Hate the Yankees? Then Do Yourself a Favor, and Root For the Yankees!
November 6, 2009 · Tom Davis · Jump to comments
Article Source: Bleacher Report - New York Yankees
It may be the second-most often heard phrase in professional sports, trailing only “Brett Favre is considering (un)retiring”: “The Yankees win the World Series!” All together, the Yankees have won 27 out a possible 105 World Series titles, that percentage (25.71 percent) meaning that this team has accounted for one out of every four championships.
Now, for full disclosure, that percentage is actually third in North American professional sports, behind the NHL’s Montreal Canadiens (who have won 22 out of 82 modern Stanley Cups for 26.83 percent) and the NBA’s Boston Celtics (who have won 17 of 63 BBA/NBA Championships for 26.98 percent).
However, the Canadiens have only won eight championships since 1970 (the NHL was only a six-team league from 1942-67), and two since 1980 (which is when the first of the NHL’s two major expansions ended). And apart from that unprecedented 11-of-13 NBA Championships run for the Celtics from 1957-69, they’ve been mostly quiet, winning only one NBA Championship in the past two decades. The Yankees, by contrast, have won five World Series since 1996.
Now, many people hate the Yankees, and with good reason. To many people, sports should be about a love of the game, whatever game that may be. It should be a place where success is determined by teamwork, hard work, and God-given talent, not by who has the most money (which is a large determining factor in much of life outside of sports, a fact we turn to sports to escape from). Every time the Yankees win, baseball changes from America’s pastime into something sinister.
I’ll admit, I used to hate the Yankees with a passion for these very reasons. But as I’ve learned more about the business of sports, I’ve learned that they are completely within the rules of baseball for them to do what they do, i.e., try to “buy championships” by paying exorbitant amounts for the top free agent talent, and that the only thing preventing other ball clubs from doing the same is their owners’ unwillingness or inability to cough up the dough.
However, the idea of championships based on ability to pay is still unsavory to me. Thus, I have searched for a way to have Major League Baseball impose upon itself a more equitable system, whether it be tougher penalties for overspending, more revenue sharing, or even the implementation of a salary cap. After a great deal of thinking, I came up with a solution.
I will root for the Yankees.
I want the Yankees to win every game they play every year, and crush whoever they play in the World Series in four games by a minimum of 10 runs a game. I want every team playing the Yankees to look so bad, and the games to be so uncompetitive, that people stop buying tickets.
It may take a while (maybe seven or eight championships in the next decade) for Major League Baseball to start feeling it in the wallet, but when they do, then something will be done to give fans of bad teams like the Pirates, Royals, and Nationals, and middling teams like my Brewers reason to hope. Until then, I have only four syllables for you: “Let’s go Yankees!”
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tnx for info!!…