A little less than a week ago, another season of baseball ended with another World Series title for the New York Yankees.
And for a team that knows no other way of living than the lifestyle of the rich and famous, it was just another day in the life.
The Yanks captured championship number 27 with a payroll that exceeded $200 million and did it in a new stadium that cost $1.5 billion. Not only are all those titles more than any other professional sports team in North America, but that payroll is also the largest. Coincidence that the richest team in sports has the most championships? Didn’t think so either.
It’s been no secret for a long time, though, that the Yankees pump money into their teams to get championships back out. What’s scary is the fact that the greedy might be getting even greedier. Two days after the World Series, there were already news stories out about how the Yankees were turning their attention towards championship number 28. Seriously?! Can’t they celebrate for more than five minutes? The Yankees crave winning like Balloon Boy’s family craves attention.
If you want to talk dollars and cents, it gets even uglier. Of all the money MLB teams spent signing players last offseason, nearly half of it came from New York alone. Three players who played major roles in the Yanks’ success this season—pitchers C.C. Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and first baseman Mark Teixeira—were all acquired last winter. The collective price tag on all three was $423.5 million. In other words, the money New York spent on three men could have paid for the tuitions of every undergrad at DU. Twice.
With all that said, the old cliché that the Yankees buy championships isn’t true. No team can really do that. Say what you want about New York, but it takes more than cold hard cash to win it all.
If you need more proof, look no further than the 2001 and 2003 World Series. Those Yankee teams were very rich, but they didn’t have it all put together. The Diamondbacks and Marlins—two teams that both have about one-fifth of the Yankees payroll—somehow dethroned the Evil Empire. Money doesn’t buy happiness, let alone a championship. But it can sure help.
That’s it from the box score this quarter. Good luck with exams and happy holidays. See you in 2010.
