The Best Team Money Can Buy

Watching baseball early this AM, I had an epiphany... The Yankees have a boat load of money.

Amazing what a few billion dollars can buy you. Like the best team (on paper) in Major League Baseball. As yesterday's trade deadline passed, the "Evil Empire" NY Yankees again flexed their formidable financial muscles by acquiring 1B Lance Berkman, who in his prime was a perennial all-star and one of the top hitters in the league, reliever Kerry Wood & OF Austin Kearns, who at one time was considered a top prospect before injuries slowed his career.

How do the Yankees continue to stockpile such high-profile players, you ask? Could be the ire of playing for the storied NY Yankee franchise who have amassed more championships than any team in history, in any sport. Could be that the Yankees can offer top dollar to free agents with no regard for the dreaded MLB luxury tax. Rarely are they outbid. Smaller market franchises just can't compete with NY's buying power. Just 2 off-seasons ago, the Yanks added the best pitcher (CC Sabathia), top free agent bat (Mark Teixeira) and another top-tier pitcher in AJ Burnett. Those signings alone equaled a whopping $423 million combined. Put this into perspective: just the salaries of these 3 players is more than seven teams total payroll! Add in A-Rod, "Mr. Yankee" Derek Jeter, closer extraordinaire Mariano Rivera, Robinson Cano, and a circus monkey just for kicks, and you have the favorites to win the world series almost every year.

I can't fault the Steinbrenners for abandoning the traditional strategy of building your team through the farm system. They go out & repeated get players that have already established themselves as top players and worry about chemistry later. Sometimes it pays off, sometimes its a failed experiment (see Gary Sheffield). It definitely makes them mighty easy to root against.

Time will tell if this season's trade acquisitions will be enough to vault the Yankees to their second championship in as many years. Tampa Bay has been strong this season and will continue to present a challenge in the loaded AL East. But one thing is for sure; Money Talks.

-ALR

'Bad' Guys Die Too

I'll always look to last summer and the passing of Michael Jackson as a perfect example of the phenomena known as "convenient amnesia". At the time of his death, MJ was at the ultimate depth of his fall from grace. He was a drug addict. He was an accused pedophile. He was selling his home. He was forced to go back on the road for one "last" tour, not because he loved to perform, but he was financially obligated to.

He was the butt of jokes. two of my personal favorites were the Katt Williams, "Excuse me Mr. Jackson" (check it our here), and South Park's "Mr. Jefferson" episode (here).

Yet, when he died, it was hard to find anyone willing to bring any of the character flaws up. Not publicly. Instead, it was all nostalgia. Playing MJ records at family reunions. Funeral on network television. The bootleg man had his greatest hits on sale.

Collectively, we decided to forget everything we knew that made him a pariah in the first place.

Fast forward to July, 13 2010. George Steinbrenner passes, and it the sports world does the same thing. The NY Yankee owner, notorious for mistreating employees like trash, breaking rules, invading privacy, and being banned from Major League Baseball TWICE, was treated w/ nothing but reverence and high regard by everyone in the media. Even some of those whom he treated terribly. I'm staring at you, Dave Winfield.

Yesterday, Oakland Raider great Jack Tatum died from a heart attack at 61 years of age. Tatum was the epitome of the bad-ass Raider image. Intimidating player on the field, unapologetic killjoy off of it. He's most famous, or infamous, for his hit on New England Patriots wide receiver Darryl Stingley that left him paralyzed.

Then again, it wasn't so much the hit itself, but the fact that he refused to even give the slightest hint of remorse in the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, and decades after it happened. The man he left paralyzed died a few years back without any acknowledgment from Tatum. Tatum was damned proud of that fact too.

What does it all mean? I don't know. I'm no Buddhist, but I can see some karma in the way that Jackson, Steinbrenner, and Tatum lived their lives after there "bad"character was revealed. We know of MJ's problems. Steinbrenner suffered physically and mentally in his latter years, so much so that when the Yankees won the World Series last year, he couldn't "appreciate" it. Tatum lost toes on his foot, and suffered from diabetes until his heart attack took his life at a young 61.

Still, does it matter? We'll remember each of these guys the way we want too. I'm like most, I don't like speaking ill of the dead. But I'm not going to celebrate certified assholes just because they did the one thing all of us are guaranteed to do with our lives.