In the wake of the free agency splurge conducted by the New York Yankees, there seems to be a new wave of uproar among baseball fans, writers, and even a team owner regarding the spending habits of the Steinbrenner clan.

Collectively, the Yankees will be dishing out $423.5MM for the services of Mark Teixeria, C.C. Sabathia, and A.J. Burnett, which would be excessive even if the global economy wasn’t going through the worst downslide in history.

But guys, I think we need to take a deep breath here and be rational.

Firstly, the idea that you can “buy a championship” has been disproven. We shouldn’t be having this conversation right now since a) the Rays and Red Sox still have a good shot at leaving the Yankees home in October once more, b) the Yanks haven’t won a World Series since 2000 despite the fact that they’ve had the highest payroll in baseball every single year since 1999, and c) we’ve been talking about this same topic for way too long and we’ve gotten nowhere.

Salary caps are not the answer and I don’t understand why we want to make the owners any wealthier than they already are. If they can’t spend the money they make, they’re going to keep it. And no, this won’t mean that ticket prices will go down because the market’s already been set. People are willing to shell out X amount of dollars for a seat so that’s the price. It’s unrealistic, and quite frankly, anti-capitalistic to expect anything else. Plus, if there’s even a whiff of a pending cap, the MLBPA will shut down baseball for god knows how long. And who does that benefit?It doesn’t help the owners, the players, and certainly doesn’t help the fans.

A steeper luxury tax is a possibility, but really, it’s Yankee-proof. Why? Because unlike many other owners, the Steinbrenners actually spend the money they earn to make it worthwhile for the fans. Say what you will about the family but they are not exactly cheapskates. According to Forbes Magazine’s annual list of the 400 richest people in America, George Steinbrenner’s net worth ($1.3B) trails those of Carl Pohlad (Twins – $3.6B), Ted Lerner (Nationals – $3.5B), Mike Ilitch (Tigers – $1.6B), Drayton McLane (Astros – $1.6B) and Tom Hicks (Rangers – $1.4B).  And this doesn’t even include the major conglomerates like The Tribune Company (Cubs), Liberty Media (Braves), Rogers Communications (Blue Jays) and Nintendo (Mariners).

And in 2007, the Yankees spent roughly $190MM on payroll – and reported an operating deficit of $47.3MM, by far the worst return in all of baseball. So what did they do in response? RAISED their payroll to $210MM in 2008. Of course, the Yankees do not want harsher luxury taxes. But their past behavior indicates that they will not compromise their on-field talent as a result of it. On the flipside, 27 of the 30 teams profited in 2007. The Nationals, Marlins, Mets, and the White Sox all made over $30MM a piece.  So all that will end up happening in a luxury tax scenario  is a redistribution of wealth among the owners – from ones willing to spend to the ones that don’t. This doesn’t sound like it’s in the best interests of baseball.

So let’s consider what the fans are demanding here.

Parity – the idea here being that if payrolls were more evenly spread, teams such as the Pirates, Royals, Nationals and Orioles will be competitive. This is wrong.  All of these teams have internal personnel issues that prevent it from succeeding. They’ve made bad decisions, plain and simple. The Orioles have gotten better and restocked their minor league system that should bear fruit over the next few years. But the others are still hopeless and have no one to blame but themselves. The A’s, Rays, Twins, Indians, Marlins, Rockies, and Brewers are just some of the small market teams that have competed over the last couple of years primarily through their farm systems.

Affordability – to an extent, this one may end up fixing itself, at least temporarily. Baseball owners know how to make money. And no matter how high atop a mountain their residences may be, they know that those below haven’t been raking in the dough. They’ll do what’s best for the organization and either stabilize or even lower the cost of attending games. Whereas the Mets and Yankees will be raising them due to their new stadiums’ abilities to generate additional revenue. This is capitalism (by the way, it’s kind of funny how people who were so afraid of socialism embrace the idea if it benefits them).

I know that this makes me sound like a blue-blooded jackass. Trust me, I’m no blue-blood (but I cannot prove that I am not a jackass) and only have a very rudimentary knowledge of economics. But the alternatives just don’t make sense to me. Why shouldn’t the most popular teams be able to reward their fans’ loyalties with a winning product? Why do we attack the Steinbrenners for spending their income to do so? Shouldn’t the Nationals fans (all four of you) be angry that their team had a 2007 payroll of $37MM when the organization made $43.7MM? To me, that’s far more offensive than what the Steinbrenners are doing.

Who knows how the 2009 Yankees will perform. They may end up winning the World Series, they may end up out in the cold, or somewhere in between. But if someone bet you $100 that the Yankees will win their 27th championship next year, wouldn’t you be pretty confident? I mean, that’s 29 other teams that could net you $100. Baseball’s a funny game. The best teams don’t win as often as we think. No matter how much money exchanges hands.

It’s the day of Jennifer Steinbrenner’s (second) wedding. Hal Steinbrenner, the youngest of the Steinbrenner boys, and his date Kay Adams are walking arm in arm at the reception, when Kay notices one of the guests — Yankees manager Don “Donny Baseball” Mattingly. Kay is totally excited to see one of her heroes. The following conversation ensues.

Hal: You know, my father helped Donny in his career.

Kay Adams: Really? How?

Hal: …Let’s listen to this song.

Kay Adams: [after listening to Donny sing Billy Joel's "New York state of mind" karaoke for a while] Please, Hal. Tell me.

Hal: …Well when Donny finished playing, he went to work as bench coach for the Yankees, under Joe Torre. And as he got more experience, he decided he wanted to manage. Now, Donny is like my father’s godson. So my father went to see Torre, with an ultimatum: win the ALDS or you’re fired. But Torre didn’t win. So the next day, my father went to see him again, only this time with Luca Brasi. Within an hour, Torre decides he doesn’t want to manage the Yankees anymore.

Kay Adams: How did he do that?

Hal: My father made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

Kay Adams: What was it?

Hal: Luca Brasi held a gun to his head, and my father offered him a one year contract at $2.5 million less than he made the year before, with performance bonuses.

Kay Adams: … (look of horror on her face)

Hal: …That’s a true story.

[cut to Donny singing again for about 10 more seconds before going back to Michael]

Hal: That’s my family Kay, it’s not me.

Ok, so maybe my “The Godfather” reference is a little over the top. But does anybody really think Joe Torre could have accepted Steinbrenner’s one-year offer to manage the Yankees? Does anybody think the Yankees wanted him to accept?

You have to admire how the Yankees handled this one. They offered Torre a lot of money, so that they could say to the media, “we offered him more money that any other manager gets paid!” They offered him performance bonuses so that they could say to the fans, “we demand results!” And they broke the story just hours before the Red Sox game (gravy).

But here’s the thing. These are the Yankees. This is the team that this season paid Jason Giambi $23 million. Whether Torre makes $5 million or $7.5 million doesn’t matter a damn bit — except to Joe Torre. All he hears is, “we’re offering you zero job security and a paycut, and you successor will sit next to you every day as a reminder of just how quickly we can replace you if the team struggles.”

If you’re Torre, you know the pay cut wasn’t offered in the spirit of reducing spending. It’s a slap in the face, plain and simple. So you reject the offer, because you don’t need this. You’ve had reporters camped out on your lawn for a week. You’ve had to endure endless questions about your job future ever since The Boss opened up his big mouth to some Jersey reporter. There are other jobs out there and, no, they’re not as glamorous as managing the Yankees, but they’re not as big a pain in the ass, either. You’ll take one of those.

Which, of course, is exactly what the Yankees want Torre to do. That’s why they made him an offer he couldn’t not refuse.

We here at Umpbump got an e-mail yesterday from a reader named Evan who works for the magazine Conde Nast Portfolio and its website, Portfolio.com, in response to our post concerning the potential sale of the YES Network, within which we mention the failing health of Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. Evan sent us a link to an article that Conde Nast is publishing in its September issue chronicling a visit to Steinbrenner’s home in Tampa by George’s longtime friend and a reporter from the magazine.

We won’t get into the details here because, quite frankly, it’s not very upbeat. But in the interest of fairness, I will point you to an article in this morning’s New York Daily News in which PR-man Howard Rubenstein makes his retort, claiming that the visit by the Conde Nast journalist was under “false pretenses” and that Steinbrenner had no idea that one of the men in his home was a reporter. He attempts to assuage the questions regarding the Boss’s health:

“I’m not going to go beyond saying that I talk to George almost every day….He’s OK and he’s still an active participant in every decision.”

Most baseball fans at least have some opinion on George Steinbrenner, whether we consider him an evil tyrant or a true competitor or anything in-between. I happen to think that he made baseball more entertaining and personable, so I’m holding out hope that he’s doing better than the reports seem to indicate.  Besides, I’d like to see him host Saturday Night Live one more time. That “Ultra Sim-Fast” sketch still amuses me.

Fortune Magazine is reporting that the cable network that helps feed the Yankees’ machine, the YES Network, is being shopped around for potential buyers, fueling speculation that the team itself may be next.

It has become a pretty poorly kept secret that the health of current owner George Steinbrenner has been failing for quite some time. In 2003, the Yankee owner fainted while attending the funeral of his friend and football great, Otto Graham. A similar incident happened  in 2006 when he ”fell ill“, this time while attending his granddaughter’s stage performance at the University of North Carolina. Earlier this year,  New Yorker Magazine ran a piece about P.R. man extra-ordinaire and Yankee spokesman, Howard J. Rubenstein, in which Rubenstein casually mentions that Steinbrenner is suffering from Alzheimer’s. Furthermore, the planned line of ownership succession was broken soon after that New Yorker issue hit the newsstands, when his daughter Jennifer filed for divorce from Steve Swindal, chairman of Yankee Global Enterprises and Steinbrenner’s annointed heir-apparent, in March 2007.

With the new Yankee Stadium scheduled to open in 2009 and with it the promise of additional revenue, this revelation that the YES Network is potentially for sale seems odd. While Yankees President Randy Levine refused to acknowledge that YES is being shopped, another Yankee Board member, Gerry Cardinale, has confirmed the rumor saying, “We’re testing the waters with a limited universe of quality buyers… We would consider selling only if we receive a full and fair price.”

So what does this mean? Fortune is giving a rough evaluation of a “full and fair price” for YES at $3 billion, which is worth far more than the franchise itself, which was estimated by Forbes Magazine at $1.2 billion in April. There is the hypothesis that this potential sale could give the Steinbrenner family the necessary capital to maintain control of the team after George. But speculation regarding a sale of the team is much louder today than it was yesterday. In the Fortune article, an unnamed minority owner of the organization states, “If I were handicapping it, I think we’re looking at a sale of the team within three or four years.”

This could get very interesting…

George Steinbrenner has never been afraid to poke fun of himself. He hosted Saturday Night Live, appearing in a sketch where he dreamt of a Yankees team managed, coached, and entirely played by himself. Later, after a public chastising of Yankees shortstop Derrek Jeter for “partying too much,” the two appeared in a Visa commercial club-hopping. And in 2004, he appeared in another Visa commercial, where he was shown wearing a cast, unable to sign any checks, including that of manager Joe Torre.

But there are some things that Steinbrenner does not joke about. And one of those things, apparently, is his hair. Steinbrenner is offended by the way that his hair has been depicted in the ESPN series, The Bronx is Burning.

From the AP:

Oliver Platt plays Steinbrenner in the eight-part series, adapted from Jonathan Mahler’s “Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bronx Is Burning,” about the summer of 1977 and the Yankees’ quest to win the World Series.

“He doesn’t want to knock the guy’s acting; he wants to knock his clothing and hairdo,” Steinbrenner spokesman Howard Rubenstein quipped in Friday editions of Newsday.

“George’s hair is more neatly trimmed,” added Rubenstein. “He doesn’t wear a wig; people think that because he’s perfectly barbered. He doesn’t have a hair out of place.”

Glad we set the record straight on that one. Steinbrenner’s hair, for those who were wondering, is real. And it’s spectacular.

But is it a little TOO spectacular? Steinbrenner’s hair is 77 years old. Most hair starts to thin and fall out long before 77. Even men with great hair genes hit their hair peak around 55. I’m almost afraid to say it, because I don’t like to speculate about things like this. But Steinbrenner’s ability to sustain his fabulous hair well into old age almost forces us to ask — could he be on hair steroids? Or maybe hair HGH?