If you think Hank Steinbrenner and the New York Yankees front office spend all this money to benefit the New York Yankees — think again. That’s right, they’re doing it for everyone. Without their financial dominance and perennial winning ways, baseball would be no more. If that seems to have slipped your mind for any reason, Hank is here to remind you.
“We will do what we have to do to win,” Steinbrenner told Kevin Kernan of the NY Post. “We have the highest payroll and the reason is we are committed to our fans to win. We just have to f***ing win.”
“Look at the money we are paying out in revenue sharing,” he continued. “We are baseball’s stimulus package. The fans of other teams have no reason to complain about us or the Red Sox or the teams that support the rest of baseball.”
Steinbrenner has a point about revenue sharing, but shouldn’t he say the owners have nothing to complain about, not the fans? Fans can complain all they want. Some MLB teams are not making enough money and thus cannot afford astronomical payrolls like the Yankees’ and Red Sox’s. Other teams have cheap owners who choose to sit on their hands and pocket as much money as possible while putting a horrendous product on the field.
So Hank is somewhat right and somewhat wrong. Does baseball need teams like the Yankees and Red Sox to survive? Yes. Do the fans of teams whose owners refuse to spend more money even though they have more money to spend have a reason to be upset? Again, yes.
