Apparently, there was a little flare up from the offices of the Yankees a couple of days ago, when Steinbrenner pissed and moaned expressed his dismay over the fact that the Yanks' first game of the playoffs had been bumped from prime time in favor of the Cubs-Braves. Never mind that the Yankees embarrassed themselves by losing to a team that hadn't beaten them since 2001. George's point was that the Yankees were the #1 team, #1 market, blah blah blah, and that they deserved Fox's prime time slot.
Turns out that, today, tickets went on sale for the NLCS in Chicago, and not only did they sell out in a matter of a few minutes, but ESPN was reporting that they had received 12 million calls by noon (ticks went on sale at 8 am). That's quadruple the Cubs' season attendance, and I'm pretty sure that, even if a fraction of that total watched Game 1, the ratings for the Cubs game provided all the rationale that FOX needs to suggest that George might want to shut the hell up.
Guess what? Absolute dominance is b-o-r-i-n-g. There's not a lot of intrigue when your team is spending twice as much money as any other team in the league. I like most of the players on the Yankees, but I don't really enjoy the fact that they vacuum up the talent from MLB every year, and can afford to make colossal mistakes that no one else can. It's getting close to the place where they're bad for baseball, despite the success of the As, Twins, Marlins, et al. It's getting to the point where other teams are successful despite the Yankees, not in comparison to them. They may make the most money, sell the most jerseys, and cry the loudest, but the Yankees are only the 6th or 7th best story in this year's playoffs, and that's what chaps George the most, I suspect.
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