Is hating the New York Yankees for high salaries a subtle way we're trained to hate workers?

[taterguy]

I get that hating the Yankees is ingrained in our national psyche.

Even if you live in New York you're supposed to pull for the underdog Mets.

But what's so bad about the Yankees?

Allegedly they upset the competitive balance of baseball by making offers that can't be refused to the game's best players.

They broke up the lovable Oakland As in the 70s by luring away Catfish Hunter & Reggie Jackson.

I dug the As but can you blame Catfish & Reggie for leaving?

How many of us would turn down a higher paying job? Tell the truth.

And why is it a crime to put the best possible team on the field? In Michael Jordan's prime, did anyone expect him not to jump as high, just to make it 'fair'?

The Yankees don't make the rules of baseball. If the other owners are so upset they could adopt revenue sharing like other professional sports leagues, or simply pay their players more and have smaller salaries for their execs and owners.

I think it's something so subtle we don't even notice it on a conscious level. There's something wrong with workers making as much money as they possibly can. We don't even question it. It just is.

Meanwhile, few people even know which pro sports owner makes the most profit.

Just something I'm pondering on a Friday afternoon.

[stray cat]

1. Are you being trained?

[taterguy]

3. Trained in what?

[BeyondGeography]

2. George Stenbrenner was the union's best friend

Ask Marvin Miller.

[leftstreet]

4. Do working class people consider pro sports people workers?

:shrug:

[taterguy]

5. Working class people go to Yankee games and watch them on TV

Or so I've heard.

[Egnever]

9. They also pay increasingly ridiculous ticket prices

Thanks in part to the silly salaries.

[taterguy]

14. Salaries of the workers? That's my whole point. Hatin' on a man for making a buck

How much green do the owners get?

They're the ones who set ticket prices.

[Egnever]

28. lol the workers.

You mean the pampered primadonas?

[taterguy]

29. I mean people who are paid to do a job

[Egnever]

41. Like all the poor traders on wall street

and their bonuses?

Sorry these guys salaries come on the backs of the fans. I understand football where the players put their livelyhood on the line every game. Except for pitchers Baseball is a pretty low impact sport and the salaries in my opinion are outrageous.

[taterguy]

45. Try buying a Duke basketball ticket. Those players don't get paid (In theory)

Ticket prices aren't based on what the athletes are getting paid.

They're based on what the people who buy them are willing to pay.

[Egnever]

10. Grr new IE not so great.

[leftstreet]

12. Right, They also go to rock concerts and movies

I see more 'training' in our culture to 'hate' people who don't make nearly as much money as these stars

[Egnever]

6. I have hated baseball and the players since the strike

its not limited to the yankees.

[Motown_Johnny]

7. i don't hate the Yankees

[LostInAnomie]

8. No

[Stevenmarc]

11. You must be having a very slow Friday

[Uzybone]

13. yes it is.

One thing I find annoying in sports is the knee jerk response of hatred towards highly paid athletes and their strong unions.

[Ginto]

15. I hate any profession where we pay people for unusual natural talent.

I prefer to pay people for hard work.

[taterguy]

16. You hate musicians, writers, actors and other creative types?

To each his own.

[Ginto]

17. I only hate paying them exorbitant salaries.

Sorry, I was unclear.

[jdlh8894]

23. " I prefer to pay people for hard work"

May not be work to you --- You go out there and do 2 a-days 5 days a week. Spend the other time in "skull" sessions.or watching film. Then go out on game day and get your body smacked around!

[taterguy]

25. Every one who gets a salary makes more money for the person signing the check

So what's exorbitant?

[Greyhound]

22. When has that ever been the case? n/t

[Meatball]

18. I'm not sure I hate the yankees for their high salaries. I hate them because I'm a mets fan...

... and many yankee fans are A-holes to us mets fans.

I've had this discussion quite a few times over beers and I just don't understand the arguments against athletes getting high salaries. It's fairly simple to me. The athletes try to get as much as they can, and why shouldn't they? This is a capitalist country after all. If I was A-rod I would definitely take that huge contract he has, anyone would. It annoys me when people try to say they don't 'deserve' their money. Who deserves anything? Who decides who deserves what? You? Me? Its a ridiculous question. At the end of the day, there has to be an organized system of distributing wealth in society and here in the US we have capitalism for that purpose. In that system, you take what you can get, basically. Its not like these guys don't put any work into it. They aren't born that good. They have talent, but that wont take you all the way. Practice practically every day from birth and you might have a shot. Basically, if you can learn to play baseball as good as A-rod and Jeter, you will profit, big time. Thats just the way it is and I don't see anything wrong with it. I think most of the people saying that stuff are just jealous of them anyways.

If MLB wants to make itself a more balanced league, they should model themselves after the NFL, or at least move in that direction, coz that league is very well balanced.

[Lucian]

19. We hate the smugness that comes with the overly paid baseball players.

*cough*JeterARod*cough*

[WinkyDink]

20. WHUT? People in general don't even THINK about the Yankees, and SOME of us LIKE them.

[Greyhound]

21. I wouldn't call it subtle at all.

It is simply The American Gospel, reinforced through daily prostrations to and through the God Box.

[SoCalDem]

24. Nope... It's probably just an instinct that many people have when they see

accolades being purchased by rich folks.. It's common knowledge that NYY has a shitload of money to always manage to buy the best players & the underlings who have to make do with less money kind of resent it, so when the NYY gets their "come-uppance" it's a shadenfreuede moment.

[Old Troop]

26. Hating the Yankees is a force of nature.

[taterguy]

27. Nice avatar. Weren't the Red Sox the last team to integrate?

Which probably has a lot more to do with losing to the Yankees than whatever salaries they paid.

[wilt the stilt]

31. They were the last-Pumpsie Green

My brother lives in KC and has a lot of friends who complain about the Yankees spending money. His answers it's the free market. If you are in a competitive field of sales the big boys are always trying to buy the business. Just the way it is.

[rox63]

30. Red Sox fan here

Hating the Yankees has nothing to do with their salaries.

[GoCubsGo]

43. Yup.

My disgust goes back to post-9/11, when we were all told that the Yankees were "America's team". Says who? It's for that very reason that I also despise the Dallas Cowboys. Where do these people get off trying to dictate who is "America's team"???

Why, yes. I DID root for the Diamondbacks back in the 2001 World Series, despite the fact that I don't like them, either.

[mix]

32. It's the inverse.

Hating on the Yankees is labor v capital.

Resenting, hating, criticizing those who undeservedly gobble up profits, wealth and wages, that seems classically leftist.

It's not 1919. Today's pro-athletes are not as exploited as they once were.

[Ferret Annica]

33. Well, when I was a kid, Dad would beat me while I was getting the scent from a dirty Mickey Mantle..

..shirt so I would develop a normal hatred of the Yankees multi-generational Red Sox fans like me need to live contently with people in Massachusetts. What? Nobody explained the fine points to you of training Red Sox fans?

I bet you don't even know the words to 'Sweet Caroline.'

[jdlh8894]

35. Mr. Diamond? Is that you?

[taterguy]

36. Don't have the lyrics memorized but thanks for the earworm

NOT!

[Ferret Annica]

51. My Pleasure

[xchrom]

34. Modernity requires that we adjust our thinking about who is worker.

They uninionizef workers who make a big fat paycheck -
But they are still workers.

[LiberalAndProud]

37. It's symptomatic of our national disorder.

Johnnie Depp, A-Rod, Tiger Wood. We spend our pennies to be entertained and it filters throughout the industry, be it baseball or movie studios. I often wonder how our national makeup might change if we were able to reorder our nonsensical priorities. If baseball players made what teachers make and teachers earned what Depp makes, this would be a different world.

[GoCubsGo]

44. Couldn't agree more.

And, I love baseball and Johnny Depp. Tiger Woods, not so much.

[WillyT]

38. Oy Vey...

[TheKentuckian]

39. No, it is the hatred of a broken funding system that creates a few haves and a bunch of have nots

play super farm league and destroying long term competitiveness.

It's also just hate. I'm a Reds fan and under no obligation not to spit out the name.

I'm also a Kentucky and a Raiders fan so I know you shouldn't worry a single moment about being hated but rather should revel in it.

If you're going to be a fan of an overdog team you need to enjoy the target, the hateful press, and the barbs from other fans.

Stop whining or become a Cubs fan, then everybody will wub you and none will fear or respect you.

That minds me. Why the hell did the party co opt the lovable loser Cub symbol? Is that what they are turning to turn us into? That symbol sucks Donkey Kong ass and is a testament to lame weakitude.

[NoGOPZone]

40. I don't think it's limited to the Yankees

I think the general hatred of high salaries for athletes is a way we are trained to hate workers.

I'm no Yankee fan, but they were a powerhouse for over forty years when baseball operated on the reserve clause, so they didn't ruin the competitive balance with a pursuit of free agency..

It's also nonsense that they broke up the A's. Most of Oakland's stars were eligible for free agency the first year it was implemented, and Sal Bando, Joe Rudi, and Rollie Fingers all signed with teams other than the Yankees.

[petronius]

42. No. We all hate teams that make a habit of beating our own teams, and if the Yankees

didn't have high salaries we'd hate them for something else - maybe because the player's names have too many 'g's in them or something else. Sports 'hate' is totally unrelated to real hate, and I think it's a mistake to read anything into it...

[raven42]

48. I guess I can't blame the Yankees for taking advantage of a

bad system. You really need a salary cap (along with a salary floor) when you have free-agency in a professional sport. When you don't have those elements you get the result you have in baseball: the Yankees generate far more revenue than anyone else, so they acquire the best free-agents and pretty much guarantee themselves a spot in the playoffs every year. I grew tired of watching them in the playoffs years ago, so baseball lost a fan here. I don't find any drama or excitement in seeing the same team so close to reaching the World Series year after year. I'd much rather watch the N.F.L., where there is true competitive balance; and the fans of practically every city/state in the league know that their team has a chance to be successful on the field.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

46. I'm rooting for the Yankees if for no other reason than the Bushies support the Texans! n/t

[taterguy]

47. The Houston Texans play football. The New York Yankees play baseball

Don't think they're scheduled to play each other any time soon.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

49. LOL!!! Sorry. You knew what I meant, right?

Looks like I've had too much wine tonight... :toast:

[alcibiades_mystery]

50. Yes

Baseball players fought hard as hell to unionize and negotiate for their specialized labor.

[Angry Dragon]

52. NO

[AsahinaKimi]

53. I think my reason is

Arrogance and Swagger. NY Yankee fans are arrogant. Dallas Cowboy fans are arrogant. The Cowboy team were always full of arrogance and swaggered into Candlestick Park and enjoyed the opportunity to push around the 49ers.

Thats why THE CATCH was so significant to 49er history. It was that moment in time the 49ers reached a point where enough was enough, and they were tired of the swagger and arrogance, and they fought back to go on to win the Superbowl.

Arrogance and Swaggering is often tied to Bullies. Most people like to see bullies get "theirs". I used to love it when the Angels went to Yankee Stadium, and walked away with a huge win. The Angels were never afraid of going there.. they looked forward to knocking that swagger down a peg.

[taterguy]

54. Not a big fan of swagger but it serves a utilitarian purpose

At the highest levels of sport, there's not much difference in the physical capabilities of the competitors.

The difference between a contender and a dominator is mentality.

It takes an extraordinary level of self-confidence to be absolutely convinced that you're the best in the world at what you do. Swagger is an inevitable by-product of that self-confidence.

BTW, my OP was about hating the Yankees themselves, not their fans. I get hating Yankee fans. They're obnoxious and insufferable.

[ZombieHorde]

55. I don't think many people think clearly about sports. nt