YANKEE REBUTTAL
Memo to All Yankee Fans

By Tom Stern

Editor's note: We have run Jesse Siegel's Yankees piece (opposing page) as much to satiate Bay Area Yankees fans as to raise the ire of devoted A's and Giants fans. And it didn't take long. Contributor and copy editor Tom Stern couldn't help but immediately fire off his own retort, even before we went to print! Join in, if you like.

A Yankee fan is not a baseball fan. Yankee fans have cast their lot with the Goldman Sachs of baseball. The Yankee philosophy means the wealthiest politician should win every election and the wealthiest contestant should always win 'American Idol.'

The Yankees do not spend more money because they want to win more; they spend more money because they have more to spend. Every player on every team is just auditioning for the Yankees. They can outbid every other team for a hot young prospect, or they can outbid every other team for your team's star player. If they want Tim Lincecum, they'll get him. The Yankees can outspend everyone else, driving salaries so high that only they can afford the cream of the superstars. So they field an all-star team every year — in all of baseball, only they can keep every player who produces. Do you think the Yankees would have had to let Cliff Lee go to sign Roy Halladay?

Football and basketball are forbidden to operate this way. In football, little Green Bay can go to the Super Bowl as surely as the N.Y. Giants can, because the salary structure is fair for all. So to all Yankee fans, I say: Before you gloat about last year's World Series win, consider that Major League Baseball is set up for you to win every year. The fact that you hadn't won anything in nine years is a testament to your front office's ineptitude. You're a stunningly mediocre organization with a boatload of money. You're the little rich kid who hires the neighborhood tough to fight your battles for you.

Which brings me to your radio voice, John Sterling. What is this no-class, no-clue hayseed doing in a town synonymous with sophistication? His gloating yodel at the end of Yankee wins is beneath the dignity of the play-by-play guy for the Single-A Springfield Sapsuckers. Compared to Sterling, that "let's get ready to rumble" clown is Vin Scully.

Yankee fan, your team is all that's wrong with America.

Tom@UltimateSportsGuide.net.