Yankee Doodle Dandy

In case you missed it, the Yankees won the World Series.

Before the World Series started, I had no strong urge to root for one team or the other. I thought about it, and I decided that I wanted the Yankees to win, because I think it would have been good for baseball. Allow me to explain.

If a league wants to be successful, they need a team that everyone hates except fans of that team. Typically these are the teams that do well more years than not. Modern examples are the New England Patriots, the Los Angeles Lakers, the Boston Red Sox, the New York Yankees. However, the Yankees' membership in this club of nationwide hatred was starting to expire. Despite their bloated payroll, they weren't winning. That's when the Red Sox stepped in. Though many non-committed fans were behind the Red Sox at first, it was only a matter of time before their success became a turn-off to these temporary fans.

Major League Baseball needed the Yankee Dynasty to come back and take over the title of Public Enemy #1 because everyone can hate that the Yankees outspend everyone to get the best players, and the Yankees are the only team that has the means to outspend.

I also thought to myself that some teams needed to see that outspending everyone else works. As a fan of the Dodgers, I believe the Dodgers can do a better job spending its money, considering how much revenue the team makes from attendance and merchandise. Obviously you want to be wise about it, but I think you can justify almost any amount to win a championship. As bad as the Jason Schmidt signing was, I would rather my team make a bad signing than no signing at all. If the report is true that the McCourts vetoed a Dodger-Indians trade to bring in Cliff Lee because they didn't want to take on his salary, I will be extremely upset. Spending and championship needed to be more causation than correlation. The Yankees' championship this year reinforces that and hopefully will impact the way general managers and owners operate, even a little bit.

In a sense, I cheered for the Yankees this year so I could jeer them in the near future. Strange, but it makes sense.