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The Spectacle Blog
"Maybe the Yankees should bail out the auto industry," a bitter Mets fan friend of mine quipped after the Yankees signed Mark Teixeira to a $180 million contract, bringing their off season spending spree to $423.5 million when you include the deals for pitchers C.C. Sabathia and A.J. Burnett.
I'm a long-time Yankee fan who misses the teams of the late 1990s not only because they won four World Series, but because I enjoyed rooting for them. Those were true teams -- aided by a high payroll, no doubt -- but composed of guys like Bernie Williams, Tino Martinez, Paul O'Neill, Scott Brosius, etc. These guys functioned beautifully as a team, combining great pitching, solid defense, and incredible clutch hitting. But after their devastating loss to the Diamondbacks in 2001, they abandoned the idea of building a true team, and instead began to go after whatever superstars were free agents or on the trading block -- like Giambi and A-Rod -- and it's just never been the same for Yankees fans. I find it hard to root for A-Rod, because, whatever his numbers during the regular season, he plays the game without passion, and always chokes in October. Give me a Brosius any day of the week.
So, as I take a look at this year's off-season acquisitions by the Yankees, I'm anticipating that these superstars will either get injured, or have their production seriously curtailed in the new Yankee stadium. And there's a good chance they'll blow it in October -- if they make it there.
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More Blog Posts by Philip Klein
http://spectator.org/blog/2008/12/24/teixeira-time
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Grant| 12.24.08 @ 2:04PM
I'm sure New Yorkers are wondering why they had to finance a majority of the new stadium...
Will| 12.24.08 @ 2:07PM
It's called team chemistry, Phil. The Yankees had great chemistry in the late 90s but got caught up signing too many individuals who don't know the concept of team chemistry. The Red Sox teams of the past few years have great team chemistry, as well. You can put together the best players at every position but it doesn't mean they will win it all.
casey| 12.24.08 @ 2:34PM
Winning breeds chemistry. Pitching breeds winning. That's the big difference between the late 90's teams and teams lately.
A-Rod can be accused of many things but playing without passion isn't one of them. Nobody could play baseball at the level he does and put in the hours of training that he does to play at that level if he wasn't passionate about it.
Dalers| 12.26.08 @ 2:09PM
How can you possibly say that A-Rod plays the game without passion? Have you ever seen him not hustle? Have you ever seem him not go 100% Have you ever seen him take a game off?
Thats a stupid comment from a fan that doesn't watch games and just makes assumptions.
Hank Archer| 12.27.08 @ 3:58PM
Does A-Rod choke in the playoffs? First line is his career regular season stats, the second are his career playoff stats.
BA/OBP/SLG
.306/.389/.578
.280/.362/.485
Yeah, his playoff stats are lower, but in the playoffs you see almost all frontline pitchers. Offensive stats are all most always lower in the playoffs than in the regular season.