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5th November
2009
written by Dave

Yankees fans, congratulations on your 27th world championship. I’m sure I’ll be hearing about it not only for the rest of the winter, but all through next year and until the next World Series is won, and if the Yankees don’t win that one, I’ll keep hearing about how they should have. Yadda yadda.

My issue is not that the Yankees won; it is how they won.  At the risk of taking this beyond sports, how the Yankees won and have won over the past two decades bridges to a great social divide about how success can be achieved in our society.

Obviously, if you have an unlimited source of funds, money can buy you anything. In a realm, such as sports, where a championship is the measure of success, having an unlimited source of money to achieve that success when the competition does not is inequitable at best.

If a professional league cannot provide an equal opportunity for achievement (aka salary caps), in my opinion, it should not be considered a professional league because a majority of the teams competing in that league fundamentally do not have the opportunity to achieve success.

I’m not saying it is only the Yankees creating this situation…it is other teams as well, but when comparing baseball to the other major professional sports, there is less parity in baseball than any other sport, and that is because of the lack of a salary cap.

I’m not saying this out of being a Yankee hater. I don’t like the Yankees, being that I grew up in Queens as a Mets fan and adopted the Marlins as my team when I moved to Florida, but my point is not to bash them because they are the Yankees…it is the greater social implication.

The point is, the way MLB as a league and baseball as a sport is run, it is a representation of the political views of some to win at all costs, even if winning means making the system unfair to those less fortunate. I don’t believe that is the right way in any situation…in sports, or in life in general.

1 Comment

  1. 04/01/2010

    My response to this blog is really more a series of questions.

    In 2008, when the Phillies won, who had the highest payroll in MLB?

    In 2007, when the Red Sox won, who had the highest payroll in MLB?

    In 2006, when the Cardinals won, who had the highest payroll in MLB?

    In 2005, when the White Sox won, who had the highest payroll in MLB?

    In 2004, when the Red Sox won, who had the highest payroll in MLB?

    In 2003, when the Marlins won, who had the highest payroll in MLB?

    In 2002, when the Angels won, who had the highest payroll in MLB?

    In 2001, when the Diamondbacks won, who had the highest payroll in MLB?

    Don’t cry foul when the team with the most money wins, when in the eight years prior, five teams with half the payroll the Yankees did was able to accomplish championship glory.

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