I have a problem. For a lot of people, this problem would seem insignificant, but for someone like me it’s pretty big.
See, I have a problem with the New York Yankees. As of late I am finding it really hard to say that I’m still a fan of them because lately they’ve reinforced their position as the snobby rich kids of Major League Baseball.
They’ve always made a habit of going out and spending ridiculous amounts of money on players, but this winter has just been absurd. Signing A.J. Burnett, C.C. Sabathia and Mark Teixeira all to huge contracts to a combined $423.5 million has effectively done me in.
Liking the Yankees has become something like me trying to be friends with the super-rich kid in middle school. I’m not even in the same league as the team anymore. How can a college student (or for that matter, 99 percent of America) relate to an organization that spends that kind of money? Yeah, you like to see your team have good players, but the Yankees’ financial escapades this winter have taken the term “spending spree” to a whole new level. It’s kind of like when you go in and edit the rosters in the video game MLB The Show so you get all of the super stars. No one has a say; you just screw over the Mariners and the Rangers, and leave them with the rest.
Here’s the real reason I’m upset with the Yankees, though: They still aren’t the best. They haven’t won a World Series in more than eight years, and the team hasn’t even won the American League Pennant since 2003. It should be the best team in league, hands down. The Yankees have a roster that features arguably the greatest player of this generation in Alex Rodriguez, the best shortstop with Derek Jeter, Johnny Damon, Hideki Matsui, Xavier Nady … I mean, it seems as if the whole team has been to the All-Star Game. It’s just unacceptable that it hasn’t won a championship in eight years.
But now I’m going to end my rant about how good the Yankees should be; that’s been done before. I started liking the Yankees back in grade school because of guys like Derek Jeter. Every time I watched a Yankees game, Jeter would do something that made me shake my head in amazement. The man is the prototypical baseball player. He carries himself with poise, he gets things done on the field, and he’s a leader. Add in my favorite player, Alex Rodriguez, and it was a good match.
The other reason I liked the Yankees is because I don’t like the Red Sox. People think Yankees fans are bad – try listening to a Boston fan for awhile. All they did before 2004 was whine about how they’d gone 100 years without a World Series. Then as soon as they won, they became elitists. There were people who never watched baseball saying they were a part of Red Sox Nation. Naturally, this sort of bandwagon fan repulses me.
There used to be three sides of the Yankees-Red Sox issue. Either you were a Yankee fan, a Red Sox fan, or you were neutral. I’ve decided on a fourth option: apathy. I feel that those of us in the media hype up the Red Sox and Yankees, and I’m washing my hands of it all. This is my formal resignation to the Yankees. I’m through watching these two teams cry for attention when teams like the Tampa Bay Rays and the Philadelphia Phillies have great seasons.
So goodbye, New York. The only joy of your team was your old stadium, and now that you are moving into a billion dollar mansion across the street, there’s nothing more I have to say. It’s been OK, not great, as I’ve received much more criticism for liking you than not.
I’ll just stick with the Mariners – they’ve never hurt anyone, have they?
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