by
Diane Firstman |
December 25, 2008 12:04 pm |
25 Comments
How on Earth did they fit CC, A.J. and Tex all under the same tree? Anyhow … here’s the news:
- The Times‘ Ben Shpigel introduces us to Mark Teixeira, the man:
That is who the 28-year-old Teixeira is: polite, humble, private. It would be unlike him to open up and discuss influential moments in his life that have produced his strong work ethic, his quest for order and routine, and an ability to focus and compartmentalize that is admired by peers.
When he was 15, a freshman at Mount St. Joseph’s High School outside Baltimore, he learned that his mother, Margy, had breast cancer. Weak from chemotherapy, Margy, now cancer-free, still found a way to attend her son’s baseball games.
Before his senior year, he lost one of his closest friends, Nick Liberatore, when a truck driver fell asleep and slammed into a parked car that Liberatore was sitting in along a shoulder of Interstate 95. For the next year, every Wednesday night Teixeira and his friends would eat dinner with the Liberatore family, and he has since endowed a scholarship in his friend’s name. And in 2002, Teixeira’s father, a former Navy pilot, had a benign brain tumor that caused him to lose his hearing in his left ear.
“Whatever I’ve gone through, I think it’s all allowed me to enjoy the game, but to understand the role of the game in life, too,” Teixeira told The Dallas Morning News in 2005. “If you enjoy playing the game, it’s going to be easier to focus on the game and put things in their proper place. When you are between the lines, it is a game that should be enjoyed. When you are in the clubhouse or getting ready, it’s work. And when you go home, it should stay in the clubhouse.”
[My take: I think I’m gonna like this guy … even if I dislike his agent.]
- BP.com’s Will Carroll chimes in on the spending ways of the Yanks:
Yes, the Yankees spent a lot of money, but they didn’t suddenly spend money they didn’t have. They used money coming off the books and backloaded to work with money that’s coming off the books next year as well. I’m not defending them against charges that they’re “buying championships” but I would like to see some acknowledgement that the Yankees aren’t in some new era of spending. They’re just still spending, like they always have.
Add in some interesting ways of looking at the Marginal Revenue per Win calculations might make this make even more financial sense as the economy continues to turn down.
- Still at BP.com, Joe Sheehan echoes Will’s sentiment, and adds some more:
… They’re leveraging not only the greater marginal revenue that can be generated by each win in New York City, but also their massive cash flow in an industry in which many, even most, teams are hoarding cash in an unsure economy. Other fans and other owners may complain, but the money is coming in; it can go into the team’s pockets, or it can be used to improve the baseball team. If the scale doesn’t work, change the scale—fix the revenue-sharing formulas to factor in market size and potential revenues, as Keith Woolner suggested forever ago—but don’t blame a team for trying to win. Ever. For all of the focus on the $420-odd million the Yankees have committed to three players, their 2009 payroll won’t be much more than the 2008 one … .
- FOX Sports’ Dayn Perry takes a look at the new baseball landscape carved by the signings:
Sure, they’ve committed themselves to more than $400 million in guaranteed monies, but it’s been done in the service of winning the World Series. In strict on-the-field terms, the Teixeira signing was a necessary step. The consequences, though, will reach far beyond the diamond. …
After the arbitration raises kick in and they make another addition or two (Pettitte? Mike Cameron?), their 2009 payroll still might not exceed their 2008 tab. That’s a point worth keeping in mind, even as righteous indignation is on the rise. Want something to be outraged about? There’s this: If the Yankees can fork over almost half-a-billion in player salaries in the span of a month, then it seems they should be able to pay for their own place of business without bilking taxpayers.
In other words, while the Yankees are benefitting from a system that badly needs additional revenue sharing, nothing much has changed from last off-season. If you’re among the legions of Yankee haters out there, you should draw hope from the fact that the Yankees are setting themselves up for a failure of unimaginable proportions. They’re probably going to return to the postseason in 2009. However, as recent history has taught us, that vaunted Yankee revenue stream can’t guarantee success in the postseason. It’s simply too random.
(more…)
