MLB Pinstripe Apologist Retort

by Ice Cream Jonsey


Really, with the NFL starting up shortly, I couldn't care less. This is COMICAL as far as I am concerned.

But I can't stand all these New York Yankee apologists who have crawled out of the woodwork as of late. Here's a terrific example:

http://msn.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/klapisch_bob/1423271.html

Every fucking thing this guy says is worthless and incorrect. In fact, it's only worth is in someone going line-by-line and refuting it. So here we go:


Quote:

The mantra sung by the anti-Yankee army is so familiar, we know it by heart: George Steinbrenner breaks the rules with his turbo dollars -- if not the letter of the law, then its spirit. Not fair, we're told. Not ethical. It's not even fun anymore, watching the Yankees become as bloated as Microsoft.


You know what was fun? Watching Rivera go to second on that bunt in game six last year. "We're the Yankees! We always get the lead runner! Hee hee hee! This'll show teams that it's worthless to bunt against us!" People have started to talk about Torre as being some sort of HoF manager or something -- as if ANY one of these mopes like Garner or Bowa who have hung around the game couldn't do the exact same job or something. (OK, not Phil Garner.) Well, there was a chance to manage his team to a victory. Tell his relief pitcher who is utterly incapable of throwing the ball anywhere other than to his catcher's mitt (and he does do that quite well, admittedly) to go ahead and chuck it around the diamond where he's got as much accuracy as a single-testicled hippie trying to shoot his first amateur money shot with one hand on his weak-spurting cock and the other on his rented camcorder.

So, that was fun, anyway.
Quote:

Is Steinbrenner's $140 million payroll the only reason the Bombers keep winning? Is it just dollars?


Er, yeah. They never lose any player that plays well for them, there is no negative effect on them spending money unwisely, and they can pick off the cream of the crop when it comes to other team's free agents.
Quote:

If that were the case, then how would one explain the ferocious A's, who, on a $40 million payroll -- less than a third of the Yankees' -- are on their way to a third consecutive postseason appearance.


Klapisch, are you a fucking idiot? The A's have pretty much not made a SINGLE SIGNIFICANT PERSONNEL MISTAKE in the last four years. Jesus Christ. Oh, and when their current roster of guys play out their deals, they won't be able to afford to keep them. Is Klapisch wholly unaware of what happened with Giambi this off-season? Jesus Christ.
Quote:

If money really ruled, we'd like to know why the Twins -- who were on the verge of being vaporized by Bud Selig -- are crushing the White Sox and the Indians in the AL Central Division


Window of opportunity.

Let's take a look at how the Twins have done since the Jays payed whatever it took to get themselves to the World Series:

1993: 6th Place, AL West, 23 games out.
1994: 4th Place, AL Central, 14 games out (strike shortened season)
1995: Dead Last, AL Central, 44 FUCKING GAMES OUT
1996: 4th Place, AL Central, 24 games out
1997: 4th Place, AL Central, 18.5 games out
1998: 4th Place, AL Central, 19 games out
1999, Last Place, AL Central, 33 games out
2000, Last Place, AL Central, 26 games out

(They finished in second place last year. )

That's pretty solid, Klapisch. Pretty GODDAMN GOOD. What happened is that after getting their fucking heads caved in EIGHT YEARS the young and cheap talent they accumulated came together and they grabbed second place in 2000. Another year together, and they will have won the division. When Hunter, Jones, Guardado and everyone else see nothing but dollar signs dangled before them what incentive do they have to stick around? Maybe -- MAYBE -- the Twins can sign one of players they developed. Big fucking deal, so they either do not make a mistake in their roster for the inevitable future or they have eight more years of suckage with Hunter or someone playing the role of Tony Gwynn on those miserable Padres teams in between the NL Champion ones.

Of course, your average Yankee apologist sees nothing wrong with a system where their team is dealing from a position of strength every single year and where the "small market" teams get three years to be decent before sucking ass for another five. No problem at all there!
Quote:

Oakland's success in particular proves that it's aggressive scouting and smart trades that lift franchises, not just money. True, the Yankees had the resources to sign expensive free agents like Jason Giambi and Mike Mussina in the last two years -- and Steinbrenner didn't blink in adding Jeff Weaver and Raul Mondesi in a five-day span -- but the Yankees' core is the product of old-fashioned hard work by their scouts and minor-league managers.


No, their core is intact due to the fact that they can outbid everyone else for their own players.
Quote:
Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera and Bernie Williams were scouted, drafted and developed by the Yankees themselves. They weren't bought or bartered or acquired in any high-priced trade.


Pedro Martinez, Larry Walker, John Wetteand, Cliff Floyd, and Moises Alou all looked pretty good in an Expos uniform, coming up (more or less) for Montreal. Too bad they were unable to KEEP any of them.
Quote:

Yes, Steinbrenner pays handsomely, but as Oakland's Barry Zito said recently, "The Yankees always seem to pick the right free agent to go after, or make the right trade."


It always seems that way, because when they drop a load on a guy who didn't pan out, like Knoblauch, IT DOES NOT MATTER.
Quote:

In terms of actual wealth ... well, the Yankees are flush with cash. They're on their way to another three million home attendance mark, even though the fledgling YES network continues to slog through a legal quagmire with Cablevision. Still, the Yankees aren't spending anyone's money except their own.


Hey, dummy, unless they are playing themselves in exhibition games -- a prospect that a pinstripe slurping squick guzzler like yourself would apparently froth with glee if they went ahead and did 162 times -- they are playing another team, which makes all of this possible in the first place.
Quote:

But it's also true not even Steinbrenner can guarantee success: the Yankees lost the World Series in 2001, don't have the major leagues' best record this year, and are facing threats to their empire. Rivera is out indefinitely with a mysterious shoulder injury and Mussina can't get anyone out, period.


Jesus Christ.
Quote:

Yet, the Yankees suffer the slings and arrows of league-wide outrage, and the club's hierarchy is united in the belief that Selig and his top lieutenant Sandy Alderson are out to get them.


Yeah, right. Who's kidding who? First off, it's not "The Yankees" that people have a problem with, it's the inherent payroll and monetary imbalances. If it were the Dodgers who could keep their own players and the Yankees who comported themselves as fucking clownshoes the last few years, people would hate (read: what they represent financially) them as much as they currently do New York.
Quote:

But, really, what law have the Yankees broken? Steinbrenner is merely repairing the damage the organization suffered between 1982-1995 -- a 14-year dark age during which his team failed to make it to the World Series once.


OH NOESSSSS!!!

Trust me, nobody gave a fuck that they weren't around. Nobody outside New York, anyway. (I hear some wag chiming up with how popular the Yankees are outside of New York. To that, after careful consideration, I would say that the proper response is: shut the fuck up.)


And in closing:
Quote:

Bob Klapisch of The Record (Bergen County, N.J.) covers baseball for ESPN.com.


Ah, writing out of Jersey. Didn't see that coming.

Anyway, in short -- to hell with the sport, to hell with the mentality that tries to equate a free market and capitalist viewpoint to A GAME, and to hell with professional sports writers who have inexplicably latched onto a six-year old's mentality that goes along the lines of, "hey, the team that I follow, the team that I so daringly picked to follow, has about a billion advantages over anyone else!! As this means they will kick ass forever, ANYTHING THAT PERSERVES THAT IS FINE WITH ME." Fucking maggots.