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Go Home The Essence of Yankee Evilness

JONATHAN CHAIT OCTOBER 25, 2010

The Essence of Yankee Evilness

BY NOAM SCHEIBER

[Guest post by Noam Scheiber:]

Via the Times write-up of their deeply-satisfying championship series loss Friday night:

As always, the Yankees will restock, relying on their deep pockets to try to fix their problems and squash the competition. That means pursuing [Texas ace Cliff] Lee and trying to pry him from the Rangers, who have the sort of pitching that the Yankees had last year, the pitching that wins championships.

Exactly what does it prove if you win a World Series snatching up the best player of the team that ousted you the year before? What franchise couldn't win a World Series sooner or later using this method? (Okay, okay, the Mets couldn't. That's why they're almost more contemptible. But what other franchise?)

At the very least, it'd be nice if there were some agonizing over this approach, rather than an unapologetic assumption that the Yankees will go out and spend what it takes to land the best mercenary around. (See here for why the Lee signing is basically a foregone conclusion.) This is why I have a hard time not seeing Yankee fan-dom as a moral failing--I'm not joking--though I guess I can make some small allowance for people born into the creed.

Also, has anyone ever noticed how much Yankee GM Brian Cashman resembles Vladimir Putin? This can't be a coincidence.

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10 comments

Cheering for the Yankees is precisely equivalent to going to the airport and rooting for gravity. I wouldn't call it evil, though. That would be Phillies fans, who do the equivalent of going to the airport and rooting for the guy with the antiaircraft gun.

- rhubarbs

October 25, 2010 at 12:28pm

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hey Rhub, you got a problem with that? That was a ball man. Strike my ass. I hope the Rangers destroy the Giants. and the yankees aren't evil. The only remotely evil thing they have done is leave Yankee stadium, which I used to go to a lot in the mid eighties when they stank (with my friend, someone who is truly evil, a RED SOX FAN). Just being there was wonderful in ways going to old Veterans stadium never was, but you know, trying to hold onto that is impossible, you can't stop progress. By the way, Satan is a Red Sox fan.

- blackton

October 25, 2010 at 1:02pm

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"What franchise couldn't win a World Series sooner or later using this method? (Okay, okay, the Mets couldn't. That's why they're almost more contemptible. But what other franchise?)" The Cubs.

- Attrill

October 25, 2010 at 1:47pm

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I don't know who I'll cheer for since my teams are out it. But since the Rangers beat up, I mean, beat out, the Yankees, I'll lean their direction. And besides, my favorite small-market team which made it to the playoffs this years is 'pure' in the sense that they can't use that method.

- jet

October 25, 2010 at 1:52pm

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I can't get really excited either way, though I suppose it's nice that someone new is bound to win the World Series ('new' for the Giants at least in that they've never won it since moving to SF). But I must set the record straight: both the Yankees and Red Sox are the playthings of Satan.

- cspencef

October 25, 2010 at 4:19pm

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Noam, Lou Gehrig is a fellow alum. Go to hell.

- timteeter

October 25, 2010 at 5:26pm

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Timteeter: Lou Gehrig is a Yankee that it's OK for Red Sox fans to not hate. I'm as big a Sox fan as they come, but Gehrig (and of course, Yogi Berra, who is more natural treasure than Yankee one after the way Steinbrenner treated him) are the two good Yankees, who I just can't hate. That said, Lou Gehrig doesn't make the Yankees, especially the current Yankees, suck any less.

- Crock1701

October 25, 2010 at 6:21pm

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From an old mid-western point of view: Satan lives in New York City. Boston? What is Boston?

- kras

October 26, 2010 at 6:26am

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But of course. They are twin brothers.

- liberal reformer

October 26, 2010 at 11:22am

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>"What franchise couldn't win a World Series sooner or later using this method? (Okay, okay, the Mets couldn't. That's why they're almost more contemptible. But what other franchise?)" This is dumb. The Mets are not anywhere in the Yankees' ballpark in terms of spending or acquiring star players. The Carlos Beltran signing was the only time they snatched the best player on the market in the last 18 years.

- RerunStubs

October 26, 2010 at 11:52am

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