It is Sunday and my task for today is to clean out the office closet.  Sounds like fun huh?  Before I bury myself in a mound of things I haven’t used in months/years, I wanted to talk about something that has been on my mind for a while.

The New York Yankees are the worst team in all of sports!

Yes, I know the Oklahoma City Thunder (NBA) and the Detroit Lions (NFL, 0-15 with a last chance to get a win today) are downright bad teams as far as records are concerned.  I also know that the beloved Dallas Cowboys and New England Patriots are fighting for their playoff lives today, but that isn’t why the Yankees, in my opinion, is the worst team in all of sports.

The reason I believe the Yankees is the worst team is because the check book is open – in fact it has always been open.  I can’t give totally accurate stats, but the four highest paid players in baseball are on the Yankees.  I think their salaries average at least $20 million per year each…at least!  What is more amazing is the fact that this has been met with little surprise.  Sportscasters and sports fans are kind of used to the Yankees paying for talent so these off-season signings aren’t all that surprising.

Combine the ability, and money, to sign almost anyone available with the amount of World Series Championships and the sum total is clear (to me): the New York Yankees organization is the worst in sports!

How can you consistently buy more talent than any other team and not consistently win championships?  The owner could be looked at for possibly overpaying.  The manager/general manager could be blamed for not asking the owner to buy the right talent for the organization and the players could be blamed for not making it happen on the court.  No matter who is ultimately responsible, they don’t win as much as they should given the free agency and draft rules of the game.

Remember how people used to think John Wooden’s UCLA Bruins got all the talent?  What about the long line of good/great college players who went to the University of North Carolina?  Those teams combined pale in comparison to a team who can (afford to) buy the players they want.

If I was a betting man and was given the chance to take the Yankees or the field, I would do the smart thing and take the field.

Back to cleaning!

Let me start off by saying that I am a San Francisco Giants fan.  I have been one for years now, going back to when Joe Morgan was playing and Frank Robinson was managing the Giants.  In 1993, the Giants brought Barry Bonds to San Francisco and he responded with a MVP season.  Bonds went on to become one of the greatest players to ever play baseball and last season Bonds became the all-time home run king by passing Hank Aaron’s 755 home runs.  Today, Bonds has not retired, but he is not currently on a team and no one has picked him up.  How in the world does that happen?

The excuses are so pathetic that it is utter and complete nonsense to even repeat them, but for information sake, here goes.  The main excuse is that he would be a distraction for the team.  For what team and what distraction?  Bonds has only played for two teams in his career, the Pittsburgh Pirates and the San Francisco Giants, and the only distractions he was for those teams were of a positive nature because those teams have not been nearly as successful since he has left.  Some say that he should not be back in baseball because his name is linked to steroids and it tarnishes the game.  Well, I do not see anyone having a problem with Andy Petitte or Jason Giambi playing on the same team together and both of their names are also linked to steroids.  There are also those who say that Bonds’ personality would ruin a team’s chemistry.  We still have no evidence that he was ever the reason for a team’s downfall and while there are definitely players who do not like Bonds, what player does everyone like?

All of the excuses stem simply from the fact that most people do not like Barry Bonds.  They will use any excuse to keep him away from the game so that he does not keep the home run title for very long or do anything else on the playing field that will increase his standing in the game.  I find this absolutely insane.  The object in major league baseball is to win games, not to be popular, so why in the world is one of the game’s greatest players to ever play the game not playing?

I would also like to include my comrades in sportswriting who have done maybe the greatest hatchet job in the history of baseball and that takes a lot of doing.  When Brett Favre retired and then un-retired, every writer across the land wrote about it and it was the biggest story throughout the summer.  Yet, Barry Bonds, who starred just last year and hit 28 home runs, has been ignored and given no credit for his ability and all that he has done in the game.  Who cares if Bonds did not treat the media well?  That is not a job requirement, hitting the baseball is, and you would have trouble finding anyone who has ever done it as well as Barry Bonds.

I am really confused now.  Normally I get confused when something does not make sense and happens anyway, i.e. the re-election of George W. Bush as president.  Now I’m confused because an athlete said something that appears to be very obvious and everyone is acting shocked about it.  It is getting to the point where confusion becomes the norm and that is itself frightening.

The other day, during the Big East media day, West Virginia quarterback Pat White commented on why he did not play baseball while at West Virginia.  Despite being drafted in the fourth round by the Angels while still in high school, White commented that he thought playing baseball this season, but since there is a lack of African-Americans on the team coached by Greg Van Zant, he decided against it.  White also said, “In my knowledge of West Virginia baseball, there’s not been many players of my race on his team.  (Van Zant’s) not too high on that.”

This sent shockwaves throughout intercollegiate sports to such an extent that West Virginia athletic director Ed Pastilong made the following statement:
    “The university is committed to diversity as evidenced by the development of the OneWVU program. Our coaches and staff also are committed to an atmosphere of community for our student-athletes. I look forward to speaking with Pat more about his thoughts.”

What is the problem?  People just not watching baseball anymore or can they just not tell that African-Americans are not playing baseball the way they have in the past?  There are less African-Americans playing professional baseball, intercollegiate baseball, and little league baseball than ever before.  Even when African-Americans could only play in the Negro Leagues, there were scores of African-American baseball players who not only played in the U.S., but played in Latin America as well.  Today, neither the inner city nor the rural areas are producing African-American baseball players and like a lot of issues, it has been swept under the rug.  It seems as though people are more interested in talking about what White said instead of focusing on why.

There is no doubt that the interest for African-American players has gone down in baseball and thus the interest that African-Americans have in playing baseball has followed suit.  At one time, baseball was the dominant sport in the inner city, not basketball or football.  Now it is as though baseball is being systematically removed from the conscience of young African-Americans, thus removing potential baseball players, managers or people who spend their lives involved with the sport in one way or another.  Less and less baseball fields are found in the inner city and since physical education programs are cut more and more from elementary education, where are kids going to learn to play the sport?

Hopefully, White’s comments are looked at in the proper context, especially when he did not say anything untrue.  West Virginia’s baseball team did not have a single African-American player on the 2008 roster.  Now the blame could be placed on Van Zant, but the deeper issue is the lack of participation of African-Americans in the sport as a whole.  Or are there a lot more people who just are “not too high on that?”

It is funny to listen to baseball purists talk about how the National League is the “real” baseball in the major leagues. They talk about how managers have more of an effect on a game with double switches or pinch-hitting for the pitcher or how players have to play in the field. They say the designated hitter in the American League ruins the complexity of the game and adds a hitter who does nothing but hit. All of this may indeed be true to the fans of just the National League who say that they are not able to watch the American League game, but there is no doubt that the best league for a while now has been the American League.

The American League has pretty much dominated the National League on basically every category. The American League has dominated the National League in the All-Star Game, winning 16 of the last 19 games and that includes the tied game in Milwaukee. The National League has been unable to win back-to-back World Series since 1982 and the only National League team that has won more than one World Series since 1982 are the Florida Marlins (1997, 2003) and they were not even a franchise until 1993. The American League has had multiple World Series champions since 1982 such as the Minnesota Twins (1987, 1991), Toronto Blue Jays (1992, 1993), the Boston Red Sox (2004, 2007), and the New York Yankees (1996, 1998, 1999, 2000). Whether it is head to head in the all-star game or World Series, the American League has had the upper hand for a while now.

Today, the American League looks as strong as they ever have. First, by far the two most popular franchises in major league baseball are the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. It does not hurt that they are two of the winningest teams as well with recognizable superstars such as Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Manny Ramirez, and David Ortiz. Despite having the designated hitter in the American League, the pitching in the American League (4.08) has a better earning run average than the National League (4.24) as well. There is also the myth going around that the National League has better young pitching than the American League, but the American League has young pitchers such as Felix Hernandez, Joe Saunders, Ervin Santana, Jon Lester, and Andy Sonnanstine. It does not help the National League when the National League West only has one team with a record over .500, especially when that team, the Arizona Diamondbacks, is 42-41.

The National League and their fans can deny it all they want, but the best baseball in the major leagues is in the American League. They have the best teams, the best pitching, the best hitting, the most recognizable players, and they are flat-out a much better product. While the National League has all of the baseball purists that still love the National League, the “real” baseball is indeed played in the American League and has been for a while now.