Yanks net 31st straight winning year yet fans moan

Heartfelt congratulations to the New York Yankees on another winning season.

That’s right. Despite all the grousing and groaning from discordant Bronx Bombers fans across the Evil Empire, these Yankees finished at 82-80. That’s a winning record, in case those throughout the seven boroughs need remedial mathematics.

I know quite well that finishing out of playoff contention and being mired in fourth place does not meet Yankee expectations, but need I remind New York fans that while winning championships may be expected every season, it isn’t some sort of megalopolitan birthright that you win more championships than any other team.

In fact, the New York Yankees have not had a losing season since 1992. For 31 years, Yankee management has desperately doled out exorbitant contracts and snatched pick-of-the-litter free agents to amass such a string of winning seasons. Meanwhile, the lowly peons in such second-tier cities as Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Washington D.C., Detroit – virtually every other city with a franchise – cannot approach that rate of success.

You would think the Yankees finished 50-112 like the A’s, 71-91 like the Nationals, or even 78-84 like the Red Sox, or 74-87 like the overhyped, mismanaged Mets. No, the Yankees, despite injuries and the paucity of athletic players, were once again on the winning side of the ledger.

Yet the whining emanating from the $500 seats at Yankee Stadium would make one think the facade has caved in. No, although perhaps they were focused on the denizens of MetLife Stadium and the raging disappointment that NFL 2023 has brought New Yorkers. Fire Cashman, they howl.

Fire Boone! Release Stanton! Hal Steinbrenner is terrible. Ah, here comes that eternal holier-than-thou sentiment that I’ve been hearing for 60 years. That holier-than-thou 20/20 hindsight that makes their whining as unlistenable as Roseanne Barr singing the National Anthem.

Well, let me say that generally my heart bleeds for the downtrodden, but you’re just one team of 32. And not one of those teams, not even the cash-laden Dodgers, can boast of such a 31-year run. In fact, the Dodger string of winning campaigns is a “modest” 13 years. They shop the annual MLB fire sales magnificently, don’t they?

The Cardinals had a 15-year legacy of winning baseball snapped this season. The Red Sox put together 14 seasons between 1998 and 2011 before their rollercoaster ride through the early 21^st century.

So where is this heading? Major League Baseball must establish ways to balance the playing field. The MLB Players Association gained an upper hand after the Curt Flood case and obviously is reluctant to give back to the fans who pay the freight. Don’t fans in Pittsburgh and Cincinnati rate the same opportunity to see their teams succeed as those in the cities that MLB yearns to have in the postseason?

A Dodgers-Yankees World Series represents a ratings coup for MLB as it battles to maintain its foothold in the advertising race. A Twins-Brewers World Series would be rather calamitous as MLB scraps for the dollars that have shifted toward the NFL, NBA and the two most popular college sports, football and basketball.

Wouldn’t you think that odds would have favored at least one losing season since Jay Leno debuted on the Tonight Show? At least once since Bill Clinton was elected President? If only former NFL mogul and purveyor of parity Pete Rozelle were still around. 

The NFL benefited and continues to do so in an environment where the population centers don’t always win. Green Bay, a city of 107,395, is Titletown USA. New York City, with the 8,804,190 still hanging around after the COVID migration to New England and the Adirondacks, is as sorry a football city as exists in NFL lore. Yet the NFL prospers as the premier sports league in America, turning what was once just Sunday afternoon into 17 national holidays. 

So quit your bellyaching, New York. You’re not better than anyone else.