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The following is a screed about the Yankees payroll. If you are a Yankees fan uninterested in a screed about the payroll, don't read it. You won't enjoy it. Go out, buy a championship T-shirt, reminisce about this great team, enjoy the victory. I'm telling you: Don't read it.

As for the rest of you: The following is, I think, something that is always bubbling below the surface of baseball (when you are not a Yankees fan). I rarely write about it because ... it's like writing about the heat in Phoenix. We all know it's there, and we don't really want to talk about it anymore. But with the Yankees winning the World Series and then talking about how it showed the team's character, well, yeah, I thought maybe this once ...