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Post by Dev(Rob) on Apr 8, 2004 10:10:58 GMT -5
Becky H ... it's because of a media deal with Manchester United (the best UK soccer or football as it's called over here team.) Yankees and Manchester United have a deal where by Manchester United games are shown on the Yankess "YES" network and Manchester United in return promote the Yankess in the UK. I suppose it's the same with any sport really, the biggest teams regardless of whether they are the best or not get the most attention therefore sell the most merchandise and so forth. Boils down to $$$ & £££. I hate that about Manchester United that there the most known like you guys hate it about Yankees. Sucks!
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Post by Dev(Rob) on Apr 8, 2004 10:13:43 GMT -5
Oh and I pay the $15 to get the mlb stuff. Watch every game live or if it's too late because of the time difference I can watch it from the archives the next day. $15 a month converted into £ is nothing. ;D Oh and I get to keep up with my favourite sport!
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Post by Becky H on Apr 8, 2004 11:45:53 GMT -5
Becky H ... it's because of a media deal with Manchester United (the best UK soccer or football as it's called over here team.) Yankees and Manchester United have a deal where by Manchester United games are shown on the Yankess "YES" network and Manchester United in return promote the Yankess in the UK. I suppose it's the same with any sport really, the biggest teams regardless of whether they are the best or not get the most attention therefore sell the most merchandise and so forth. Boils down to $$$ & £££. I hate that about Manchester United that there the most known like you guys hate it about Yankees. Sucks! Well, that just makes me loathe the Yankees even more. It figures that the two richest teams in their respective sports would hook up. So who do you follow in football? Chelsea? Arsenal? Tottenham Spurs? I went to a Notts County match while I was there and had a blast but was a little confused over stadium etiquette. In the States, you can't smoke in the stands but you can have a beer. In the UK, you have to finish your beer on the concourse but can smoke all you want in the stands. By the end of the match, there was a haze over the stadium.
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Post by Sara on Apr 8, 2004 13:50:19 GMT -5
Just wanted to share one of my favorite Rick Reilly essays of all time:
The Team I Love to Hate Oct 26, 1999
Heard somebody grumble the other day that this year's New York Yankees are hard to hate. That statement is just so ignorant. Always remember this: No Yankees team is hard to hate, even these small-ball, Ken-doll Bronx Bunters.
That's why I'm coming out with my three-volume series, The 4,008 Best Reasons to Hate the New York Yankees, among them ...
1. They fired Red Barber.
2. They hired Steve Howe. A seven-time drug offender.
364. Rooting for the Yankees takes all the courage, imagination, conviction and baseball intelligence of Spam. It's like rooting for Brad Pitt to get the girl or for Bill Gates to hit Scratch 'n' Win. (This is why I'm proposing legislation that would allow only those born in one of the five New York boroughs to be Yankees fans. All others who root for the team will be considered overdog-loving, Eveready-chucking, bandwagon-hopping, fair-weather, brownnose, pucker-lipped human goiters and be required to turn in their pinstriped underwear or be tossed into the East River with only Chuck Knoblauch to throw them a life preserver.)
1,011. The Yankees are the only team that doesn't sew its players' names onto any of its unis. Like kids are supposed to memorize the roster after their bedtime prayers. Let's see, 3 is Ruth, 4 is Gehrig ... and 55 is Ramiro Mendoza.
1,312. Everybody is so charmed by Yankee Stadium public address announcer Bob Sheppard, with his teeth-clenched, perfect-diction English. He sounds British. Is he British? No, he's from Long Island! Why, then, does he speak like Thurston Howell III? Bunch of Yankees fans drunk on lighter fluid in the stands, screaming, "I paid a buck to see ya mutha naked, Rocker!" and the club has some guy on the P.A. making like Alistair Cooke. Fuhgeddaboutit!
1,500 through 1,850. Convicted felon and Lucky Sperm Club member George Steinbrenner III, the despotic Yankees owner, fills half of one volume by himself. For example, Georgie Porgie, as Boston Red Sox manager Jimy Williams calls him, just elevated his vice president of player development and scouting, Mark Newman, over his general manager, two-time American League pennant winner Brian Cashman, because Cashman lost two arbitration cases last winter. And forgot to salute.
1,855. After every nauseating, soul-sucking Yankees victory, radio play-by-play man John Sterling bellows, "Yankees win! Tha-a-a-a-a-a-a Yankees win!" like a goat stuck on an electric fence. Hey, John, give it a-a-a-a-a-a-a rest.
1,856. After every nauseating, soul-sucking victory at Yankee Stadium, tens of thousands of tin-eared fans hang around and sing the Frank Sinatra standard New York, New York over and over, until you pray the ghost of Sinatra himself will appear on the DiamondVision, screaming, "Stop!"
2,651. The Yankees' payroll this year was the largest in baseball, by the GNP of Guam. If YANKEES WIN WORLD SERIES is worth a headline, so is BULLDOZER DEFEATS TULIP.
2,651. According to The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology, the word yankee was originally a "term of contempt." Isn't that great? The Yankees named themselves after an insult! It's like calling a team the Atlanta Rednecks or the Los Angeles Cokeheads. Iron that on your wife-beater.
3,199. In the spring after their 1996 championship the Yankees charged fans to have their pictures taken with the World Series trophy.
3,200. After they lost the 1976 World Series, the Yankees voted their batboys $100 shares. Their opponents that year, the Cincinnati Reds, gave theirs $6,591 each.
3,911. For decades Yankocentric Eastern seaboard media -- like this magazine -- have overhyped Yankees players to exhaustion, so much so that six of baseball's 30 All-Century team members were Yankees, including righthander Roger Clemens, who currently is New York's fourth starter and can't get a Bic lighter out. Do you realize the Yankees have retired the jerseys of a .273 lifetime hitter (Phil Rizzuto) and a .257 lifetime hitter (Billy Martin)? What, no Bucky Dent (.247)?
3,989. Lovable Yankees coach Don Zimmer, who has had more hard objects bounce off his skull than Gilligan, was on the bench for the perfect games by Don Larsen (1956) and David Cone ('99) and never got off in between.
4,008. Hating the Yankees is an American tradition that has been honored throughout this century. Remember, nobody ever wrote a play called Damn Diamondbacks!
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Post by Laura on Apr 8, 2004 23:53:38 GMT -5
Just wanted to share one of my favorite Rick Reilly essays of all time: The Team I Love to Hate Oct 26, 1999 Heard somebody grumble the other day that this year's New York Yankees are hard to hate. That statement is just so ignorant. Always remember this: No Yankees team is hard to hate, even these small-ball, Ken-doll Bronx Bunters. That's why I'm coming out with my three-volume series, The 4,008 Best Reasons to Hate the New York Yankees, among them ... 1. They fired Red Barber. 2. They hired Steve Howe. A seven-time drug offender. 364. Rooting for the Yankees takes all the courage, imagination, conviction and baseball intelligence of Spam. It's like rooting for Brad Pitt to get the girl or for Bill Gates to hit Scratch 'n' Win. (This is why I'm proposing legislation that would allow only those born in one of the five New York boroughs to be Yankees fans. All others who root for the team will be considered overdog-loving, Eveready-chucking, bandwagon-hopping, fair-weather, brownnose, pucker-lipped human goiters and be required to turn in their pinstriped underwear or be tossed into the East River with only Chuck Knoblauch to throw them a life preserver.) 1,011. The Yankees are the only team that doesn't sew its players' names onto any of its unis. Like kids are supposed to memorize the roster after their bedtime prayers. Let's see, 3 is Ruth, 4 is Gehrig ... and 55 is Ramiro Mendoza. 1,312. Everybody is so charmed by Yankee Stadium public address announcer Bob Sheppard, with his teeth-clenched, perfect-diction English. He sounds British. Is he British? No, he's from Long Island! Why, then, does he speak like Thurston Howell III? Bunch of Yankees fans drunk on lighter fluid in the stands, screaming, "I paid a buck to see ya mutha naked, Rocker!" and the club has some guy on the P.A. making like Alistair Cooke. Fuhgeddaboutit! 1,500 through 1,850. Convicted felon and Lucky Sperm Club member George Steinbrenner III, the despotic Yankees owner, fills half of one volume by himself. For example, Georgie Porgie, as Boston Red Sox manager Jimy Williams calls him, just elevated his vice president of player development and scouting, Mark Newman, over his general manager, two-time American League pennant winner Brian Cashman, because Cashman lost two arbitration cases last winter. And forgot to salute. 1,855. After every nauseating, soul-sucking Yankees victory, radio play-by-play man John Sterling bellows, "Yankees win! Tha-a-a-a-a-a-a Yankees win!" like a goat stuck on an electric fence. Hey, John, give it a-a-a-a-a-a-a rest. 1,856. After every nauseating, soul-sucking victory at Yankee Stadium, tens of thousands of tin-eared fans hang around and sing the Frank Sinatra standard New York, New York over and over, until you pray the ghost of Sinatra himself will appear on the DiamondVision, screaming, "Stop!" 2,651. The Yankees' payroll this year was the largest in baseball, by the GNP of Guam. If YANKEES WIN WORLD SERIES is worth a headline, so is BULLDOZER DEFEATS TULIP. 2,651. According to The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology, the word yankee was originally a "term of contempt." Isn't that great? The Yankees named themselves after an insult! It's like calling a team the Atlanta Rednecks or the Los Angeles Cokeheads. Iron that on your wife-beater. 3,199. In the spring after their 1996 championship the Yankees charged fans to have their pictures taken with the World Series trophy. 3,200. After they lost the 1976 World Series, the Yankees voted their batboys $100 shares. Their opponents that year, the Cincinnati Reds, gave theirs $6,591 each. 3,911. For decades Yankocentric Eastern seaboard media -- like this magazine -- have overhyped Yankees players to exhaustion, so much so that six of baseball's 30 All-Century team members were Yankees, including righthander Roger Clemens, who currently is New York's fourth starter and can't get a Bic lighter out. Do you realize the Yankees have retired the jerseys of a .273 lifetime hitter (Phil Rizzuto) and a .257 lifetime hitter (Billy Martin)? What, no Bucky Dent (.247)? 3,989. Lovable Yankees coach Don Zimmer, who has had more hard objects bounce off his skull than Gilligan, was on the bench for the perfect games by Don Larsen (1956) and David Cone ('99) and never got off in between. 4,008. Hating the Yankees is an American tradition that has been honored throughout this century. Remember, nobody ever wrote a play called Damn Diamondbacks! Priceless!
And on a similar note, here's a report from Thursday's NYT:The Yankees Trial on ESPN Is Law Lite, an Unreal Stab at Reality TV By RICHARD SANDOMIR HACKENSACK, N.J.
It was legal silliness, to be sure, ESPN's mock trial yesterday of the Yankees on charges of tilting baseball's competitive balance, which will be shown tonight. There was no indictment — had there been one, it would have been one charge of guilt by profligacy — no grand jury, no voir dire of the jurors, no voluminous charge to the jury by ESPN Superior Court Judge Catherine Crier (once a real judge, now a Court TV host). No defendant sat beside Bruce Cutler, once John Gotti's lawyer, whose defense by adoration of the Yankees would have made George Steinbrenner kvell.
It was a barroom argument without beer or legal briefs. It was Cutler v. the mock prosecutor Alan Dershowitz, the Yankees v. the Red Sox. But Dershowitz, defender of Claus von Bulow and an avowed Yankees loather, ceded that his beloved Red Sox were nearly as overprivileged as the Yanks.
"Why aren't the Red Sox on trial?" said Jim Bowden, the former Cincinnati general manager and a defense witness, whose praise of Steinbrenner-as-genius sounded like the prelude to a Bronx job interview.
"The prosecutor is from Boston, that's why the Yankees are on trial!" Cutler said.
The trial was Law Lite in a courtroom at the Bergen County Courthouse. There were four witnesses a side (including Jim Bouton, the former Yankees pitcher and author of "Ball Four," and Mike Veeck, the third-generation baseball executive and promoter) but without any tedious detail, court reporter, DNA evidence, autopsy photographs or wiretap transcripts. The trial was taped and halted for commercials and analysis from the host Bob Ley and CNN's Jeffrey Toobin.
Jury deliberations were taped, and the eight men and four women were told to write two sentences to explain their votes on the verdict, which was embargoed until today.
Dershowitz played the economic card, seeking confirmation from prosecution witnesses of his view that the Yankees have turned free agency into unfair economic sport and swipe players from teams that cannot afford them and induce poorer teams to quake and fold when confronted by Steinbrenner's cash.
Fans, Veeck testified, know that their favorite players "will eventually play for the Yankees, which leads some of us to suicidal thoughts."
Dershowitz led Mike Torrez — who pitched for the Yankees, and, while with the Red Sox, surrendered Bucky Dent's playoff home run in 1978 — into saying that the Yankees had remade the free agency system into a league of their own.
"Great players want to stay with their team as long as it's the Yankees?" Dershowitz said.
"Yes," Torrez said.
Cutler started his opening statement by evoking Lou Gehrig and rarely veered from his pride of the Yankees theme. The Yankees pursue excellence, he said; Steinbrenner burnished the sullied Yankees image when he bought the team from CBS; the Yankees have a "certain magic, a legerdemain."
"Can I call you Goose?" he gently said to the former closer Rich Gossage, a defense witness. Gossage sidestepped a question about competitive imbalance but praised Steinbrenner for investing money in the farm system and instilling a code of conduct that led to on-field success.
"I don't think the Yankees would be the Yankees had it not been for Mr. Steinbrenner," Gossage said.
On cross-examination, Dershowitz tried to prove that by signing Gossage as a free agent in 1978 from the Pirates, the Yankees, through the evils of free spending, turned Pittsburgh into a sad loser.
"I'm not so sure they couldn't afford me," Gossage said.
"Why didn't they want you?" Dershowitz said.
"Because they were cheap," Gossage said.
"They were cheap because they weren't winning championships," Dershowitz said, looking to prove his Yankees-as-devil point, which ignored a reality: a year later, the Pirates won the World Series.
Dershowitz and Cutler saved their best for their closing statements.
"This case is about antipathy and animosity toward a Yankee franchise that the prosecution has portrayed as bullies," Cutler said in his final argument, which included a whack at "the cabal from Boston" that brought the case.
Dershowitz offered subtler dissing. "We hear the Yankees and Steinbrenner are great, but we don't know because of their money," he said, adding that the verdict on whether capitalist conquests like Steinbrenner's are the equivalent of baseball smarts will not be known "unless we level the playing field."
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Post by Rob on Apr 9, 2004 3:33:16 GMT -5
Well, I did ask!
That's okay -- it actually sounds like a pretty rational set of reasons as to why you hate the Mets.
Much more sensible than the sheer arrogance of so many Yankee fans I know. With them, the minute they find out that you're a Mets fan, they basically start calling you stupid and otherwise insulting you. Me, whenever I find out that somebody is a Yankees fan, I don't say anything.
Clemens got a HIT? There is no justice is this world.
Did I happen to mention just how much I HATE ROGER CLEMENS!!! I was born a Twins fan, and will always remain so. Therefore I have no particular axe to grind when it comes to Clemens. He's never really done anything to Minnesota. Yet...I can't stand the arrogant jerk. You know you're not a good guy when fans who have no ulterior motive detest you.
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Post by Rob on Apr 9, 2004 3:44:59 GMT -5
Joe Mauer just went on the DL with a sprained knee. Doesn't it just figure? We traded Pierzynski to the Giants to make room for this kid (and beef up the bullpen a little, knowing Guardado was probably history), so naturally he gets hurt during the first week of April. Mauer is going to be a star...he hit .400 last year in Triple A, and hit close to that in spring training. Has better defensive skills than Pierzynski too; turned down several scholarship offers as a major college QB. You don't get offer like that with a weak arm. Still... The Twins knew how much Mark Prior would be asking for when he came out of college, so they passed on him to pick the home town boy (Mauer is a Twin Cities native). So again I say...damn it all to heck. Not that I dislike the Mauer pick completely...great hitting catchers don't grow on trees. Dominating starters, though...they're even rarer. Sigh. The life of a small-market fan. On the positive side, I think the Twins are easily good enough to win our third division title in a row...and that is no small feat for a team with an owner who VOLUNTEERED to disband just a few short years ago. I'm glad we started this baseball thread, by the way.
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Post by Rob on Apr 9, 2004 3:49:43 GMT -5
I suppose it's the same with any sport really, the biggest teams regardless of whether they are the best or not get the most attention therefore sell the most merchandise and so forth. Boils down to $$$ & £££. Hence the utter hatred of the Dallas Cowboys in American football, the Lakers in pro basketball and Duke in the college game. The have-nots get tired of watching the haves win all the damn time...and even when the haves lose, they're obnoxious about it. In short, you either love the above teams or you hate them. Not much middle ground.
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Post by Rachael on Apr 9, 2004 14:13:25 GMT -5
Joe Mauer just went on the DL with a sprained knee. Doesn't it just figure? We traded Pierzynski to the Giants to make room for this kid (and beef up the bullpen a little, knowing Guardado was probably history), so naturally he gets hurt during the first week of April. Mauer is going to be a star...he hit .400 last year in Triple A, and hit close to that in spring training. Has better defensive skills than Pierzynski too; turned down several scholarship offers as a major college QB. You don't get offer like that with a weak arm. Still... The Twins knew how much Mark Prior would be asking for when he came out of college, so they passed on him to pick the home town boy (Mauer is a Twin Cities native). So again I say...damn it all to heck. Not that I dislike the Mauer pick completely...great hitting catchers don't grow on trees. Dominating starters, though...they're even rarer. Sigh. The life of a small-market fan. On the positive side, I think the Twins are easily good enough to win our third division title in a row...and that is no small feat for a team with an owner who VOLUNTEERED to disband just a few short years ago. I'm glad we started this baseball thread, by the way. Sorry, Rob. Allow me to comisserate - our new 3rd baseman started the season on the DL. And my team kinda, well, sucks so far. But: THREE games is NOT statistically significant! Just have to keep reminding myself. I'm going to the game tonight. Gonna sit in the Oakland Coliseum and root for the opposition. Wish me semi-polite surroundings. I absolutely love the Twinkies underdog-to-division-champions thing.
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Post by Rachael on Apr 9, 2004 14:16:05 GMT -5
I was born a Twins fan, and will always remain so. Therefore I have no particular axe to grind when it comes to Clemens. He's never really done anything to Minnesota. Yet...I can't stand the arrogant jerk. You know you're not a good guy when fans who have no ulterior motive detest you. Exactly. I mean, I have cause to hate Pedro (will we EVER beat that guy), but Clemens - he's just a big jerk. Sigh. Waiting on someone to peg him.
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Post by Sara on Apr 9, 2004 15:36:34 GMT -5
Sorry, Rob. Allow me to comisserate - our new 3rd baseman started the season on the DL. And my team kinda, well, sucks so far. But: THREE games is NOT statistically significant! Just have to keep reminding myself. I'm going to the game tonight. Gonna sit in the Oakland Coliseum and root for the opposition. Wish me semi-polite surroundings. I absolutely love the Twinkies underdog-to-division-champions thing. Hope you have a great time--try not to get beat up by the Oakland fans, wouldja?
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Post by Rachael on Apr 9, 2004 19:06:25 GMT -5
Hope you have a great time--try not to get beat up by the Oakland fans, wouldja? Ya know, they're mostly talk. There IS at least one fight per game they're losing, but it's usually Oakland-on-Oakland abuse. And sometimes they hit the players with cell phones. I haven't ever felt threatened, even in my Mariners hat.
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Post by Dev(Rob) on Apr 9, 2004 19:07:05 GMT -5
Becky H I am a Leeds United fan. Not doing so well at the moment, facing going into administration and being relegated to the first division Cubbies are facing a tough Atlanta side tonight, Zambrano is starting so we should be ok early on but for some reason I can see the middle/end innings being trouble. Braves closer Smoltz has a good record against the Cubbies middle order Sosa is 4-for-38 against Smoltz and has struck out something like 18 times whilst Alou is 7-for-36 with 9 strike outs Dev
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Post by Rob on Apr 10, 2004 0:33:00 GMT -5
Ya know, they're mostly talk. There IS at least one fight per game they're losing, but it's usually Oakland-on-Oakland abuse. And sometimes they hit the players with cell phones. I haven't ever felt threatened, even in my Mariners hat. Ummm...have you been to Raiders games? 'Cause I have it on good authority they do a lot more than talk. Seriously whacked out fans... Out of curiosity, did you know Darth Vader is a Raider fan? He's at every home game. I wonder if he likes the A's, too? I heard they play old Anakin's theme music whenever he gets up to go to the bathroom. That must get annoying after a while.
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Post by Rachael on Apr 10, 2004 1:39:25 GMT -5
Becky H I am a Leeds United fan. Not doing so well at the moment, facing going into administration and being relegated to the first division Cubbies are facing a tough Atlanta side tonight, Zambrano is starting so we should be ok early on but for some reason I can see the middle/end innings being trouble. Braves closer Smoltz has a good record against the Cubbies middle order Sosa is 4-for-38 against Smoltz and has struck out something like 18 times whilst Alou is 7-for-36 with 9 strike outs Dev So, didja make it to the end, Dev, or did you have to watch it on archives? That one went on a LONG time.
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