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New York Yankees

Illusory Economics

In professional baseball we have all just witnessed a big bang-like collision between a false claim to a non-existing economic crisis and the wealthiest sports franchise on the face of the planet. The impact has birthed the unprecedented humiliation of the one of the game’s all-time greats. Derek Jeter, unfortunately, is the initial example of what it means get robbed in free agency in the 21st century.

Heading into the 2010 season, it felt like an opening day of old for the Yankees organization. The Bombers had finally gotten over the hump, laying claim as king of the hill by winning their 28th World Series Championship in 2009 and were ready to begin their rampant march to repeat. However, there was one big elephant in the room for New York, but in April it may have seemed to most as only a mouse. Clearly the elephant was Derek Jeter’s contract status after 2010. Jeter would be playing the final season of his ten-year, $180 million contract and would likely be demanding a hefty price for what would appear to be his final contract as a New York Yankee.

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MLB New York Yankees Philadelphia Phillies

MLB Umpires: Much ado about sucking

By Tom Kelly

So when Major League Baseball made the decision to exclusively include umpires with World Series experience in this year’s fall classic did it make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside?  Well it probably shouldn’t have, because all it did was assure us that those making the incorrect calls would do so with decades of collective experience.

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New York Yankees

A Red Sox Fan’s Tongue-Biting Tribute to Mariano Rivera

By Ryan McGowan

Mariano Rivera notched his 500th career save last weekend against the Richmond Braves New York Mets.

Back in the 90’s, or even as recently as 2003, such an event would have been greeted in Red Sox Nation with snotty, sarcastic dismissals and whiny, insecure hating.  New England would have made a collective litany of excuses as to why this event was irrelevant, as to how Mo was overrated, and how 500 saves wasn’t anything to be proud of.

Thank God we’ve grown up as a fan base.  Now, at least, we can fully accept and appreciate Rivera for being what he is—the greatest closer of all time.   No strings attached, no questions asked.

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Boston Red Sox New York Yankees

Yankees Passed Over by Evolution like the Damn Dirty Apes They Are

By Ryan McGowan

It’s only April, of course.  And I know that you can’t win the division in April (but you could lose it – see New York Yankees, 2007).

But is there any doubt after the Red Sox swept the Yankees (as well as their recent nine-game homestand) that the chasms between these two franchises are larger than they have been in a long time?

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MLB New York Yankees Uncategorized

Permanent Transit

“Everything passes, everything changes, just do what you think you should do.” – Bob Dylan, — To Ramona

The blank page is a void we must fill.

The empty stadium is a palace we must glorify.

The abandoned, snow-dusted field is just cause for melancholy.

I saw a great movie once, one line always stuck out, more than the others. “Nature’s cruel, Staros.”

Nature’s cruel. The two characters talking represent the dualistic nature of man. Yeah, two thumbs up.

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MLB New York Yankees

A Thing or Two About That A-Rod Story

 

Hypocrisy is a fashionable vice, and all fashionable vices pass for virtue. -Moliere

I am the proud owner of a blue iPod mini that I received as a Christmas present in 2004. Now every time I use it, I feel like Josh Baskin toiling away on his turn-of-the-century Macintosh. The reason for this being that I’m reluctant to invest in a new iPod until I know for sure that an even better one won’t hit the shelves 40 minutes later. 

Similarly, I’ve been biting my tongue on the almost comical sequence of Yankees plights because I know it’s only a matter of time before a new chapter is added to the ever-growing anthology of controversy.

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New York Yankees

The Stars are Projectors

It was Nas who once said, “It’s a dirty game, is any man worthy of fame?” You could argue whether or not Nas has ever lived up to the amazing level of potential he exhibited on “Illmatic”, [I kind of want to forget the Escobar era myself] but the brilliance of that line could never be disputed. It is a dirty game. And is any flawed human being really worthy of fame?

 

Society relishes the defilement of plastic deities. After all, the mob has to feel power over something. Everything else is beyond us… war… the economy… poverty… bailouts… Indignation flies, but it’s fake, and if legitimate, certainly misguided. Flaming pitchforks. Adulation turns poisonous at a moment’s notice. Fame is equal parts a blessing or a burden. It’s complicated, everything is, and we wish it weren’t. So we exercise our defenses, simplify and attack. When the fairy tale doesn’t offer a happy ending, the book is torn to shreds. We find something new to dream on…

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MLB MLB General New York Yankees

Major League Baseball’s Communist Manifesto

“No nation was ever ruined by trade, even seemingly the most disadvantageous.” -Benjamin Franklin

The New York Yankees showcased their latest holiday impulse buy yesterday when they introduced 1B Mark Teixiera to their $223 million toy chest. Coming on the heels on the A.J. Burnett and C.C. Sabathia purchases, the Yankees are undoubtedly making an unabashed statement to the rest of Major League Baseball. But in the context of the ever-disintegrating economy, their off-season spending binge does not connote aggressive World Series campaigning so much as it invokes the contempt and ire of fiscal-conscious Americans.

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New York Yankees

The 2008 Yankees: A study in hindsight

Ah, baseball optimism. It springs eternal in those endless, freezing winter months. Here were my prognostications regarding the 2008 Yankees, surely bound for glory, before cruel reality could intervene. Hindsight wisdom located within parenthesis. Special props to Fire Joe Morgan, the forerunners of this journalistic style… I guess. Whatever.

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New York Yankees

Rebutting the D.Y.F.C.[Dumb Yankee fan Contingent- Northeast Chapter]

There is, of course, a mind-bending level of stupidity entailed when jeering your home team’s best player. The reasons are often varied, and always retarded. Maybe you’re angry he makes more money than you, even though you could never do his job, not in a million years, which is why, of course, he makes more money than you. Maybe a jilted sportswriter told you not to like him, and you followed like a trained seal, clapping for a biscuit, [Do seals eat biscuits?] overwhelmed by the titanic brainpower of literary heavyweights like Woody Paige. Maybe he had a rough playoff series and made you cry, emotionally scarring you for two whole days. Whatever… the reasons are secondary, anyway.