The New York Yankees defeated the Philadelphia Phillies to win the 2009 World Series.Of course they did. They had the best team. But you must remember how they won: they bought the best team.
Here is what the 2009 New York Yankees hammered home to me: what you've earned will always be dearer that what you've bought.
The Yankees bought the best players available before the 2009 season began. This is a fact. They purchased the two best pitchers on the market, and the best infield slugger while already holding players that only the most monied Major League Baseball franchises could hope to pay.
One can't begrudge the Yankees for doing this, the rules of MLB allow it. One can't begrudge the players to go to the place that would pay them the most. Players would be fools not to sign with the team gathering the most juice. Simple.
Baseball is like the United States Of America if you care to look at either closely enough: run by the rich for the rich, who are attended to by those who've convinced themselves that they can earn their own way up the ladder. And as with any system in which the rich only get richer to the detriment of all, neither MLB nor the USA are sustainable in their current form.
I want to be wrong about this. I don't like what I see. There is so much joy in and around the game of baseball. Never forget the beauty of the game. There is so much possibility in the idea of the United States Of America. That must never be taken for granted.
When the final out of the 2009 World Series was recorded by 1B Mark Teixeira -- the best infield slugger available before this season -- the 2009 Yankees capered and cavorted happily about the field wearing the outfits of all the ghosts that had worn them before.We remember The Babe and The Yankee Clipper. Mr. October, The Scooter, and The Iron Horse. Will 2009's mercenaries be fondly remembered? "Ol' Purple Lips?" "The Mountainous Merc With The Most Pinstripes?" Jerry Seinfeld once compared the mutable state of baseball rosters to "cheering for laundry." This is where MLB is now, and where it has been for a time, and where it looks to stay. The ideals of loyalty seeded in our youth are worn down like a millstone along the way. A reduction process.
In a post-win interview on the field, Teixeira said that it had all worked out because God had a plan for him. No, son; the decider here was of a distinctly non-celestial variety: NYY General Manager Brian Cashman. You merely earned your way into the Yankees' plans. The only question was when your contract came up. It was up in 2009, you were available, and you filled a need for the Yankees. That's how you won.
That's how the 2009 New York Yankees represent everything that is wrong with professional sport.
The players earned it? Yes, they did. As surely as you could earn a victory in poker by pre-selecting the best cards from the deck. Other franchises may have some good players, but when one team holds most of the best guys, that team will win more times than not. MLB's rules permit this. It is dishonorable.
There's no parity. It is not fair. Neither is life.
That is what I took away from the celebratory scene on the field last Wednesday. And that is what will be remembered: that the Yankees bought their win in the 2009 World Series. That it meant so much less.
Photos via AP. Chart via New York Magazine. Read More!
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