The date is February 27, and that means baseball season is indeed upon us. For lovers of the national pastime the long winter is finally over, and we can take solace in the fact that our teams are now engaging in full workouts. It is shaping up to be a very entertaining 2006 season, but it may be hard to match the last few. MLB’s parody has been incredible in recent years, with two ancient curses being broken with the last two World Series champions.
However, all this parody has had George Steinbrenner bumming for the last few seasons. Not since 2000 has his team won a title. Even with his payroll reaching record amounts; it was approximately 205 million dollars in 2005, more than 80 million dollars higher than any other team. Yet George’s Yankees couldn’t even get to the World Series. They didn’t even get out of the first round! With such a travesty at the end of the season, it was an oddly quiet offseason for Steinbrenner. The only big-name change was the signing of Johnny Damon from the hated Red Sox. People need to remember though that the Yanks won 95 games in 2005 and won the division for the 8th straight year, so one could argue that not many changes needed to be made.