It's the Yankees, stupid, what did you expect?

November 10, 2:28 PMKansas City Sports ExaminerCharles F. Rouse III

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The NY Yankees celebrate their 27th World Series
Championship after defeating the Philadelphia
Phillies in '09 Fall Classic.  AP photo/Julie Jacobson.

The 2009 baseball season came to a non-suspenseful close last week, with the New York Yankees defeating the defending-champion Philadelphia Phillies to capture their 27th world championship and their first World Series title in nine years.

The Bronx Bombers, as they have been euphemistically called over the years, are the most dominant team in major U.S. professional sports. No other team even comes close to what the New York Yankees have accomplished in the storied franchise’s 109-year history.

Since the beginning of baseball free agency, which, ironically, closely parallels the Yankees ownership tenure of George Steinbrenner (who, as part of an investor group, purchased the NY Yankees in 1973 from the Columbia Broadcasting System for $10 million) and family, the Yankees have frequently been referred to as “the best team money can buy.”
 

Playing in the most expensive major league ballpark (new Yankee Stadium cost $1.5 billion to build) in the No. 1 U.S. metropolitan market and backed by the highest payroll among all 30 major league teams, it’s not surprising, really, that the Yankees, man for man, field the best starting lineup and supporting bench and bullpen personnel – and, not coincidentally, the most expensive – in the major leagues.

But therein lies the rub. While Steinbrenner’s Yankees seemingly have always been able to get the players they want, they have been woefully inept in being able to assemble the best team, despite the huge – and, many would argue, majorly unfair – disparity in team payroll.

In 2000, for example, the last Yankees world championship, the New York team payroll was $92.5 million. By comparison, the payroll that year for the team the Yankees beat, their Queens neighbor, the New York Mets, was $79 million, sixth highest in baseball. The Kansas City Royals  finished fourth (77-85) in the American League Central Division that same year with a payroll of $23 million, a fourth of what the Yankees were paying.

It would be 10 years before the Yankees would again play in the World Series, indicative of the type of player investments the team was making, despite continuing to boast the largest team payroll all 10 years. The marginal difference this past season between the Yankees and the rest of baseball is even more staggering.

Considering that the Yankees’ payroll for the 2009 season, reportedly $201.5 million, was almost twice that of the Philadelphia Phillies, the second best team in baseball this year, and nearly three times more than the Royals, which at $71 million is the highest it’s ever been, is it really all that surprising that New York won this year’s Fall Classic?

Don’t ever question the insidious number of Yankees faithful around this great country and, in fact, the world. They fully deserve their post-series, post-season victory celebration. They’re omnipresent and overwhelming, and certainly dwarf the native Yankee haters among us, of which Kansas City is probably the epicenter. But that’s another story for another day.

As a final postmortem on the 2009 season, allow me to put the New York Yankees’ American League pennant and World Series championship in perspective for you by sharing an excerpt from Tom Verducci’s brilliantly scribed World Series story ("Postseason on the Brink") in the current issue of Sports Illustrated:

“New York’s consumption – coming in the teeth of a crippling economic downturn – was conspicuous. In Game 4, for instance, the Yankees started the highest-paid pitcher in baseball (CC Sabathia), ended it with the highest-paid closer (Mariano Rivera), jumped in front with a run by the highest-paid shortstop (Derek Jeter) and salted the game away in the ninth when the highest-paid catcher (Jorge Posada) drove in the highest-paid first baseman (Mark Teixeira) and baseball’s highest-paid player (Alex Rodriguez).”

If that doesn’t succinctly sum it up for you what’s wrong today with major league baseball, nothing will.

For more information:

Historical baseball information