ch029448 wrote:

Going into the season, anyone with any sense of logic any rational thought process whatsoever, sees that the Yankees are clearly the team best equipped to win it all, and when they don't it's merely a function of good ole fashioned "DUMB LUCK"

So let me get this straight - if the Yankees win the World Series, they're the best team in baseball; if someone else wins the World Series, they're lucky.

Interesting.

while I am by no means a Yankee fan, I find this Yankee bashing to be an excuse by people with no real understanding of baseball to include themselves in baseball conversation. a quick look at baseball economics would show that in essence the Yankees have been paying teams to beat them since the new collective bargaining agreement. ah ha ha ha ha. as Chapelle would say "that's a luxury tax Bitch!" the more the Yankee's spend the more that goes in to other teams (excluding Red Sox, Dodgers, Cubs, now the Angels, and I think Braves) coffers. a ha ha ha.

teams that actually have utilized this money are on the rise. it should come as no surprise that teams like Kansas City, Tampa Bay, and to a degree Detroit are on the rise. also factor in smart spending by other teams (Toronto, Oakland, and the Padres) and you can honestly say that this season nothing is a sure thing. you will always have teams that spend ridiculously (Yankee's, Red Sox) and teams that spend worthlessly (Pirates, Reds, Texas) but the winner will usually come from the middle of the pack.

so stop hatin' and start celebratin', this is gonna be an awesome season. of yeah, that Soriano guy is closer to A-Rod, in terms of stats, than you think. just wait.

No, not at all. If the Yankees win the World Series, then all the signs that USUALLY logically point to the Yankees as the best team when these things are discussed at the beginning of each baseball season, turned out to be correct. When the Yankees don't win the world series, it turned out that there was probably some hidden intangible that another team had that wouldn't show up on paper.

Year and in year out, the Yankees are most likely going to be the best team in baseball ON PAPER. But as everyone knows, ON PAPER doesn't always work out. But, ON PAPER is all we have to go by when LOGICALLY predicting a World Series winner for the upcoming season. So what it basically boils down to is (again this is USUALLY the case) that either you use common sense and logic and predict the Yankees to win the World Series because of the way the team looks on paper, or you're blinded by some sort of Yankee hatred and illogically pick someone other than the The Yankees. And if you're anti-Yankee prediction turns out to be right, it most certainly is not an indication that you knew something the rest of us didn't. It means you stumbled upon the correct prediction.

I mean, I could predict that the sun won't rise tomorrow sheerly on a whim...doesn't mean I have some sort of inside scoop on astronomy should the sun indeed NOT rise...hell no it doesn't mean that.

And to the Electron guy - obviously command of the English language is something which has escaped you. The point I made, that everyone else seems to get, is that the incident on the field in Fenway last October, was not due to either The Red Sox nor The Yankees being "bad citizens" but rather, an unfortunate function of 86+ years of intense rivalry and "the heat of the battle" fallout. That incident is not an indication as to the character of the players, coaches, staff, and fans of either team.

ch029448 wrote:

No, not at all. If the Yankees win the World Series, then all the signs that USUALLY logically point to the Yankees as the best team when these things are discussed at the beginning of each baseball season, turned out to be correct. When the Yankees don't win the world series, it turned out that there was probably some hidden intangible that another team had that wouldn't show up on paper.

This is true. It is clear that a Yankee loss may stem from something other than good ole' fashioned DUMB LUCK.

Re: Yankee hatred. If the Yankees can manage a couple more World Series losses similar to '01 and '03 you may see some of the hate subside. Look at what post-season flame-outs have done for the Braves. No one hates them anymore.

Ocheh:

When comparing away game stats for the past two seasons (away games are ommitted due to the fact that the Ballpark In Arlington is an EXTREMELY hitter-friendly park) Alfonso Soriano actually has a much higher batting average than A-Rod.

However, no comparison can be made in terms of defense. A-Rod is far and away the superior player.

sorry, I meant HOME games were omitted from the comparison.

I hate to revive a dying thread, especially an age old argument about the Yankees, but today I’m bored and wanted to get in my final $.02 so I can let this sleeping dog lie.

First of all, baseball is a great game, but a game nonetheless, and as such I wouldn’t say I “hate” any of its players, fans or teams. If I got carried away in the spirit of my previous post or touched any nerves, I’m truly sorry. I was just having a laugh.

ch029448 wrote:Let's not present isolated shards of the big picture in order advance your anti-Yankee agenda. Nelson and Garcia were involved in a bullpen fight with a goundscrewman, who initiated the instance with verbal AND physical attacks. Not only that, but the bullpen incident came on the heels of a tremendously emotion bench-clearing donnybrook, in which a 30-something athlete (in the wrong) threw a fat 70-something old man (in the wrong) to the ground. The actions on both sides, as well as the Clemens-Piazza incident, can be chalked up to "in the heat of the battle" emotions. Every team has them. Dodgers have jumped into the stands in Wrigley Field, Robin Ventura charged Nolan Ryan on the mound, Tori Hunter threw a baseball at a pitcher who brushed him back - baseball is full of these incidents.

Yes, players previously thought of as "bad apples" have cleaned up their acts under the tutelage of Joe Torre, and it will happen again this year.

True, the emotions of the game can get the best of any player. I just think you’re giving too much credence to the Yankee “mystique” by saying that becoming a Yankee can “magically” turn a player into a “model citizen.” Playing a team game is a common thread among virtually every winning club, in every sport, not to mention the business world, like that speech DeNiro gives in the Untouchables. With the talent the Yankees have every year, Charlie Brown should be able to coach them to a championship, let alone a guy like Joe Torre, who I agree is a great manager and a likeable person. I don’t think the Yankees are unique in their team chemistry, and the Marlins, Angels and Diamondbacks can attest to that.

Every team is going to have some bad seeds, and the Yankees are no exception, especially among the hired help they use to fill in the gaps each year, e.g. Mondesi, Wells, and Ruben Sierra, on whom Joe Torre admitted he couldn’t impart the “team concept” when Sierra was with the Yanks in ’95-96 (yet which didn’t deter Steinbrenner from re-acquiring him last year). Again, this is no different from what any other team does, except on every other team those guys would be marquee players.

It makes laugh when people, such as yourself, predict that the Yankees will "not win it all again.” You might be right. The Yankees aren’t going to win the World Series every year, but that’s no indication of any wisdom or foresight on the part of people like you. Going into the season, anyone with any sense of logic any rational thought process whatsoever, sees that the Yankees are clearly the team best equipped to win it all, and when they don't it's merely a function of good ole fashioned "DUMB LUCK" and your (and I don't mean YOU personally - I mean the hordes of people that share you disgust for the Yankees) jumping on, what is the ultimate hypocrisy in all of sports, the "anti-Yankee" bandwagon. It's extremely ironic to me, that the biggest bandwagon in sports is the "anti Yankee" bandwagon, which is fueled by some convoluted idea that all Yankee fans are inherently bad because they're "Bandwagoners.” That’s analogous to Christian fundamentalists MURDERING abortion doctors because they believe abortion is MURDER!

I don’t make predictions because I espouse to know more than anyone else. I do so because it’s fun, and maybe because if your prediction happens to come true, you have bragging rights. If I thought I knew something no one else did, I’d be in Vegas, not wasting it on a forum like this. Again, it’s a game, and I don’t take it so seriously.

As far as the anti-Yankees bandwagon, that exists in part because some people will always root for the underdog. And it seems clear that as long as the Yankees are playing, for ever and always, the underdog will be the other team (with the notable exception, apparently, of the Winnemac Electrons). I think there’s also a pro-Yankees bandwagon, consisting mostly of people who otherwise don’t know or care about baseball, but don a Yankees’ cap and proclaim themselves a fan because the team consistently wins and is a recognizable commodity. I tried my hand as a casual Yankees fan when I first moved to New York. I found it boring and not much fun to root for them because there was no surprise or excitement for me when they would win. You expect them to win, and when they do it’s like yeah, whoopee, and when they lose you spend the offseason wondering who’s going to get fired. Anyway, it didn’t suit me, but if you enjoy watching a team dominate as they undoubtedly should, good for you. To me it’s a greater thrill to see a team like the Marlins “overachieve” through teamwork, a real David and Goliath story.

The Yankees CLEARLY have the best team in baseball, AGAIN, for whatever reason. Some of you are naive enough to think that small market owners actually ARE struggling financially and can't afford marquee players. Unfortunately Fortune 500 Magazine has plenty of evidence to back up the fact that most unsuccessful teams are unsuccessful, whether they be small are large market, for one reason only - they are poorly run by owners who don't put a premium on winning, but rather penny pinching in order to fatten their pockets, even to the extent of hiding and laundering money through their minor league systems. And, teams that ARE successful, again be it small or large market, are so because they are well run - Yankees, Marlins, Angels, Diamondbacks.

I don’t think I’m quite that naïve. But you’re undoubtedly right that this argument is an issue of finances. I don’t have it in me to argue about that, nor do I even have a well-informed opinion on the subject. But I do think it’s more impressive to see a team like the New England Patriots establish dominance in a league without such financial disparity. They are a true example of what teamwork and a well-run organization can achieve. The Yankees are just boring, and I’ll say no more about them.

vockins wrote:End this United Way/Field of Dreams sentimental bullshit.

This isn't the Bad News Bears, moron.

Go Yanks. Again, fuck all y'all.

That was insightful, thanks. BTW, those films you mention are shit—“Brewster’s Millions” is more my cup of tea as a serious baseball flick.

-sm

Well, smazur, you certainly bring up some valid points. I could see where the Yankees would be boring to the casual baseball fan.

But, for a great deal of Yankee fans, like myself, for whom Yankee-fandom was instilled from birth, and is a long-standing family tradition, they are not.

I'm sure this is going to come off as ridiculous as the argument as to who had a tougher time, between Survivor TV show contestent and the Survivor of the Holocaust on "Curb Your Enthusiasm" last night - but us dyed-in-the-wool Yankee fans have sat through some lean times: namely the entire 80s decade and the first half of the 90s, but also the late 60s and early 70s to some extent.

And I will admit, I often find myself wondering what it must be like for a fan of say, the Kansas City Royals or the Milwaukee Brewers, who just know that the team is not (for whatever reason you believe to be the cause) going to attempt to make any monumental type moves to do what they think will ensure them a trip to October baseball.

So much testosterone here. I knew I was kidding myself that this thread was for gay men...
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dbychowski wrote:So much testosterone here. I knew I was kidding myself that this thread was for gay men...
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I'm not gay. If you want proof, I'll eat your pussy for 20 bucks.