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December 28, 2004
AWWW... THE POOR WIDDLE YANKEES DIDN'T GET WHAT THEY WANTED...
So I've been laughing incredulously at the ridiculous response of the Yankees after the LA Dodgers pulled out of the three team deal that would have sent Randy Johnson to the Yankees.
Don't get me wrong; I am well aware that the Yankees will end up with the Big Unit before spring training. The Yankees buy everything they want, and they want Randy Johnson. They'll get him. Even if their payroll for 2005 clears $250 million, they'll just shell out whatever it takes for Steinbrenner to put himself in position to buy another title.
But to observe the Yankees' indignance over the broken deal, you'd think they were a wronged party.
Yankees president Randy Levine had harsh words for the Dodgers after the deal's collapse. "The Dodgers reneged on the deal that was agreed to last Friday, unequivocally and with no contingencies except for a window for contract extensions and physicals," Levine said. "For some reason, the Dodgers over the weekend started to backpedal. Why they would break their word is only something they can answer. It sure is disappointing, and we'll have to think long and hard before ever doing business with the Dodgers again."
Cry me a river, you little bitch. For half a decade or more, the New York Yankees have been jettisoning their flotsam and jetsam to other teams in exchange for stars -- and expecting that every other franchise should just have to bend over, grab its ankles, and accept whatever detritus George Steinbrenner feels like handing out while he compiles his fantasy team roster.
Tell me how the deal would have helped the Los Angeles Dodgers? A moderately successful major league pitcher, and two peripheral minor league prospects who may or may not ever make the bigs... and all the Dodgers had to give up was their best power hitter and a pitcher of approximately equal value to Javier Vazquez? If anyone in baseball can explain how this was a good deal for the Dodgers, they're not working in baseball anymore.
And yet when Dodgers' GM Paul DePodesta wisely realized that there was nothing in the deal for his team and backed out, the Yankees are behaving like spoiled children who weren't allowed to play with every toy in the toybox.
It's about time someone in baseball stood up to Steinbrenner and the Yankees and refused to accept being raped just so that New York can put together its roster of multimillionaires every year. I'm not naive enough to think this will stop the RJ deal from eventually getting done. But it's sure been amusing to watch the Yankees throw a public temper tantrum over another team refusing to roll over for them. It's merely further revealed the New York Yankees as the petulent children they really are.
