According to a team spokesman, the New York Yankees soon will begin negotiations to acquire Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Greg Maddux, Pedro Martinez, Manny Ramirez, Nomar Garciaparra, Randy Johnson, Eric Gagne, Mike Piazza, Ichiro Suzuki, Frank Thomas, Ken Griffey Jr., Pudge Rodriguez and maybe even that rat Roger Clemens.
“Uh, OK,” Major League Baseball said.
Greed is good. The boys with the most toys win, isn’t that what they tell you?
Well, we shall see.
A world-famous franchise of sport that won championship after championship continued to crave more, more, more. So these little piggies went to market. They set out to hog the best of everything, transforming overnight from a Great Team to a Super Team, redoubtable, invulnerable, unstoppable.
The Yankees?
Nah.
The Lakers.
Remember that? You should. Oh, how NBA fans moaned and moped a few months back when L.A.’s three-time lords of the rims felt inadequate in having Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant when room also could be made for Karl Malone and Gary Payton. A dream of a team thus was born, one that no struggling adversary could hope to beat.
And where did it get them?
Past the midpoint of the season, the Lakers have won fewer games than the Sacramento Kings, Minnesota Timberwolves, San Antonio Spurs, Dallas Mavericks, Indiana Pacers and Detroit Pistons. They have won no more than the Nuggets and Nets and one more than the Rockets and Grizzlies.
They strike fear into no one.
At the time Malone bailed out on Utah, a case could be made that the Lakers were distancing themselves from any and all competition. But 50-some games into their schedules, the Lakers’ record of 31-19 is not appreciably better than any team from the Western Conference’s rival division except Utah’s.
So now that Alex Rodriguez belongs to the Yankees, do not make the mistake of waving a white flag. Because if you now believe that life is unfair and that New York is unbeatable, then history has taught you nothing.
– Give George Steinbrenner time to foul up. Time to yell at Yankees who go 0-for-4 in April. Time to antagonize A-Rod with insults over every error. Time to accuse him and Derek Jeter of being out dancing and charging expensive stuff to their Visa cards after midnight.
– Give the tabloids there a few weeks to crank out some headlines: “A-Rot!” “A-Dud!” “A-Bomb!”
– Give the Red Sox a chance to sweep a three-game series from the Yanks, after which Steinbrenner will go ballistic, do his Donald Trump impersonation, point a finger at manager Joe Torre, tell him “You’re fired,” then replace him with Grady Little, Don Zimmer or the late Billy Martin.
In fact, do you know who could be among the first to really rattle Steinbrenner’s cage?
Our old friends the White Sox.
Guess which team is the opponent for the Yankee Stadium home opener on April 8?
And guess which team plays seven games with the Yankees in April alone? Yep, it’s those low-budget, low-overhead, relatively frugal, U.S. Cellular-funded, A-Rod-Makes-Almost-As-Much-As-Our-Whole-Team guys who also would like to win the American League pennant for a change, the White Sox. Try to imagine Mt. Steinbrenner’s eruption if the Yankees dropped seven in a row to the Sox.
A lineup of Rodriguez, Jeter, Gary Sheffield, Kenny Lofton, Bernie Williams, Hideki Matsui, Jason Giambi and Jorge Posada sounds pretty sensational, sure. It might not even matter that any organization with Steinbrenner, Sheffield and Kevin Brown is likely to end up with more back-stabbings and screaming matches than World Wrestling Entertainment.
But keep in mind that baseball’s last three championships went to Arizona, Anaheim and Florida, three long shots, each of which had the last laugh on Steinbrenner and the Yankees.
Every so often, the Trumps of the world do get outsmarted.
“Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets,” goes a verse from the musical “Damn Yankees,” a lyric that does apply once in a while to Steinbrenner and the real-life baseball team.
But don’t forget how that show ends. Lola is in league with the devil, but she ends up empty-handed.
