Money. You use it to buy things. Things that you like.

"Guys like Clemens come to the Yankees for the same exact reason Willie Sutton robbed banks. Because this is where the money is."

Is that meant to be an insult? When Lupica refers to "guys like Clemens," does he mean "guys who win Cy Youngs and World Series rings"? If that is what he means, then there have not been too many "guys like Clemens," on the Yankees or any other team. I can only pray that Randy Johnson is a guy like that.

If he means that Clemens came to NYY solely for the money, the implication is that other players on the Yankees don't play solely for the money. Name one.

Is Lupica fooled by Jeter? Was he fooled by Cone? Wells?

Sure, they all might love the idea of playing for the Yankees, I don't doubt that some players truly embrace the tradition and pride ... as long as the price is right. Boil it down and it's just playing for the money.

Was Lupica fooled by Andrew Eugene who loved the Yankees and their fans so much that he took less money to go play for Houston? Loved the Yankee Tradition and bled Pinstripe Blue so strongly that he supposedly felt snubbed because George Steinbrenner didn't call him on his cell phone?


"Maybe there were a few other places where Clemens could have gotten money like that at the time. There would eventually be a dim bulb named Kevin Malone running the Dodgers, a dimwit who actually paid Kevin (Game 7) Brown $15 million a year. ... When it is all said and done, the New York Yankees are the last place in big-time sports where there is no salary cap, other than perhaps some of your big-time college football programs in the South and Midwest."

So ... the Yankees are the only team that can afford Randy Johnson ... except for Arizona and Los Angeles and a few others?

Look, there is no doubt that the Yankees have a payroll advantage over other teams and this is the primary reason for their sustained success. If Lupica is unimpressed with Cashman, that's fair (though, at the same time, he's inexplicably enamored with Theo Epstein).

But I'm not sure what Lupica thinks would happen if there was a salary cap. If there is an individual salary cap of, say, $10 million, then why wouldn't the Yankees get Randy Johnson? The Yankees could still offer intangibles that other teams could not and nobody would be allowed to lure him away with additional money. As a bonus, the Yankees pay Randy Johnson the same money that the Dodgers pay Darren Dreifort and the Rangers pay Chan Ho Park?
Sounds fair to me!

A team salary cap would obviously preclude the Yankees from obtaining all of these players at the same time ... maybe. It might just put more money in Steinbrenner's pocket. A team salary cap would not stop the Yankees from offering the best advertising market, the best facilities, the best support, the best intangibles. That's not Tradition and Pride, most of that translates into Cash Money that you can put in a bank and then it can accrue interest and you can buy another car.

Can MLB stop the Yankees from paying ARod $1 million towards the cap while Adidas pays him $20 million? Maybe so, maybe not. Take half of Unit's salary and use it on Loophole Lawyers.

Is Lupica so sure that the Yankees can't pull a Lakers? Get the MLB equivalent of Malone and Payton to take less money at the end of their careers in the hopes of winning a ring?

Maybe that particular scenario is a tough sell, but there is no reason to think a salary cap would stop the Yankees. They would just have to operate a little differently.