They’re still doing the YMCA thing at the Stadium? Good grief. At least it’s not the Macarena.
…or the song that’s been added to the 8th inning at Shea Stadium (along with many other MLB stadiums), Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline. Brrrr.
Quasi-religious jingoism is one thing, scratching fingernails across the chalkboard of my soul is another.
Don’t give them any ideas, please.
We get Cotton-Eye Joe. Sweet Caroline would be a change of pace.
After the first 100 times, all the stadium sounds are “scratching fingernails across the chalkboard of my soul”. Kate Smith’s God Bless America just hit that faster, like the second time they played it.
Or, he realized that his stadium is sold out with a 20 year long waiting list for season tickets, even when the team sucks, and his TV revenues are fixed with the league’s network deal. If he chose to spend 2x the league average on players, he’d be spending a hell of a lot more than everyone else, with a really limited upside on revenue.
Baseball is totally different, the Yankees wouldn’t come close to selling 4 million tickets a year if they didn’t have a top notch team. The YES network wouldn’t be worth much of anything if the team didn’t win consistently. There is huge upside to spending on talent for the Yankees, not so much for the Giants.
All the spending does anyway is guarantee a good team and most likely a playoff spot. Plenty of smaller market teams make it to the playoffs win in the playoffs and win the WS. Granted, markets that can’t manage to draw any kind of fan interest and spend nothing on players have trouble competing. Boo. Hoo.
I thought that was just a Boston thing? Has it actually spread to other stadiums? Shudder…
Even we don’t know why it’s played. (But I secretly love it)
D_Odds, I missed your post #96 before. Understand completely.
I heard it started in Boston, but I’ve heard it at Shea starting sometime towards the end of last year, and also seen it on TV being played at other NL stadiums for Mets road games this year. So it is definitely spreading. Like Deviled Spam.
(…which doesn’t seem to exist any more, not being listed at Hormel’s website for Spam products, but I used to keep a can of it from back in the early 1990’s on my desk, with its verbally delicious motto, It’s Spam… THAT SPREADS!)
Here’s the origin story. It’s much more recent then I would have imagined.
Define large market. In my lifetime I’ve seen the Indians pine about the disadvantages of being in a small market, to selling out every home game for years while fielding some of the greatest lineups in history, to again pining about the disadvantages of being in a small market. Market size is not static, but very much dependent on wise corporate decision making, coaching, and scouting. Atlanta is not a terribly big place, and slightly smaller than B’more, but the Braves were one of the largest markets in baseball for much of the 90’s for exactly those reasons.
I dont even buy the, “But the tri-state area is so big the Yankees have a much larger built in fan base.” True many more people live in the NYC area than say Milwaukee, but they are also competing against 8 other professional sports teams and all manner of other attractions for dollars.
Also, you’re argument in favor of parity in baseball run contrary to your appreciation of scrappy teams and love of the underdog. Part of the joy many people took in seeing the Yankees lose to the Diamondbacks, Marlins, and Tigers was the David vs. Goliath storyline. If all teams have equal funding then it turns into team A from certain city beats team B from another city – which is exactly how I view the NFL. There are no heroes or villains, just assemblages of players that base their life out of a certain city for a few years. Not to mention that there is little evidence that the revenue sharing and salary cap used by the NFL increases the turn over of contenders. 14 different teams have won the past 20 WS, while 12 have won the past 20 Superbowls. In my opinion, the perceived benefit of the salary cap has much more to do with the fact that half of all the teams in the NFL make the playoffs. Go back and see who would have made the playoffs in baseball over the past 20 years if half the teams were selected. Given the incredibly stochastic nature of baseball it’s not unreasonable to assume that anyone of them could have made a run at the championship.
I’m not a football fan, but I understand how the salary cap benefits the NFL. Many football fans can and do watch nearly every interesting game on all season long. In that case it behooves them to make every match up interesting. With baseball, after following my team I’m lucky if I get a chance to watch condensed highlights of the other games.
As to your original post: Is it any fun being a Yankee’s fan? Not so much anymore. I haven’t agreed with many of the off season moves recently. At the end of the '04 season I thought the better long term financial decision to their lack of center fielder would have been moving Jeter to center, ARod back to short, and signing a competent 3rd baseman. I pine for the days when Brosius was going for 100 RBI from the 8-9 hole (or better yet, when they would pretty much sign Louis Soho sometime during the bottom of the ninth inning, pull him from the stands, stick him in uniform, and have him deliver a pinch hit game winning double). But still, they almost always make it interesting. And that’s why I watch, to be entertained.
We Seattle fans love that guy 
The salary cap hasn’t been in effect for 20 years, so that’s an unfair comparison. It was instituted in 93 IIRC. (And oddly, that was pretty much the exact time the NFC stopped winning the Superbowl, though it’s gone back and forth since the merger.)
Also, 12 out of 32 isn’t exactly half the league; my calculator says that 37.5% of the teams make the playoffs. Two years after the cap was instituted there were 30 teams, which meant that 40% of the teams made the playoffs.
The NFL is no MLB when it comes to thinning the herd come playoff time, but it’s a far cry from the NBA and NHL.
Looking it up, the cap was instituted in 94, not 93. So in the 13 seasons under the cap there were 10 different champions:
06 Colts
05 Steelers
04 Patriots
03 Patriots
02 Bucs
01 Patriots
00 Ravens (fuckers!)
99 Rams
98 Broncos
97 Broncos
96 Packers
95 Cowboys
94 49ers
In the 13 seasons prior to that there were only 6 different champions, with 11 of them being won by only 4 teams:
93 Cowboys
92 Cowboys
91 Redskins
90 Giants
89 49ers
88 49ers
87 Redskins (strike year; cheap victory by crossing the picket lines early)
86 Giants
85 Bears
84 49ers
83 Raiders
82 Redskins
81 49ers
So from 6 teams winning 13 championships to 10 teams winning 13 championships is a pretty drastic increase in parity. This is compelling evidence that the revenue sharing and salary cap used by the NFL increases the turn over of contenders.
A story in yesterday’s N.Y. Times says the Yankees are the only team in MLB that still plays God Bless America during every home game, and also the only team that chains up major stadium aisles during its playing, so that fans won’t “disrepectfully” move around during the song.
Last I checked, “God Bless America” was not our national anthem, but George Steinbrenner has his own ideas on enforcing “patriotism”.
Are you sure about this? I’m fairly certain that a good number of ballparks still play God Bless America every game. I was at Camden Yards last Sunday, and I heard it then.
This was covered earlier in the thread by robardin.
It was also discussed how this is not really that big of a deal, read the replies that followed the post.
Jim
Why ,if Roger knew he was going to sign this year, did he not get in shape. Sign him and wait til at least July. He should have been ready to go.
He is expected to pitch in the majors by end of May or Early June. He did keep in shape but needs to throw to live batters for 2-4 games.
It’s not a terribly large data sample.
It’s also interesting to note that prior to 1981 (your last year of data) champion turnover was also low - the Steelers winning four times, the Raiders, Dolphins, etc. - but salaries were relatively low, so why would building a winning team be limited to just a few select franchises?
It’s possible that other factors go into the current level of “parity.” It could be chance; it could also be that the evolution of scouting, training and strategy have made the teams relatively even in those areas, whereas in the 70s there were dramatic differences in organizational quality.
It’s interesting to note that ALL major sports have had increased parity in modern times. The Stanley Cup’s won my a different team every year now, whereas it’s not long ago that the Canadiens won it every year and then the Islanders won four in a row and then the Oilers were beating everyone. Baseball had the 1998-2000 Yankees but other than that it’s been all over the place. Basketball has had some minidynasties but not like the Celtics used to be.
I think a lot of this has to do with scouting and organizational ability. Every pro sports team now, well almost every one, is an extremely professional talent rating and acquisition organization that puts millions of dollars into scouting, talent evaluation, development, training, medical care, and the like. That hasn’t always been true.
All good points, though it’s widely accepted that the salary cap increases parity. One thing to note in your favor is that free agency didn’t really exist as we know it before free agency, so quality drafting played a much larger role in building a dynasty.
One other contributing factor could also be the expansion of all the leagues. Talent thins as teams increase, hedging everyone toward the middle.
Back to the originlal question: is it fun being a Yankee fan? Sure it is, as long as you like baseball.
But apparently, it’s NOT much fun to be a Royals or Reds fan.
The OP’s question is pretty silly, if you think about it. It’s like saying, “IS it even fun to watch Spiderman 3? Where’s the fun in watching a big budget movie with highly paid stars and a top-notch director and superb graphics? Wouldn’t it really be more fun to watch a small independent movie by an amateurish director with a cast of starving unknowns?”
The answer is, SURE it’s fun to watch “Spiderman 3”! The salaries paid to the stars and the money spent on special effects is irrelevant, provided that the end result is a good movie.
Now, are there big budget movies that suck, and are no fun to watch at all? Sure. But Ed Wood was a small, independent filmmaker, and his movies sucked, too. Being a “crappy little underdog” doesn’t give you moral high ground, and it doesn’t mean you’re talented.
A small independent movie can be fun, and so can a blockbuster. And I don’t feel guilty for enjoying a ballgame played by highly paid mercenaries any more than I do for enjoying a movie where the star was paid $20 million.
And those of you who idealize the supposed scrappy little underdogs of baseball should stop kidding themselves. Guess what: the WORST player on the worst team in baseball was a stellar jock in school. He was Big Man on Campus, and he’s been dreaming of making megabucks in the major leagues since he was 12.
If he’s playing for a pittance in Tampa instead of for $15 million a year in New York, it’s NOT because he’s too virtuous to sell out to Steinbrenner. It’s because he just isn’t good enough to earn the big bucks he (unknownst to you) craves.
I would think demonic compacts would have a “no fun allowed” clause in them somewhere. I can’t think of any other reason someone would root for a team from New York, and an American League team at that. 