Extra Extra Yankees Tied Directly to Economic Fallout (Irony, Satire, please don't take seriously)

It’s a recession.

The Yankees haven’t won a World Series in nine years. I mean, if that isn’t a recession, I don’t know what is.

Stay with me for a minute. I know the problems of the economy are very real. I understand there is no joke about people losing their homes or there jobs. But sports are our escape from all of that, aren't they?



But then I got to thinking, then I got to reading. That’s right, despite what you may think, I can read, and occasionally I do think before opening my mouth. I often don't do both, so this is special.

Quick background, the Dow Jones Industrial Average opened on May 26, 1896 with a score of 40.94.



From there it took until 1972 to hit 1000 points. But the scores I am interested in, follow the strike in 1994. So, just previous to the 1995 season, Feb. 23, 1995 to be exact, the DJI hit 4000.

It was in 1995 that the Yankees began a spending spree that, by 2007, had accounted for over $1.6 billion in pay roll. But let’s break it down shall we.

Find TicketsPowered by FanSnap.comThe index began its unprecedented climb. In the first four years, the New York Payroll was No. 1 in the majors only twice, but it did jump from $47 million to $63 million according to USA Today.

So what does that have to do with anything? I mean, tell us something you we didn’t know? Oh, how about the fact that, while the Yankees were on this run of consecutive post seasons the Dow Jones Industrial also pushed its way into uncharted territory.

The Yankees 13 straight playoff appearances are second all-time only to the Braves. But in the grand scheme of things, the Yankees appear to affect or mirror the economy. Atlanta, although a nice city, doesn’t have the same influence over the economy as Wall Street.

So, as the Yank’s were slam-dunking four rings, 13 straight playoff appearances, and repeatedly cracking the $200 million mark, Wall St. was climbing, and climbing. All the way up to 14,100 points it went.



So as Jeter and co. were setting Yankee records, the DJI was setting financial records. Why does this matter?

Well I just find it intriguing that the years the Yankees streak stopped are also the years the Dow Jones and the economy went in the tank.

Follow me from 1995 to 2000 when the Yankees rattled off four World Series Titles, the industrial average jumped from 4,000 to 11,700. Pretty unreal if you ask me, a 7,700 point jump is unprecedented—between 2000 and 2004 it barely moved. You think that has anything to do with the economy knowing the Bronx Bombers were about to cough up a 3-0 lead? I think so. Although continuing to make the playoffs, the Industrial was not as robust as in its growth.

Then the Yankees did the unthinkable, they missed the playoffs, and in that same year the average collapsed. Not only did it collapse, but it went into a free fall around Oct. 1. The same Oct. 1 that saw Jeter, Jorge, and Petite clean out their locker early in pin stripes for the first time.

Now this all looks a little suspicious with the Industrial Average at about 7,800 after the collapse of 2008.

The government was scrambling and they dreamt up a bailout package, as did Cashman and the Steinbrenners. So far the US government has spent approximately $1.5 trillion on a bailout since October. While the Yankees, in their version of a bailout package, have dedicated approximately a $.5 billion to contracts for C.C., AJ, and Tex to keep themselves “a float.”

This conspiracy may be bigger than steroids, greenies, HGH, Pete Rose, and the Black Sox Scandal all together.

But then again, there are no such things as conspiracies right?

I Want The Truth! But Can We Handle the Truth?

Usually I’d take as much joy and pleasure as anyone in watching the dismantling of that smug look off of A-Rod’s face. Unfortunately for me today there lies out there a bigger question. Why is it just A-Rod taking the fall and is what he did so bad in the grand scheme of things? I mean the lying to cover it up is, but let’s just talk about the steroid issue.

A-Rod is taking a lot of heat, but he’s not alone. There are 104 names on that list. I want to know who they are. They all submitted samples that were to be used to determine how deeply the problem of steroids in baseball went. It wasn’t supposed to be for disciplinary reasons. Well considering how hard Alex is about to be /is currently being judged in the court of public opinion I want answers, not just from Alex, from the other 103 as well.

Since my faith that we could see the home run record be broken by someone not on drugs has ultimately been shattered, I’ve got to know. I’ve got to know if Albert Pujols is on that list. I’ve got to know if Ken Griffey Jr. ever tested positive. I want to see if I need to start turning a blind eye to the accomplishments of Manny Ramirez. Or at least reconsider how I frame him in the all time discussion, good or bad.

I can no longer sit back and defend the players I love based on the fact that I love them. I hated A-Rod the Yankee; I hated him because he was better than any player I had ever seen. I hated him for all the right reasons. He plays for the Yankees and he was unbelievably talented. But if you thought for one second I wasn’t going stand up and applaud when he broke the homerun record your fooling yourself. I sat in my chair one night and discussed with a friend of mine whether we thought Alex could get to 800 homeruns or not.

That’s right 800 pause and think about it for a minute. As it sits today Alex is at 553 homeruns. Oh and he is only 32 years old. So now the joy of both him surpassing a tainted 762 and the day of possibly hitting number 800 should be thrown into question. Then I started to wonder, who was “clean” and do I care?

Cause with the drugs Alex was better than anyone I’d ever seen. Then again isn’t that the case to be made for the previous record holder too? I mean we all know the case against Barry, lets talk Hank, let us just see how deep the rabbit hole goes.

But what’s makes the record legitimately Aaron’s? I mean didn’t he partake in performance enhancing drugs. On page 268 of his on his own autobiography, “I had the Hammer: The Hank Aaron Story” he admits to trying Greenies.

“The 500thhome run came against Mike McCormick of the Giants, which meant that Willie Mays was on the field at the time. Willie elected not to have his picture taken with me that day, saying it wasn’t appropriate for him to fraternize with a player whose team had just beaten the Giants. For years Willie had been king and I’m sure that he wasn’t crazy about me elbowing into his territory. Most fans and critics still considered Willie to be a better player than me. It seems like the only ones who took up my cause were my team mates. Guys like Uecker and Boyer used to argue with the visiting writers who didn’t think I belonged in the class with Mays. It made me feel a little awkward to sit by my locker and hear them going on like that, but don’t think I didn’t appreciate it. [new paragraph begins] Actually, the 1968 season wasn’t the best time to present my case. It was the first time since my rookie year that I didn’t drive in or score 100 runs. I was so frustrated that at one point I tried using a pep pill—a greenie—that one of my teammates gave me. When that thing took hold, I thought I was having a heart attack. It was a stupid thing to do…”



Now why in the world would I drag that up you ask? Well that goes hand in with some interesting information printed by Dr. Bennett Foddy, PH D. and holder of the Harold T. Shapiro Fellowship in Bioethics at Princeton University’s Center for Human Values. He makes a very compelling case for why Greenies would have been performance enhancing drugs.

“What this example shows is that baseball is a sport in which the usual set of performance enhancements is ill-suited to enhancing player’s number. The core skills of baseball- pitching, catching and hitting – are not best enhanced by drugs that make a player stronger or faster. The strongest player can still miss the ball or hit it straight up in the air.
In fact baseball – like golf, cricket, or archery – is a quintessentially brain-centered sport. The most important weapons any player has are in his brain: the speed of his reflexes, his spatial processing, his vision and his fine tuned muscle memory. In the case of baseball, only the ball needs to go faster, higher and longer.” Pg. 77-78, Your Brain on Cubs.

Then later on Foddy sites specific examples of the effects of amphetamines specifically on baseball players.

“Amphetamines produce little or no enhancement in reaction time but significantly reduce the effect of fatigue on a person’s ability to track a moving object such as a ball. Dextroamphetamine, an amphetamine variant this is popular as a recreational drug, improves decision-making and reduces impulsivity in healthy human beings, which would be an effective enhancement for batters that tended to swing at balls outside of the strike zone.” Pg. 79 Your Brain on Cubs.

So what if Hammerin’ Hank was getting better pitches to hit, not because of keen eye, but because he was drug enhanced? Is 755 really a legitimate number? Is that really the record?

This is just another witch hunt through the grand old game, if we are going to continue with this non-sense. I am sick of half truths and half information. We’ve all seen the game soiled enough. Can we just flush out all the non-sense so I don’t have to endure another Jose Canseco book?

I want to truth, Bud, WE CAN HANDLE THE TRUTH!! The game needs it, and its fan I need it, cause to be honest, I want to say I am comfortable with them all being cheaters, but I’m not.

***special thanks for Bennett Foddy for the quotes from Dan Gordon’s, “Your Brain on Cubs.”

A Rose by any other name would smell as Sweet.

“A rose by any of name would smell as sweet.” Even if he is Charlie Hustle. What is the construction of a great nickname? What is at the heart of a truly “Great One”? No I don’t mean Wayne Gretzky, although if we are starting with “Legends”, how about Larry Bird? I mean the “Hick from French Lick” was so good that he has two? In both those cases the players were great but the nick names were just very good. I’d like to develop a list of my top five nicknames of all time. Before I do, I would like to give an acknowledgement to the group that started this discussion for me. Lindros, Leclair, Renburg, were truly as their name suggested, Philadelphia’s Legion of Doom. Hockey has had a it’s share of creative line nicknames, Colourful names like The Rocket, Mr. Hockey, The Flower, Little Beaver, The Chief, The Screamin’ Scotsman, The Big Train, Grapes, The Road Runner, The Tazmanian Devil , The Grim Reaper, Killer, The Rat, The Magnificent, The Moose, Mr. Zero, Stevie Wonder, Boom Boom, Tiger, The Hammer and if you didn’t have a nickname it seems like we called you Red, there are about 10 guys named after that colour. We even nicknamed you if you sucked ala Andre “Red Light” Racicot. Units were nicknamed, The Kid Line, The Brat Line, The Century Line, The Hound Line, The BBC, The Russian Five, The West Coat Express, The Punch line, The Production Line were some of the tag given to dominate or feisty units over the years. Now we’ve got a league full of Y’s, S’s and ER’s. Healtey becomes Heats, instead of a creative play on the name like, The Fireman, or The Inferno, although he does play on the CASH line with two other brutal tags, Alfy, and Spezs. Instead of being the Calgary Cannon, Al McInnis was just Al. But I digress, this wasn’t supposed to be a rant on a how bad nick names had gotten, nor do I want to pick square on hockey. As we have seen all sports have gone down hill in this respect. The coach gets on the bullpen phone he is now call Timlin, Ryan, Papelbon, Rivera, Wood, he isn’t calling for The Mad Hungarian, The Nasty Boys, the Dragon slayer, Oil Can or the Octopus. But what makes a nick name truly great? Is it, its origin? Like the day child hood friend Bobby Hoffman, that his buddy Lawrence looked like a Hindu Holy Man he’d seen recently in a movie. On that day, Yogi Berra was born; one of the most recognized nicknames in all of sport. Or The Babe, another name so entrenched in our popular culture you never here anyone refer to him as George. Football tends to be known for its units, The Orange Crush, the Steel Curtan, The Purple People Eaters, The Electric company. And in basketball the kiss of death for nick names is when they start, “The Big…” cause it can only go down hill after that. Kobe is the Mamba, Lebron is King James, but real great nicknames sound like The Glove, The Rash, and The Answer. But a great nickname is more about more than it’s popularity, or creativity, it is the nicknames ability to capture essence. I mean Paul Pierce is The Truth. First of all I am pretty sure he gave that to himself, which automatically disqualifies it from consideration, but number two, The Truth about what? I mean at first glance it seems like a great tag, but really it make absolutely no sense what so ever. As I’ve researched, debated and argued, there are many nicknames that have tried to climb there way to the top of my nickname Olympus. But for me 5 stand alone in the world of second Baptization, the Hall of Designation, in the Pantheon of Nickname.

5. The Wizard – Every time Ozzie came to the ballpark you expected magic. In a world where Hall of Fame worth is measured by 500 homeruns, 3000 hits, 300 wins, 3000 strike outs, Ozzie turned in his own resume 580 stolen bases, but more importantly 621 assists more than any shortstop, and 13 consecutive gold gloves.

4. Prime Time – Maybe the most colourful athlete in the history of Football. But it wasn’t just about flash and flair he delivered. Drafted in 1988 by the Yankees, and 1989 by the Falcons, he became the first man to hit a MLB Home Run and score an NFL Touchdown in the same week. In 1992 he led the National League in triples with 14. With there was something that could be done to get you out of your seat, Deion was doing it, 558 base hits, 154 for extra bases, 53 Int and 10 of them returned for TD’s, but unlike the ability to stop throwing at Deion, you had to kick to him, 9 combined TD’s on punt and kickoff returns. Imagine if coaches had let him return kicks his entire career instead worrying he’d get hurt?

3. The Dominator – People will tell you Gretzky was the greatest ever. But I have never in my life seen a player single handedly dominate the game like Hasek. At the Nagano Olympics he single handedly sent hockey’s version of the Dream Team home while carrying the Czech’s to a gold medal. He didn’t get his first NHL start until he was 25, and didn’t get his first starting job in the NHL until he was 28. Yet still he ranks first for starts by a European Goalie, 6th all time in shut outs, 10 in all time wins, 8th in all time lowest GAA. Two Harts, with Five Nominations, that’s like a pitcher winning the MVP and the Cy Young. It simply doesn’t happen, but he was simply that good. Six Vezina Trophy’s for best goalie, and was named Czech Hockey player on the 20th Century.

2. Sweetness – It just rolls off the tongue. Was it hard and tough, it was when it had to be. Was it finesse? He could deliver that too. But when it all was said and done. He had rushed for more yards than anyone else in NFL history. He was speed, agility and power. Poetry in Motion was the order of the day when Walter Payton. His Motto was never Die Easy. There is certainly a wake of NFL defenders what would agree the Sweetness lived up to that year after year.

1. Magic – He simply was. A 6’9 Guard from Michigan he lead his home town, home state Spartans to an NCAA time in 1979 and never looked back. He won 5 titles, played in 9 Finals series, was the NBA and Finals MVP 3 times each. Over 17,000 points and 10,000 assists in his career speak to his ability to score and involve team mates without a second though. But if I was to sum up Magic it came in the 1979-80 trailing 3-2 in the finals and headed to Philadelphia the Lakers were going to be without their all star center. Kareem had gone down with sprained ankle. Westhead decided to move Johnson a guard to the center position. In an elimination game he came up with performance that totaled 42 points, 15 rebounds, 7 assists, 3 steals. That in a word my friend is pure Magic.(Honorable Mention: Charlie Hustle, The Say Hey Kid, The Galloping Ghost, The Mailman, The Straw the Stirs the Drink, Mr. October, The Kid.)
Am I right? Am I wrong? Let me know, post your top five, tell me what you think....