Angry White Man gives a few thoughts on the upcoming Yankee Season

Look, I'm not going to give you predictions about the new guys or talk about whether A-Rod can come back from surgery. I'm also not going to talk about a) the aging and inevitable breakdowns of Matsui/Damon/Posada/Pettite, b) Jeter having slightly more range at shortstop than Apocalypse Now-Era Marlon Brando, or c) whether the bullpen and/or starting pitching can hold up over the course of a 162 game season.

Nope, I'm going to talk about all of you hypocrite Yankee fans out there (present company completely included) who hate your team because they have started buying up all the quality free agents in baseball. Here's Angry White Man's question to you: Is this whole idea of the Yankees buying up players something new? So Sabathia, Burnett, and Texiera are really the straws that broke your back? Not A-Rod? Not Clemens? Not Clemens the second time?

Newsflash courtesy of SUS: If you're 40 or younger, the Yankees have been buying players like noone else in sports as long as you've cared about Pinstripes. What, you think the Yankees drafted Reggie Jackson? Catfish Hunter? A majority of the great Yankees that you remember from your youth, as well as many of the lousy players like Mel Hall and Mike Gallego were brought to New York through free agency.

(Note: A lot of these players were acquired by trade and not free agency. I don't have the time, patience, or inclination, to fact check. So let's just move along.)

The point is this: when you started rooting for this team, you signed on to root for a team that would spend, spend, spend, and do anything in its power in order to win a World Series. For better or worse, that is who the Yankees are. And from the time you wanted to be Don "Donnie Backache" Mattingly until the time you realized that your code of ethics precluded you from rooting for Texiera, Sabathia, A-Rod, etc., this is the team that you rooted for. And unless you're 13 or bowl a 129, this should not be news to you. So quit your liberal-guilt-caused-bitching, put on your Texiera jersey, pay your $900 for the only remaining Yankee Stadium tickets, and go watch the mercenaries-in-pinstripes that you have come to know and love.

Note: The only time it was acceptable to part ways with the Yankees over the feeling that their free-spending ways were "impure" was around 1973, when Steinbrenner bought the team. That was the start of the free-spending Yankees. (Even though the Philly/KC A's had always been a de-facto farm team to the Yankees, selling players to New York when they required too high a salary to keep.) And 1973 was the only time when one could, with clean hands say 'I rid myself of the Yankees and their free spending ways. I'm guessing these people did what my uncle did around then, and switched their allegiance to the Mets.

So to the "Steinbrenner Met fans" (this group of people may or may not be larger than just my uncle) props to you for getting off of the Yankee bandwagon the moment when it became as impure as Washington Square Park pot. To the rest of you Obama-loving, socialist-wannabe, granola-eating apologists, enjoy the season and try not to leave too large a trail of tears when you're celebrating your 27th Championship this October.


Angry White Man over and out.