Royal Treatment

I sincerely dislike the Royals. I haven't always felt this way. As a kid the Royals were the Yankees big rivals and we regularly clashed with Willie Wilson, George Brett, Dan Quisenberry, Frank White, U.L. Washington, and Hal McRae, just to name a few. The Topps 1980 George Brett card was the hottest card out there and every kid was scrambling to get their hands on it. I liked the Royals then. They weren't laughing stocks and they knew how to build a team.

Sure, the economics of the sport are very different 30 years later, but there's much more to the Kansas City collapse than dollars and cents. A few years ago, Royals fans staged a walk-out when the Yankees were in town to play. The theme of the most recent game was "Star Wars", a not-so-veiled attempt at jumping on the Evil Empire bandwagon. Just like the Bush administration, the Royals would like to deflect attention from their own failures and shortcomings by blaming them on a giant boogeyman. With the Bushies it's 9/11, Hussein, Bin Laden, and liberal bloggers. With the Royals, and teams like them, it's the free spending Yankees.

George Steinbrenner bought the Yankees in 1973 for $10 million. 33 years later Forbes values the Yankees at slightly over $ 1 billion, the 1st sports franchise to achieve that lofty height. It has a lot to do with the size of the New York market, but it also has to do with re-investing money in the team to make it powerful and iconic. The Yankees operate at a net $50 million loss. The money is more than made up for in outside interests like marketing, tv, and so on. The thing is, the Yankees pay mega-bucks in luxury tax every year as a penalty for their enormous payroll. That money is divided between the small market clubs, presumably to be spent on remaining competitive. That's rarely the case though. The Royals, among others, prefer to pocket that money as profit. They reinvest very little of that tax revenue into their players. They are business people first, and sports people second. Their religion is profit, not baseball.

So be it. Everyone has a right to do whatever they want with the money that comes their way. The problem is, they turn around and cry "woe is me" when the Yankees are in the playoffs with a $200 million payroll and point the finger towards the Bronx, when their own fans start to get edgy. People buy that crap, like they buy the notion that Saddam Hussein was connected to 9/11. 38% of American polled believe that there was a connection. Something purely concocted by Rumsfeld and Cheney. They also forget to point their fingers back at management and demand that they pay some good players to come to Missouri. They forget the fact that the Yankees come to town and sell out the stadium. They forget that boatloads of money are available to go get that free agent slugger. It's easier on the collective psyche to believe that your team is a victim.

So, we have Chewbacca (or a bear, as Suzyn Waldman announced on the air) throwing out the first pitch. I can live with that. It also makes it a lot easier to live with when we use the Royals as a punching bag, to the tune of a 10 run 7th. Oh how I love to live up to the Evil Empire image. If they want to use that as their rallying cry, then we should be happy to oblige with a Death Star like destruction of their bullpen. Let's hope for a sweep to keep them fuming in their seats at our wealthy coffers and high falootin' pinstripes. See you tomorrow. Go Yanks.