Yankees, oh Yankees

I used to argue that money cannot buy a championship. I would point to the NY Mets as my prime example and win some arguments. Then I did some statistical research and saw an underlying pattern of a strong correlation of salary and winning percentage. Things became harder to argue for me when faced with this hard data. Then King George fell on his head and decided to spend all his money on decaying players of various quality. The result was a team payroll literally twice even the highest in the game. As the crowds in NY applauded, expectations soared beyond reason. Anything short of dominance meant failure.

Instead we get this. After the managment interceded to shake up the lineup and motivate the team, the Yankees dropped four in a row and fell into last place. Last place? After nearly doubling their payroll over the past few years? Again the franchise proves itself to be an outlier and refuses to be put into any box you can imagine. However, as a Yankee fan I am dismayed. Part of me feels vindicating in deploring the breakup of the team motif for the star player motif, but largely I cannot even enjoy the secreted satisfaction of being a Yankee fan that the public outside of Yankee Stadium denies me. The confidence of the team's sheer superiority has faded into knowing the team just might become the mismanaged NY franchise I pointed to as an example of why money cannot buy championships. I used to laugh at Mo Vaughn. Now I grimace as Jason Giambi is so sluggish he cannot even avoid getting hit by pitches, let alone putting his bat on them. I used to doubt John Franco. Now I sorely accept Mike Stanton as an elder statesmen in the Yankee bullpen. I used to laugh at the Mets being in a race to avoid last place. Now the Yankees struggle to avoid losing to at team that makes a combined salary of the Yankees thirdbaseman. Amazing.