney

Yep, they’re as bad as bankers, brokers, automakers, politicians, and the IRS. They don’t quite match the Taliban or the former Soviet Union—but they’re less respectable than, say, Red China (from whom we borrow lots of money) and only a little more respectable than Hugo Chavez down there in Venezuela. After all, the aforementioned, as an object of disgust, never rated a musical I ever heard about. Who am I talking about? What! You can’t guess? I’m talking about those “Damn Yankees,” silly!

Here it is, the close of our midwinter holiday season and who’s in the news? The New York Yankees. The reason they’re in the news is that they’re at it again — spending their money, buying what they can. Most everyone in America insists that buying what you can is a vital American right, but somehow, when the New York Yankees do it, well…it just ain’t fair, and if it ain’t fair, it ain’t right -- and if it ain’t right, well…it just ain’t American, that’s all!!!

Just before Thanksgiving, the Yankees signed free agent right-handed pitcher A. J. Burnett away from the Toronto Blue Jays for $82.5 million for five years. (Don’t tell anyone, but A.J.’s full name is Allan James!) Then, as Christmas and Chanukah lights began to pervade the New York night skyline, the Steinbrenner family and Brian Cashman—their General Manager—landed CC Sabathia, the gigantic six foot seven inch, nearly 300 pound lefthander (late of the Cleveland Indians and Milwaukee Brewers) for 161 million dollars to be paid over the next seven seasons. (C.C.’s full name by the way is Carsten Charles—a name only a mother could love!)

Just as fair-minded baseball fans all over the country (who would love it if their team had landed one of these two prizes) were beginning to get over their mad, the Bronx Bombers struck again.

It was Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008. At the North Pole, Santa was packing his sleigh for his annual journey around the globe to gladden the hearts of little children. Charitable organizations all over the continent were making last minute contributions to the poor and disadvantaged in American life. Then it happened.

The New York Yankees announced that they had reached an agreement to pay 180 million dollars over the next eight years to Mark Teixeira, a switch-hitting first baseman who has been batting over .300 every year lately and hitting over thirty home runs most seasons,. “Wow! What a coups!,” chirped Yankee fans everywhere.

“What insufferable, insensitive arrogance!” growled the fair-minded fans of every other professional major league baseball team.

“What a waste!” exclaimed everyone who knows that far too much money is spent on sports figures, singers, and movie actors, while teachers, nurses, and physical assistants to the disabled are never paid what they’re truly worth.

What appears to bug people the most is the lack of shame—especially on the part of Yankee fans—for the “corporate mentality” of the Yankee brass—especially, of course, the Steinbrenners. (It used to be only George but now his two sons Hal and Hank are included.) However, the legitimate response to that one is, “Baseball isn’t about what corporations do or don’t do; it’s about “one, two, three strikes, you’re out at the old ball game.” Everybody knows that. Umpires decide what’s fair and not fair on the field and the Commissioner of Baseball can void trades and even contracts if there’s anything underhanded about them.

Also, when was baseball, or any other sport for that matter, fair? Was baseball “fair” in 1951 when the New York Giants caught the Brooklyn Dodgers through a clever sign stealing system? Was baseball fair during the decades of the “gentlemen’s agreement” to keep blacks and others of color out of baseball? Was baseball fair when the Dodgers left Brooklyn and the Giants left New York in 1957? I don’t recall the Yankees receiving any credit for remaining “loyal” to their fans. Nor, I hasten to say, should they have received such credit.

One more thing: was baseball fair when it constructed the old reserve clause binding players to a particular team for life? (The existence of the reserve clause was one of the factors that cause the late outfielder Curt Flood to drink himself to death!) Baseball, of course, had the reputation for being fair. The great Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes exempted baseball from anti trust regulations in 1922 insisting that baseball wasn’t a business—it was a sport. Hmm! I wonder if the Taft family (former President William Howard Taft of Cincinnati, Ohio who was Chief Justice of the United States at that time) had any money invested in the Cincinnati Reds. The point is that even back in the days of the single owners such as the Yankees’ Colonel Rupert and the Philadelphia A’s’ Connie Mack, America’s “national pastime” was hardly a bastion of equity!

Of course, there’s little if any equity in baseball or any other sport. Nor is there equity in the entertainment business – or even in politics. My gripe is that with the possible exception of lawyers and politicians, the Yankees have the reputation of being the most arrogant and greedy entity since say—our Internal Revenue Service. It wouldn’t surprise me if more people hated the Yankees than hate the IRS. I insist, however, that the Yankees aren’t any greedier than anyone else.

Recently, a commentator on NPR announced that he’s going to start calling the Yankees the “Antoinettes” after Marie Antoinette who was once famously quoted as suggesting that the poor of eighteenth century France could eat cake if they couldn’t afford bread. (She and her royal husband Louis XVI paid for their arrogance at the guillotine in 1793.) This commentator scolded the Yankees for spending their money this way while millions of people lose their jobs because of the greed of auto dealers, Wall Street money changers and the policies of the Bush administration. Americans are broke and the insensitive Yankees are spending too much of their own money while asking New York City taxpayers to put up even more money for completion of their new Yankees Stadium.

Okay, fair enough -- except that the Yankees are far from being the only team run by large corporations with their hands in the taxpayer’s pocket. The beloved Cubs have been run for decades by the family that created Wrigley’s chewing gum. The manufacturers of Budweiser bought the St. Louis Cardinals in 1953. In fact, there are many more instances of deep pockets in baseball — just as in other sports. Also, keep in mind that President Bush (on whose watch our economy is “tanking”) was once president of the Texas Rangers -- not the New York Yankees.

Finally, if buying what you can afford is so despicable, why have Americans created an entity which encourages its citizens to spend money they don’t even have? That entity is the so called “free market.” This free market (which is far from free!) doesn’t care if you invest your own money or if the money you give them is a loan. Isn’t that how banks and other lending organizations make their money? Don’t insurance, real estate and stock brokers insist that the way to make money is to “spend” (okay, “invest”) money?

Sure, the Yankees spend a lot of their money on themselves. It’s also true that there’s a healthy hunk of self worth (okay, arrogance!) in their outlook. Wouldn’t fans of other ball clubs be better served if their teams possessed the Yankees’ sense of self worth? Their teams are humble, such fans seem to insist, and hence are far more worthy of success.

No one, and that includes this Yankee fan, feels sorry for the Yankees when they fail, as they did in 2008, to even make the playoffs. Like their fellow citizens, the Yankees are probably too often under the illusion that they can buy success.

What makes the Yankees different from most of us is that, even when they fail, they don’t excuse or complain. They build their new stadium, they pay the luxury tax baseball charges them for spending so much of their own money, and soon they are champions once again. What a team! Shouldn’t you be a Yankee fan, too?

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY