Posted on 10/26/2009 7:53:07 AM PDT by chessplayer
NEW YORK Everyone here wanted to talk about six years ago. Champagne corks whizzed like stray bullets, and beer flowed at Oktoberfest, Yankees-style, and New York was abuzz because its team was back in the World Series for the first time since 2003. Which was all well and good, certainly, if not off by a digit.
(Excerpt) Read more at sports.yahoo.com ...
birthright?
Lets just abolish MLB and allow the Yankee’s to be the ONLY team for the nation.
A billion dollars in contracts just doesn’t buy what it used to.
I agree, give them their own league, declare them champions, and get it over with. Every year I’m firstly a Twins fan, then a fan of whomever is playing the Yanks.
Now that Hillary is no longer Senator, the curse has been lifted.
Yankees, a billion bucks.
Angel errors, priceless.
Freegards
3 years ago the Pirates had all the money in the world to go after top players.......they chose to build a new stadium instead. The point is that other teams have the ability to grab players & they don’t.Why is that?
As a Yankee fan (conservative first, republican second, yankee fan third), I just like to see a decent game. Don’t like any game that’s a blowout, won by any team. It was not pleasant to see the Angels becoming unglued late in the last game.
Let’s see- 95.00 seats behind the foul pole; 9.00 dollar
hot dogs; and 10.00 dollar beers!
The Yankees spend they money they have. They put all of their resources into being the best, and they dutifully pay their luxury taxes. If you were running the team, would you run your team any other way?
Tampa Bay played for the AL last year - where were the payroll complainers then? Where were the angry people when Boston won on a $150M payroll with a boatload of steroids? Pound sand.
Exactly! Immediate ROI
The birthright thing is what makes people detest many Yankee fans and really the franchise itself. The organization has leveraged its huge market to buy talent and crowd out other clubs. When CC Sabbathia takes the mound and Rivera closes the game they are sporting a payroll of $155 million for the starting 9 plus their closer.
Tampa Rays, Kansas City Royals, Toronto Blue Jays, Cleveland Indians, etc. These teams have no chance to stay competitive.
I will note that I am a Red Sox fan and my club has pissed away its fair share of money on players who didn’t earn their pay.
As badly as the Angels played, the worst umpiring I have seen in my life, and cheerleading from the networks and MLB for the Yankees--it STILL took 6 games
You had a great year, Nick--RIP...
Kansas City Royals: Once had an outfield of Damon, Beltran and Dye but didn't pay to keep them
Toronto Blue Jays: Back to back champs 92-93
Cleveland Indians: 2007 blew 3-1 lead over Red Sox in ALCS; Sox beat Rockies in WS
What are you talking about? These teams are competitive or in KC's case could be if they spent some money.
Don't hate the Yankees for their obsession to win and their success rate.
Number 27 comes as Yanks beat Fightin' Phils in Five!
GO PHILLIES!!!

Mr. Met could not be reached for comment.
In 2004 the Yankees collapsed in the biggest choke of all time with their $200 million plus payroll with a boatload of their own roided up bunch. And, the Yankees were winning WS with players like Clemmens and Knobloch cheating as well.
The Yankees will likely win the WS this year after buying 2 starting pitchers plus an All-Star 1st baseman. And.....they managed to get a tax subsidy for their news stadium. Welfare Queens!!!!!
The Yankees have a foolproof plan. If available, buy the guys that hurt you the most. That way you use them to hurt the other teams you compete against, and they are no longer hurting you. As a result, the Yankees only have to protect their top minor league prospects.
An Amtrack serious!
Tampa Rays: AL Champs 2008 (now dumping players due to $$$)
Kansas City Royals: Once had an outfield of Damon, Beltran and Dye but didn’t (Couldn’t afford to) pay to keep them
Toronto Blue Jays: Back to back champs 92-93-Now limited to an $80 million payroll and that was 16 years ago.
Cleveland Indians: 2007 blew 3-1 lead over Red Sox in ALCS; Sox beat Rockies in WS (Cleveland having a fire sale this past year due to economy)
What are you talking about? These teams are competitive or in KC’s case could be if they spent some money.
Don’t hate the Yankees for their obsession to win and their success rate. (For all of their spending over the past 5 years prior to this one, what have they accomplished as compared to everyone else???)
Number 27 (Number 8 in the era of free agency and actually having to win more than one series to be considered champs) comes as Yanks beat Fightin’ Phils in Five!
A Kennedy in every Senate seat and the Yankees as World Series champs every year!
I’m a lifelong Yankee fan and I’ll ignore the class envy in this thread. However, AJ Burnett has got to go!
The Yankees have no starting pitching beyond their top 3 guys, 2 of which were FAs.
At some point the other owners are going to get together and demand a cap. They will point to the NFL as a model of success and the number of franchises that are worth a billion dollars.
liberal Utopia.
I will be the first to renounce any “dirty” championships the Yankees won - that includes 98,99,2000. If it can be proven their players used in 96, then I will renounce that too. You should do the same for your two anabolic World Series.
But, let’s face facts: Ortiz and Ramirez WERE the Red Sox offense in 2004 and 2007. These were not roll players or didn’t play every day like pitchers. Ortiz wasn’t even a good hitter before he started using ‘roids, and he went from that to one of the most feared hitters in the game. At least Ramirez had a track record of being a good hitter without the juice, but you can pitch around one guy. There’s no way they win either of those championships without Ortiz. Somewhere, Ruth is snickering.
You Yankee-haters sound like liberals...maybe we should turn MLB into a socialist paradise and spread the wealth a little...or just skip that and have the government take it over so everyone gets a chance to win...
The thing is, the MLB needs to Yankees.
How much was attendance increased in ballparks, when the Yankees came to town, over any other team? A league has to have a marquee franchise, that’s just the way it is.
I agree, and ditto with the announcers.
why are they wasting their time?
THE ONE was awarded the World Series Championship a couple of weeks ago......
And therein lies proof of how the MLB needs the Yankees. How much attention outside of the Tampa and Philly markets did the World Series get last year?
With the Yankees in the show, now the ratings should be boffo compared to last year.
It’s the same with the Cowboys in the NFL, people want to watch because they either want to see the Cowboys win, or they want to see them fail miserably. But watch they do.
“How much was attendance increased in ballparks, when the Yankees came to town, over any other team?”
Good point.
Freegards
That’s a lie and you know it. The Sox in 2004 had Damon (you do remember that Grand Slam in Game 7, no?), Trot Nixon (.900 plus OPS) Bill Mueller (2003 batting champ), Kevin Millar, Orlando Cabrera, Tek was still a top offensive catcher and his back up hit 10 HRs catching every 5th day. The team scored 940 runs that year.
In 2007 Kevin Youkilis and Dustin Pedroia were on base the entire postseason, Jacoby Ellsbury was a major catalyst and Mike Lowell won the postseason MVP. They also had some really great starting pitching and Papelbon was lights out that postseason.
With respect to your roids comments though, why did Ortiz and Ramirez manage to pass over a dozen drug tests since 2003? Manny’s numbers spiked after he went to the Dodgers in 2008. And, with respect to Ortiz, he had a 5 year run of not only HRs but .OBP and high average. Funny but he and A-Roid looked very similar stat-wise.
The Yankees had driven up the cost of doing business across the game.
And how well viewed was the Subway series a few years back? And, what makes you think that the West Coast will be tuning in this year?
Huge Hewitt wanted the Indians to take it all.
The Mets are the other team people hate as much as the Yankees, so people didn’t care who won that series.
Great - I haven’t had to root for a Philedelphia team since the 76ers beat Boston on thier way to play the Lakers.
The players union will agree to a cap the same time politicians all agree to term limits. The genie is out of the bottle. Of course fans in other sports (w/ a cap) wind up complaining about losing key players because of the cap.
Who knows, could happen, but could trigger a strike.
I don’t know what the payroll of the 2001 Diamondbacks was, but it was fun to see them beat the Yanks. 2 years later,
the tiny payroll Fla. Marlins, feat. Beckett and Lowell, also beat the pinstripes. 6 games were needed (Clemens was tanned, rested, and ready for a game 7 that was not needed).
It was good to see that (esp. seeing how close the Sox came to getting into the WS) and the next year was truly sweet (thus the “Choke: The Official Soft Drink of the New York Yankees” shirts). Hey Yanks: while you try to find room on your hands for a 27th ring for your ten fingers, realize that other clubs would like to win it once in awhile.
>>they managed to get a tax subsidy for their news stadium. Welfare Queens!!!!!
So, they go from being Team Hillary to Team Obama...?
Major League Baseball is big business. If you play in NYC you're gonna get paid more money. If you play for the Yanks and you keep winning games, you're gonna get more of the spotlight and more of the headlines. OTOH, when you lose, you'll be the target for criticism from everyone.
BFD! Get over it Yankee haters. The 40th pennant has been won and hopefully soon, the 27th World Series championship will be won by the greatest sports franchise ever!
Btw, the low point in Yankee history was from 1965-1972 when CBS owned the team. But I wouldn't expect an idiot like Jeff Passan to know that. If your play for the Yankees and lose , you don't get "devastated". You get disappointed. Then you pick yourself up and move on to the next challenge. Baseball is no different than life in that regard.
Do you know why the Yankees infuriate people? The word “birthright.” That’s why.
“A billion dollars in contracts just doesnt buy what it used to.”
The Yankees realize that you have to spend money to make money. They have the money to spend because THEY WIN, and have for a century. Other teams spend nearly as much and LOSE (Red Sox). The other teams should mimic the Yankees if they want to succeed. All of you sore losers sound like Europeons bashing the US.
It was proven that both Ramirez and Ortiz used in both the years the Red Sox won - I don’t know why you’re still arguing something that is proven fact.
You need to get to the post-season before you can win there. Have you looked at Ortiz’s numbers prior to 2004? The difference is staggering.
David Ortiz was the ALCS series MVP in 2004. He hit .397 with 3 home runs with 11 RBI’s in that series alone. Manny Ramirez was the World Series MVP.
In the 2007 postseason, Ortiz hit .370 in the post-season with 3 HR’s and 10 RBI’s - I suppose the Minnesota Twins David Ortiz would have done the same thing? Meanwhile, Ramirez hit 4 HR’s and hit .348.
You still want to talk about all your productive roll players? What a joke. 1918.
They have more money because of their local TV contracts, which is a product of geography. I don’t hate the Yankees because they have money, although they spend more per win than anyone. I hate the Yankees because they are arrogant. They have the two most arrogant players in baseball (Tex and ARod), and I wouldn’t want those guys on my team at half the price. Unfortunately, Tom Hicks wasn’t smart enough to get them for half price.
I’ve really had it with conservatives taking shots at the Yankees and joining the bash the Yankees for investing in their team and being a great American success story. George Steinbrenner bought the Yankees for $10 million from CBS who let the great Yankee organization run into the ground with lousy teams and thanks to Steinbrenner, the Yankees are a billion dollar team now because of his investment and capitalist way of doing things. Too damn bad if you all want to whine about it, but the core remain homegrown players like Jeter, Rivera, Pettite, Posada along with Cano, Chamberlain, Hughes and the fact they just happen to pay well. It’s nonsense and kudos to the Steinbrenners for being the best owners in sports and knowing how to run an organization and keep fans happy. The Cleveland Indians could have been fortunate to have had Steinbreener as an owner, but they denied him!
Well said. I’m amazed at this mentality on a conservative board.
The ‘birthright’ thing just has to do with the Yankees proud history. No denying that the Yankees took off with Ruth and the legendary players and championships followed. How can you not take notice and be in awe of that? Of course there are fans of other teams and they just like to hate the ‘damn Yankees’, but as a Yankee fan I am happy as can be that Steinbrenner bought the team for a mere $10 million from bad owner CBS who let them fall on bad times and puts his all into making the Yankees live up to their proud tradition and with his investment has made the Yankees a billion dollar organization which was not a given and there are other big city teams and the Yankees do share NY with the Mets so knock off that BS about the big market and all that. Funny you are a Red Sox fan as John Henry is a big liberal Demonrat and Steinbrenner is more conservative in his views and politics.
Go ahead and push for the cap. What are you gonna do when the top players want to play for the Yankees anyways because of the history and to play for the team Babe, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle, Ford, Berra, Jeter played for??!! What then? I suppose you make it illegal for any player to sign with the Yankees?! I’m amazed at you people and on a conservative board nonetheless!
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