Just because the Yankees are outspending the rest of baseball by a 2-1 margin is no reason to criticize them, says Yankees’ president Randy Levine. In fact, you should be thanking them for making your pitiful team watchable!
Yes, the Yankees have outspent the rest of baseball combined, $423.5 million to $296.6 million so far this offseason, including ludicrously obscene very generous contracts for CC Sabathia, Mark Teixeira and A.J. Burnett. But don't think of it as a power grab by baseball's biggest robber barons; think of it as reinvesting in America!
“The philosophy of George Steinbrenner, which has been continued by Hal and Hank, is that the Yankees are a sacred trust to their fans and they believe in continually reinvesting in the team rather than reinvesting in themselves,” Levine said Wednesday. “We follow all the rules of baseball, we pay millions of dollars to other teams and we are essential to the revenues generated by Major League Baseball and its networks and other entities.”
With pressure increasing on baseball to institute a salary cap, Levine says that we should all sit back and reflect on what life would be like without the Yankees tipping doormen with $100 bills. Baseball as we know it would be in ruins ... smaller-market teams such as the Royals would cease to exist, and George Bailey would discover that Mary is now a spinster librarian who doesn't know him.
In short, we should all drop to our knees each evening and thank the deity for the Yankees' naked aggression. By annexing the Sudantenland, they are only strengthening all of Europe.
Levine does have one point though:
Levine singled out the criticism that he said some ESPN’s commentators had directed at Yankee spending and said he wondered why they were not criticizing their own network for reinvesting in its product by outbidding Fox by millions of dollars to acquire the rights to the Bowl Championship Series.
If baseball has to have a salary cap, shouldn't sports media get one as well?
Yankees Defend Spending As Almost A Public Service [New York Times]
Brewers Owner Floats Salary Cap [Milwaukee Brewers]