(no subject)

[xiphias]

So, I saw the following quote, with Yankees Senior Vice President Hank Steinbrenner talking about Alex Rodreguez opting out of his contract with the Yankees. They are NOT planning on pursuing him as a free agent.

"It's clear [Alex Rodreguez] didn't want to be a Yankee," Hank Steinbrenner told the Daily News. "He doesn't understand the privilege of being a Yankee on a team where the owners are willing to pay $200 million to put a winning product on the field.

"I don't want anybody on my team that doesn't want to be a Yankee."

Okay. That last line, I understand.

The rest of it just rubs me the wrong way. One word in particular.

This is a question for the NYY fans on my flost -- how is it possible to root for a "product"?

I guess that's also a question for any Real Madrid fans on my list, but I don't know of any time where someone in the organization was so blunt about it -- but then, I don't follow soccer, so it's very possible that they say stuff like that every week and I just don't know about it.

Is this a disconnect between how the fans and how the owners think of the team? How do you deal with a management who publicly calls the team a "product"? I'm sure that the management of most franchises has to think of the team as a "product" on some level -- if you can't break even, you can't really be a team -- but I can't think of other teams saying it like that.

Comments

[lietya.livejournal.com]

For that matter, is it possible that Alex Rodriguez wants to play for a team that doesn't consider him a [or part of a] "product" first and foremost?! That word jarred me, too.

[ckd]

He's obviously changed his mind on that aspect; if he'd always felt this way, why would he have taken the Texas offer back in 2000 instead of re-signing with Seattle? Or for that matter, why'd he accept a move to 3B to go to the Yankees?

[lietya.livejournal.com]

Who knows - but he wouldn't be the first person to find out his mind was changed by actually *working* for a particular employer rather than looking at it from the outside, for that matter. (I agree, obviously his mind has changed one way or the other, since he's no longer thrilled to stay with a team he made compromises in order to join.)

[rosefox]

Any good Yankee fan hates the Steinbrenners, honestly.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Thought it HAD to be a disconnect sort of thing.

[supergee.livejournal.com]

When old Yankee fans get together, it's like old communists: When did you break with the team/party?

[ron_newman]

Don't people root for Apple computers, or at least used to? That's a product.

[ron_newman]

It does remind me of this old saying, though: "Rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for General Motors."

[supergee.livejournal.com]

It was originally "Rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for US Steel [a corporation that hasn't existed for at least 25 years]."

[ron_newman]

This doesn't exist?

Of course, the Pittsburgh Steelers logo comes directly from that company.

[supergee.livejournal.com]

Learn something all the time. It reorganized (under some duress) in 1982 as USX, which has now been renamed US Steel. Thanks for the info.

[rosefox]

Mind you, I'm not a typical Yankee fan. I don't share the common antipathy to the Red Sox, for example, and when I lived in San Francisco I was happy to cheer for the Giants (even though it earned me the ire of my mother, a lifelong [Brooklyn] Dodgers fan). When I cheer for the Yankees, I do it to honor my grandfather, who took us to Opening Day every year; to have something to discuss with my godfather beside the smoking ban and Israel; and/or because I'm sitting in the Piper's Kilt on 207th and Broadway and the Yankee game is on. I'm not really a fanatic about it.

Actually, I probably hate the Steinbrenners even more than I like the Yankees, because I think their behavior and attitude diminishes baseball as a whole, not just the team in particular.

[kiya]

I'm often kind of bemused by the 'must hate the Yankees' flavor of Red Sox fans, from the other side; from my perspective, NYY never did anything to me as bad as what Oakland did. ;)

(My little brother is an Oakland fan. There is nothing as intolerable as an eight year old whose team has just swept yours for the pennant.)

[aethelflaed2.livejournal.com]

I think most Yankees fans hate the Steinbrenners. While I will always be a Yankees fan, I usually disagree with how the front office treats the team. It has always been about the bottom line and not how well the game is played. I'm tired of big ticket players being imported instead of going to the farm teams. And I hate that the House That Ruth Built is being replaced by a new stadium (across the street) that will have fewer cheap seats and do little to energize that area of the Bronx but will be horrible for traffic congestion.

[redbird]

This would be the "privilege" of being bossed around by someone who not only can't do what he does, never could (Torre used to play the game; Steinbrenner didn't), and prefers racehorses to human athletes because they don't talk?

In pure money terms, after that contract, Rodriguez can afford to go somewhere that will treat him with respect, even if it pays a bit less. One of the things money buys is the chance to stop worrying about money.

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

Could be the "product" is the team, which is legitimate. "Willing to pay $200M" -- is that Rodriguez's contract, or the team's yearly salary, or what?

Dr. Whom

[redbird]

Something resembling the team's yearly salary. In Rodriguez's case, Texas was (and would have been) paying a significant part of that, whereas if they now sign him as a free agent, the Yankees have to pay his whole salary.