This may explain MLB/ESPN's revving up Yankee-bashing

On Mr. Steinbrenner retreating and YES Network shares being shopped:

• "The fate of the Yankees is no provincial concern. For Major League Baseball, the Yankees are a moneymaking machine. Not only do they pay more than $100 million a year in revenue sharing and MLB payroll taxes to baseball's 29 other teams, they also rain cash on any rival they visit.

"The Yankees drew an average of 38,000 fans to their away games last year, the most of any team and 10,000 more than the MLB average. Yankee star power also helps MLB negotiate rich TV deals, and it's no coincidence that ...

• baseball's resurgence coincided with the most recent Yankee glory era, which started in 1996.
• Says one National League team president: "The Yankees' competitiveness is important to everyone."
• No one has been more crucial to that competitiveness than George Michael Steinbrenner III."

From Fortune Magazine article, money.cnn.com, 8/3/07 by Jon Birger and Tim Arango.

• (This is the first time I've ever seen this team, rather than the homerun contest, given credit for the renaissance of baseball. It's not something I'd wondered about, actually, but is interesting). sm

I've noticed a more emphatic, emotional, and scripted delivery in recent months on Yankee/money bashing across MLB/ESPN platforms:

• Tim Jurkjian recently,"TheYankees.....can.....spend.....more.....than.....anyyyyyyyyy...
• .other......team......."

Yet, from the Fortune article, "Right now the Yankees hardly make money because their payroll is so excessive." Two Yankees sources tell Fortune the team hasn't paid out profits to limited partners in nearly ten years." (from the article, "The Yankees Face Life After George").

• Even Charley Steiner on XM has amped up his Yankee/money bashing, doing it twice in one show the other day, the 2nd time giving it the slow, deliberate, dripped with scorn delivery ESPN/MLB seems to require now of its employees who like their jobs...

"...NO...other.....team.....can do......what the Yankees.......(sigh)......can do......"

• MLB veteran Mark Feinsand was a guest on Steiner's show the other day. He offered what he said was a different slant, approximating the following:

"I would have to disagree with you on that, Charley, in one way. The more important advantage the Yankees have had is the ability to sign the young players like Jeter, Rivera, and Pettitte, when no other team in baseball could have. No other team.....could've afforded.... to keep their good young players, they would've had to...... let all of them..... go. So that's what I'd say is an even bigger advantage, Charley."

• I've thought about Feinsand's statement a lot, saying he was offering a differing reason for Yankee luck/advantage than "having more money," but it seems he's saying the same as the rest--just making it sound even crueler and more "unfair." (Not an insight he gleaned from his advantage as a privileged clubhouse insider). Feinsand's career and influence will continue to skyrocket with this exclusive inside information to the masses. I guess he doesn't know the signing and re-signing details of the 3 players he named explained in Joel Sherman's well documented book, "Birth of a Dynasty." Feinsand lends his deep MLB background as a showcased regular guest on Yankee radio broadcasts graciously hosted by John Sterling & Suzyn Waldman.

Perhaps the MLB guys view, as the article suggests, Mr. Steinbrenner himself as the dollar-draw and these as the waning days of that experience. (sm)

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