Yankees cut payroll.

"Sometimes it seems as if the Yankees inhabit some alternate reality, a bizarro universe in which the AL East race is not a competition among ballclubs but among bankbooks, one in which the recession doesn't exist, unemployment has been eradicated and depression is a word for shrinks, not sharks.

For them, it's always a bull market, money is plentiful, credit is readily available and cheap, and the World Series is not something to be played but purchased."

This "bizarro universe" has been around since before Wallace Matthews was born.

The annual fake outrage is a bit tiring.


"Obviously, they haven't noticed that unemployment is way, way up, wages are way, way down and morale among American workers is lower than Eddie Gaedel's strike zone."

I'm an American worker and my morale was just raised.

Wheee!

Go Yankees!


Timely Eddie Gaedel reference, by the way.

1951: What a year. That was right in the smack dab in the middle of the Yankees' six straight World Championships.

Yeah, Eddie Gaedel from the good ol' days. Before free agency. When the Yankees used the reserve clause and strong arm tactics to buy their Championships.


"Or that the enemy they always seem to be fighting, the Red Sox, is not the one they should fear.

...

Except that Boston is no longer the enemy and money is no longer the answer - if, in fact, it ever really was.

While the dinosaurs of the division were sleeping, the Tampa Bay Rays shot past both of them. The Rays return in 2009 a year older, a year more experienced, a year better. But not a penny more expensive. Unlike the Yankees, they win baseball games the old-fashioned way - on the field, not on the balance sheet."

What an odd thing to say.

I think the Red Sox will be competitive, probably for a longer time than the Rays.

Also, the Yankees got better. For their own sake. It wasn't just so they could beat the Red Sox. It was so they could beat all the other teams, too.


By the way, the Rays will lose because their young players will become eligible for free agency and then the Rays won't be able to afford them. A few years near the top of the standings will cost them high draft picks. Throw in a disinterested fan base and I think the Red Sox have more staying power.


"But no one could have imagined the kind of shameless shopping spree the Yankees have been on this month - $161 million for CC Sabathia, $82.5 million for A.J. Burnett and a reported $180 million for Teixeira - at a time when more than 10 million Americans are out of work and another 4 million might join them in 2009."

I'm someone, and I imagined this.

I would have been very surprised had the Yankees not signed Teixeira.


"After winning four of five World Series between 1996 and 2000 with relatively modestly financed rosters built around pitching, timely hitting and skilled role players, the Yankees went big-ticket with the likes of Rodriguez, Jason Giambi, Hideki Matsui, Carl Pavano, Johnny Damon, etc., etc.

They have won nothing since."

Matthews wasn't whining when the Yankees traded for Clemens after winning 114 games in 1998? Was Clemens a role player?

The 114-win team sparked all this luxury tax stuff. "The Baseball Universe is coming to an end. Only six teams are going to exist!"

The 1996-2000 Yankee teams were hardly "modestly financed." They were built around highly-priced free agents. (I think Baltimore had the highest payroll in 1996, but the Yankees the rest of the time.)

Why all the hand-wringing and revisionist history every time the Yankees sign a big-ticket free agent?

Why does it make Wallace Matthews feel better to pretend Paul O'Neill was a role player or Tino Martinez and David Wells were Yankee farmhands?