New York All Stars

In a world dependant on money, sports plays a vital role on the greed that many people see everyday. George Steinbrenner is adding to this greed trying his best to buy another championship team with his recent trade to obtain Alex Rodriguez.

The Boston Red Sox missed their chance to get A-Rod, so the Boston fans have no reason to complain, but everyone else should be. Steinbrenner went out and bought himself and all-star team since losing to the Marlins in October. They have stacked up every place on defense and offense possible. First they got Gary Sheffield, now A-Rod.

Yes, they lost two of their better pitchers to the Astros in Roger Clemens and Andy Petite. He did add Kevin Brown to his rotation but that won’t make up for losing those two. Speaking of pitching, Greg Maddux is still available to the highest bidder. Reports late Monday are saying he may sign with the Yankees later this week.

What’s next for the Yankees, are they going to buy out Barry Bonds’ and Sammy Sosa’s contract too?

What the Yankees are doing is absurd. Steinbrenner is playing his own video game with the Major League. In video games, kids will pick their favorite team and then vamp it up with the best players in the league. Why? Well because they can do it. So, Steinbrenner obviously thought he could do the same thing and the problem is the league is letting him.

The league is already under fire due to the recent steroids scandal, now Selig lets Steinbrenner make his own all-star team. Yes, it will be good for ratings, when ever someone plays the Yankees, but what happens to the teams that don’t play them.

The problem is there are too many individual players on the Yankees now who will not play as a team. Take the L.A. Lakers as an example. Their starting line-up has Gary Payton, Karl Malone, Kobe Bryant and Shaq. The Lakers are not even in first place, Steinbrenner needs to learn from this. The best players don’t equal championship, heart does. This isn’t even the issue though.

The buying of these all-star teams ruins the integrity of the game. Who would want to watch the Texas Rangers play now? Same thing with basketball, their ratings are going down because it is not entertaining to watch anymore.

What will the All-Star game be this year, the League v. New York or will it be every night whenever the Yankees play? There is no point in letting Steinbrenner take all the best players and keep them to himself. The AL East will not even be a competition anymore. The Devil Rays, Red Sox, Blue Jays and Orioles should combine their teams into one and try to take the Yankees out.

Maybe there would be less greed and emphasis on money if it wasn’t for owners like Steinbrenner who would pay so much for a championship team. Put it this way, Babe Ruth was happy to play the game he loved for $125,000, now players are asking for $125 million and Steinbrenner is happy to be paying it. Hopefully the other teams in the league prove him wrong and beat the Yankees again.

By Mike Dill at February 17, 2004 09:22 AM