The so-called Yankee money--Lupica

People in today's baseball media speak with one voice. If they deviate for a moment they hurry back. High on their list of priorities is to encourage hatred and resentment of the Yankees (to help pay for Selig's expansion teams, among other things). At any hour one can hear seemingly clairvoyant people such as

• Hal Bodley today with Charley Steiner, "You know the Yankees are going to sell out every day in that new stadium."

• Joe Castellano regarding money, "The Yankees have got it."

Mike Lupica of the NY Daily News states again the public record-the Yankees lose money and are taking on tremendous debt with no guarantee they'll repay it. Lupica reminds the Yankees are under new ownership. The financial partners of which aren't sold on how things are going. From his article, 12/13/08:

• "Someday, when the Yankees are faced with the realities of paying off the debt on their new baseball palace and the actual cost of operating it, they are going to be forced to cut payroll.

• Just not today....

...You're not just supposed to believe that winning will cure everything for them once they move across 161st. You're supposed to believe everything they tell you about their supposedly limitless finances.You're supposed to believe this even at a time when

• the Yankees continue to show a loss in their baseball operation every year.

Randy Levine is part of the Cash and Carry team running the Yankees these days. Brian Cashman is Cash, just for the amount of money he gets to spend. Levine is Carry, because he's the one who goes to the city (he was once deputy mayor after all) and carries more money when the Yankees need it.

• And every single time it is suggested that the Yankees lose money on the baseball side - apart from YES -

• he(Levine) screams. Even though he knows it's true.

Now, at a time when the Yankees have committed nearly a quarter of-a-billion dollars in future salaries to two pitchers - one of whom, A.J. Burnett, has had arm problems in the past and has won more than 12 games in a season exactly one time in his career - they also went back to the city's Industrial Development Agency

• for more money to help them finish their new ballpark in style, and in time.

• They didn't go back because they DON'T need the money.

• They do. They are over budget and they need it now.

The Yankees say it's not about cost overruns. Oh no. They say it's a change of "scope." And who are you gonna believe, after all, them or your own lyin' eyes?

The Mets originally drew down $547 million in tax-exempt bonds from the city and were entitled at the time to a total of $83 million more in the original financing, actually thinking they could come in under budget and not need the additional financing. But now they have applied for the balance of what was originally approved.

The Yankees' project was always bigger, because they wanted a bigger ballpark, one to match the "scope" of the old one. Everything has to be bigger, they're the Yankees. ...

But you must start to wonder how much of this is a financial house of cards, built around The House Across The Street From The House That Ruth Built.

Unless you are sucker enough to believe that the New York Yankees, out of all the big businesses in all the land, are the only ones with a license to keep printing money forever as long as they keep

• winning enough regular-season games to fill their ballparks.

Levine likes to crow that the "Pirates and Royals" are helping pay for the Yankees' new ballpark. It is because big-league teams get a break on revenue sharing when they build a new ballpark. More economics for dummies. It is just another way of justifying this unbelievably expensive ballpark, at a time when people in and out of baseball wonder just how much new money the Yankees think they can generate on the north side of 161st.

• Because for all the revenue sharing they say they're saving, they know that's not credit.

• And they know that the extra revenue they're going to have to raise to pay off their debt will be taxed - oops - at the same old rate.

Sometimes you wonder if the Stein-brenner children are just beginning the process of

• setting the Yankees up for an eventual sale.

• You already hear that the team's limited partners, who like to win as much as anybody but like money more,

are worried about those children,

• who they think are running amok with the amount of money spent last season on Alex Rodriguez, Mo Rivera, Jorge Posada (around $450 million) and the amount of money that is being thrown around now.

Sometimes you want to hear the truth from them on how their high-priced tickets and suites are moving in this economy.

• Once again, the Yankees have been declared champions of the winter because of the money they spend on Sabathia and Burnett. Eight years after their last World Series championship, after eight years of insane spending, Vegas has declared them invulnerable again.

Then why do they look so vulnerable going back to the City of New York for more money?"

• Article, "Yank Brian Cashman and Randy Levine's Checkbook"

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