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Quarantine the Plague
- 6/13/08 Matt H
The teams I cheer for are, in order, the
Cubs, the White Sox, and whoever is playing the Yankees.
The last one is a product of my upbringing but as time as
gone by I have had to come to my own personal reasons for hating
the Yankees. It’s
not enough anymore to just say, “That’s how I was raised.”
At some point in our lives we must come to our own
conclusions about what we were taught while growing up.
As time has gone by I’ve decided that I can eat cookies
before dinner, a day spent playing video games is not a waste,
and I DO hate the Yankees.
What really gets me about the Yankees is
that they have come to be an extreme example of our quick fix
society. The belief
that a problem can always be solved by throwing money at it is
both intellectually and morally bankrupt.
Instead of spending the time to develop prospects and,
God forbid, waiting a few years for a young player to develop,
they sell their prospects wholesale in order to purchase
“pivotal” players that have already proven themselves.
It doesn’t matter if these players have peaked and are on
the decline. The
names alone strike fear into the hearts of fans everywhere.
Who wouldn’t want to see Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson,
and Andy Petite in their pitching rotation?
But as Mike B already demonstrated this
strategy hasn’t met with very much success.
So why should it inspire so much hate from so many fans?
Let’s be honest at least some of it is jealousy.
Their willingness to spend deprives our teams of signing
some of those stellar free agents with astronomical contracts.
Every fan wishes that their team’s owner would just hand
a blank check over to their GM.
But a team of high price tags doesn’t necessarily play
well as a team. The
2007 Diamondbacks had a team price tag of about $60,200,000.
Whereas the 2007 Yankees, who only had one Postseason
win, had a price tag of $189,639,045, more than triple that of
the Diamondbacks.
Why were the Diamondbacks more successful?
Was it the division they played in?
The teams they played in the Postseason?
The luck of the draw?
Or did they actually play together as a team.
In a clubhouse rife with rumors, hostility, and threats
the Yankees showed us all that a team is more than a collection
of individuals. But
when some of your players turn out to be selfish and only
interested in how things benefit them you can’t really be too
surprised. After
all, if they weren’t exclusively interested in how much money
they could make they wouldn’t have signed with the Yanks in the
first place.
So what do we do with the Yankees.
I propose that we quarantine them someplace where their
team philosophy won’t pollute the area around them.
There is one place in America where the Yankees would fit
in perfectly. A
place where scandals are routine and money is what truly talks
and it’s perfectly timed with the rebirth of the series.
That’s right I’m talking about a Yankees 90210.
- Matt H
Tell
us what you think
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