Rooting for Yankees like shooting moose from a plane

Way back in the New York Yankees’ glory days, the saying went, “Rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for General Motors.” These days a lot of people are rooting for GM (and Chrysler) to survive, but it’s almost impossible to pull for the Bronx Bombers.

The Yankees, having missed the playoffs this past season for the first time in a decade-and-a-half, have engaged in one of their periodic spending frenzies: in recent weeks, they spent $420 million to sign slugger Mark Teixeira, along with free-agents C. C. Sabathia, and A. J. Burnett. For that kind of dough, you’d think you could at least obtain the players’ full names, not just their initials.

Which means that this off-season, the Yankees have spent almost $130 million more to obtain players than the rest of the whole league combined. Or, to put it more succinctly: the Yankees are trying to buy the World Series.  Does anyone doubt that if it were legal, the Yanks would attempt to purchase the umpires, too?

This is about as “sporting” as Sarah Palin shooting moose from an airplane, or Dick Cheney firing upon ducks who are transported in by truck special for the occasion.

There’s no certainty, of course, that all this payroll padding will help the Yankees, who haven’t won a playoff series since 2004, win anything this year, but the intent is there. When your payroll is $50 million higher than the next team in the league, it’s clear that you’re SUPPOSED to win, and if you don’t, you’re a bunch of underachieving wusses.

Sports fans always treat the new super-star arrival like some kind of lost soul who finally saw the light and joined “our” team. That’s why a Roger Clemens can be demonized by Yankees fans for years when he pitched for the hated Red Sox, and then instantly hailed as a hero when he jumped state lines. But this is like paying a prostitute for sex and convincing yourself she “wants” you. In Teixeira’s case, it took $180 million - $180 million! – and $20 million more than anyone else was offering – to convince him to come to New York. A sign that he really yearned to don pinstripes would’ve been if he’d accepted less money than the Bosox offered to come to The Bronx. As it is, he just hired himself out to the highest bidder. What’s heroic – or even attractive – about that?

Allegiance to a team does weird things to people. Folks who otherwise always pull for the “little guy” or root for the underdog have no qualms about crushing smaller franchises that can’t afford first-rate players. San Francisco, with its reputation for fair play and equality, was the one town that defended Barry Bonds’ alleged use of steroids.

Meanwhile, of course, New Yorkers subsidize the Yankees’ new stadium, and in these recessionary times, and are allowed the opportunity to, say, purchase field-level tickets for half the home games for a mere $14,350 to root for “their” team.

The Yankees aren’t worse than anyone else – well, maybe a little worse – they just have the financials to make these deals and still pull a profit. Call it market capitalism, the American way, or survival of the fittest.

Just don’t call it “sport.”