A love-hate relationship

You love the New York Yankees.

Baseball is America, and the Yankees are baseball. The transitive property therefore tells me that the Yankees are America. The Yankees won independence from the Red Coats four score and seven (plus another seven score and seven) years ago. They defeated the dissenting rebels of the Confederacy. Americans are referred to as Yankees by the rest of the world. We are all Yankees.

You hate the New York Yankees.

They are everywhere. You've got your team, but they are constantly being shouldered aside by the Yankees on field and in the headlines. They are the trendy bandwagon team that everyone claims to have liked for years. Sure, it's easy to like a consistently good team, especially when your team is consistently inconsistent, or just plain mediocre (or downright terrible). The Yankees play in New York City - media capital of the United States, and perhaps all of Planet Earth. It's a viscous cycle with this team: they're so popular and such a big draw that ESPN and their junior varsity counterparts follow them like Brett Favre, but this only feeds the beast. This beast has grown so big that you can't escape the so-called "Evil Empire." Maybe your disdain for the pinstripes has deepened to the point that you've begun to like their archrivals, the Boston Red Sox.

You love the New York Yankees.

Their history and prestige cannot be matched by any team. The ballclub is truly legendary in every sense of the word. No team from even another sport in America has as many championships as have been brought to the Bronx. You know the names: Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Berra, Ford, Mantle, Maris. Monument Park is a slice of Cooperstown, containing some of the game's greatest legends. You know Lou Gehrig was the luckiest man on the face of the earth, and it gets you every time. You know Don Larsen's World Series perfect game. Babe Ruth seems like a myth, a man whose epic tale could perhaps only be told by Homer. His Ruthian home run hitting gave Webster's a new adjective.

You hate the New York Yankees.

The modern day Yankees buy all of their players. The past is history. The Yankees sign the top available players to preposterous contracts. Players establish themselves elsewhere and then George Steinbrenner (R.I.P.) writes them a blank check or swindles other GMs into swapping them for a slew of "blue chip" prospects: Giambi, Clemens, Sheffield, Mussina, Abreu, Teixeira, Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, Randy Johnson, Kevin Brown. The Yankees also snatch up promising players once they turn the corner in their development - Carl Pavano, Jaret Wright, and Jeff Weaver - and stockpile them at the end of their bench like Real Madrid did with Michael Owen (trust me about that), and they languish until leaving the team. The quality of their farm system is inflated to where their prospects are considered better just because they're with the Yankees (Joba Chamberlain comes to mind).

To most any baseball fan, the subject of the New York Yankees elicits one of these two emotions: love or hate. Fans of a team like their nemesis Red Sox still like to play the pity card on the Yankees, as if Boston hasn't done exactly what has happened in New York by spending top dollar for players. And while they are paying his monstrous salary, it was the Texas Rangers who signed Alex Rodriguez for a quarter of a billion dollars. The Red Sox are in fact the new Yankees: droves have hopped aboard the bandwagon and ESPN shoves them down our throats.

What's also of note is that four players have been a part of each of the Yankees five most recent World Series champion teams (1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2009). Theirs are certainly four numbers that will be immortalized in Monument Park from these teams. They are Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada, and Mariano Rivera - all of whom were drafted, developed, signed, and retained by the New York Yankees.

While it's easy to hate on the Yankees, it's often for the wrong reason. True, the Yankees do spend unfathomable sums of money, and far too much attention seems to be paid to them; but they are no longer alone in this distinction (I'm looking at you, Red Sawx nation). And while they may hand out money like banks gave out mortgages five years ago, the core of their current dynasty has come from within.

Perhaps you don't love to hate the Yankees, but rather you'd hate to love them.

Rocks on the Board

Great game tonight and hopefully a taste of things to come for the rest of the season.  I like seeing the team rebound on the road, come out with solid defense - strong starting pitching and good relief.  Street picks up the save and I love the late inning rally to pad things a bit for the bullpen.

I still miss Holliday, and think that Helton is past his prime - but I have good feelings about this time for this year.

Side note - totally different sport, but the New York Islanders get my WTF Call-Out for the night.  Obviously pretty miserable to be outscored 9-0, but how about outshot 57-12 especially after the shots were only 10-6 in favor of Carolina in the first period???  I do not envy the team drawing Carolina in the first round since they've won 13 of the last 16 and those two loses were shootouts.

WBC - Team USA

So if it's not the Colorado Rockies, I really don't care when it comes to baseball.  I also think that while it could be cool, the WBC is a weak attempt at the World Cup for soccer or the Olympics for bball and hockey.  That being said, it was exciting to see Team USA come back tonight after being destroyed by Puerto Rico last time and stealing a game in the 9th.  What's even better than that are the comments by David Wright:

Wright then lined a 2-1 pitch just inside the right-field line, raising his fist when the ball dropped in. The New York Mets star called the hit the biggest of his career.

"You're talking about representing the United States of America," he said. "You've got that across the front of your chest. To be able to get that hit, that's got to be right up there at the top of the list."

Wright was mobbed by teammates near second base after two runs scored.

"You're celebrating a game," Youkilis said. "You're celebrating a nation."

After all the scandal and problems in MLB, it's just great to see some perspective.  For reference, the quoted article is here.

World Series Anyone?

The first pitch will be thrown soon at Tropicana Field and before the series starts I'm going to share my prediction (thanks to the power of the internet) - Phillies in six.  I had a little concern with this at first because Philly has had a few more days off than the Rays have and after seeing how the Rockies cooled down last year, it can be hard to get going again.

That being said, while the Rays are a great team and they've put up some impressive numbers this year (not just in wins, but at a basic level playing much better defense and getting stronger pitching from their bullpen), it seemed like they were starting to show some cracks against Boston.  I'm not going to lie - watching David Price pitch his way through the vaunted Red Sox hitters was exciting and impressive.  Tampa Bay is a young team with incedible talent, but now their facing another team that has a mixture of youth, talent, experience and hunger.

The difference to me between Philadelphia and Boston is the desire to win.  Winning has become and expectation and a business in Boston recently and the passion doesn't seem to be there like it was when they came back against the Yankees and then won the World Series in 2004.  Philadelphia has not seen a major sports championship since 1983 and while I've never been a fan of any team in that city (Philly fans are mostly the reason for that), I really believe the time is now for their drought to end.

If anyone wants to post their predictions, we can keep a running tally in the comments for this post.