December 19, 2008
No Scorn to Spare for Yankees
By Tom DonahueSteven Stark’s column on a certain New York City baseball team ("Yankees, Now Hated More Than Ever") is notable for one reason. It combines many of the most commonly held American views that I deeply question:
I agree that many of America’s luxuries have now been tempered, some out of economic necessity and some out of a newfound sense of modesty. I think much of the modesty is long overdue.
Yes, banks and auto companies are in peril, and yes, many others are struggling too. But, banks took myopic risks and unsustainable strategies. Auto companies became so pampered by government, so poorly managed, and so unresponsive to consumers that they overpaid workers to make cars not even Mother Nature could appreciate.
It didn’t help when we elected representatives who fight each other all day, when they’re not fighting mismanaged wars and interrogating Roger Clemens on television. When McCain and Obama campaigned on messages of a deeply troubled economy, did their prophesies become self-fulfilling and make things worse? Probably somewhat.
You can only blame so much of this on the greed of any company, and far less on the Yankees alone. Did the Yankees get questionable public financing they didn’t entirely need, and is a poor congressional district bearing a suspiciously big burden? Yes. But, people have always been greedy. Producers aren’t any greedier than consumers, and that makes sense because producers often moonlight as consumers when they get off work. What’s different is that lenders are now moonlighting as borrowers, senators are moonlighting as bankers, and the greed of New York fans for a title almost bought one for Tampa Bay, thanks to revenue sharing.
The economy is bad, and here is a company that is borrowing money to invest in new facilities and new personnel. We’re lucky there weren’t layoffs and millions of dollars stuffed under George Steinbrenner’s mattress.
In this day and age, what company wouldn’t accept a bailout or some cheap financing? A more important question is why government so often agrees to it. In this case, the government actually picked a credit-worthy loan applicant. So, you might want to blame the law of averages.
Of course, any reference to the law of averages will be lost on most Yankee fans. They think every year without a championship is a failure. They would call the 1950s a bad decade and say Mike Mussina’s ringless fingers make him no truer a Yankee than Carl Pavano (who got paid only slightly less in 2008).
Recently, a Yankee manager was essentially driven out after he narrowly failed to make 13 playoff appearances in his 12-year tenure, while winning an apparently lackluster six pennants and four championships. Dustin Pedroia won an MVP in Boston with numbers that could get A-Rod spit on by his own fans. The Yankees are the most successful sports franchise in history, but they live in a Nation that never met an underdog it didn’t like, especially true today, and they still have to overpay to get players. They let the Mets get Santana and almost lost A-Rod in the same year. They could have a $300 million payroll in 2009, and they would still have to worry about everyone else in their division but Baltimore. So, they asked for money, invested it in players like Sabathia and Burnett, and now, additional revenue has a Raznor’s chance to cover additional future financial obligations.
These hand-picked points are an extreme illustration that Yankee success rarely stays ahead of Yankee expectations. The Yankees are an uncommonly good private use of public dollars, and stadium financing and free-agent spending will help them stay that way in a tough economy and a tougher division.
