Is this article by the same author who obnoxiously proclaimed that Girardi would over-manage the Yankees to a world series loss?

dbguy:

Is this article by the same author who obnoxiously proclaimed that Girardi would over-manage the Yankees to a world series loss?

Bigger question: Is it possible for Slate to write a sports article that isn't presumptuous and arrogant?

Seriously! What a snarky article. Must be written by a Phillies fan.

I'm not even a Yankees fan during the regular season (Go Blue Jays *sigh*) but I can't help cheer for them in the playoffs because they play such good baseball which is a pleasure to watch. When the Angels played a few brutal games with 3-ish errors during the ALCS, the Yankess still had excellent fundamentals.

The article also neglects to mention that a lot of the Yankees key guys are products of their farm system. Pettite, Jeter, Posada, Rivera, Cano and Cabrera were all Yankee prospects.

I do think that there should be salary cap to bring more parity to the game, but the Yanks can hardly be blamed for having the strongest brand in North American sports and the largest revenue streams.

I'm not seeing the snark. Marchman says:

1. the Yankees have a pretty old core.

2. they got serious value from some surprising places (e.g. Johnny Damon having a career year).

3. Philadelphia is the team more likely to become a dynasty in the near given the relative youth of its core.

Seems pretty innocuous to me.

Gee, the Yankees won. How exciting. Here I thought when the Yankees signed Teixeira and Sabathia for hundreds of millions of bucks, it was a joke, all but eliminating any interest I might otherwise have had in a baseball season heavier on predestination that the God of John Calvin. But I was wrong, the Series was just so, uh, thrilling. There were low-priced Yankee stars like, uh, Damon and Matsui. So it wasn't all about the money. And when we think Swisher, of course we all think. "Yankee." It's just a shame Jason Giambi wasn't around any more. Baseball is such a great game that even when they try to ruin it, they can't. Except that ... they actually have ruined it. When the World Series is over and everyone is in agreement that this one is for ... George Steinbrenner ... then we can certainly all agree that the Series sucked. If Fox and the Wall Street Journal start pimping for Obama like everybody else, wouldn't fair-minded observers kind of concede that the whole game sucks? If the Lakers sign LeBron in the offseason, would there be any reason to watch?

No, no snark. I agree. The problem is that the article was written in a highfalutin style ("tattooed yobs.. and players... who shave to solemn, muted, trumpet fanfares?" JFC, give me an effin' break!), but based on a silly premise. All six "old" guys that the author mentioned have had multiple similar years to this one in years that the Yankees didn't win the Series (or pennant), not to mention that Pettite's career may have ended already if not for HGH and Posada played his second fewest games in a season since 1998. What made the difference this year? Sabathia instead of Mussina or Randy Johnson, A-Rod's improved playoff performance instead of his usual extended bed-wetting, Texeira instead of Giambi, a weakened Red Sox team, little other competition in the American League and a World Series opponent that had exactly four guys (Lee, Utley, Ruiz and Chan Ho Park) show up at all. Furthermore, if Marchman is really surprised to see guys continue to play at a high level after age 35, then he doesn't really watch much baseball (or, at least, pay attention). In fact, it's never been unusual for Hall of Famers (Jeter, Rivera) and perennial all-stars (Damon and Posada) to excel at or beyond 35. Hell, nearly 80 years ago Babe Ruth went .341-41-137 at age 37, and Ted Williams won a batting title at age 40. And that was before airplane rides and HGH. Mike Schmidt won an MVP the season he turned 37 after playing his entire career on Astroturf (TM), Ichiro continues to bang out 200 hit seasons on the eve of 36, and of course Barry Bonds took rocket fuel and vitamin D all the way to four straight MVPs starting at age 37, just to name a few. Even Jamie Moyer, one of the least athletic guys in the league at age 46, tied for the team lead in wins while pitching for the NL champions this year. So, no, I don't see any snark. Just poor and lazy sportswriting sprinkled with flowery imagery.

In fact, it's never been unusual for Hall of Famers (Jeter, Rivera) and perennial all-stars (Damon and Posada) to excel at or beyond 35.

Hey rsmdpa -

You're right HOF-types like Jeter and Rivera (and, I think, Posada) are outliers and so tend to defy the common wisdom of age curves. As do all all of the first-ballot players you name. Johnny Damon, however, is not one of those players (nor is Godzilla, for that matter). Very good player, frequent all-star, but ... as a center fielder. He put up a career year - numbers comparable to way back in the KC days, when he was 26 - when he was 35. Not incredible, but a bit unusual. Marchman seems to be registering the peculiarity of the YANKEE$! getting premium value from a guy in the last year of his contract and on the downside of his career.

One way of tweaking Marchman's piece would be to say, simply: Wow, the 2009 WS Champs won with a surprisingly large number of elite first-ballot HOFers very much on the wrong side of 30 - Jeter, Rivera, and Rodriguez (plus Posada - not first-ballot, but HOF in my opinion). Plus they had some peculiarly great contributions from good but not historically great players. How often has that happened? Well, that last bit's not a tweak, more of an indication of the direction in which I'd have liked this piece to go.

The takeaway comes at the end of the piece - the Phillies are far more likely the dynasty-in-waiting (Yankees ca. 1997?). Imagine the cries of snark had he opened with that gambit.

Jim, I will concede the point about Damon, although I think that to give him unusual credit for a Yankees win when he put up good, but not particularly remarkable, numbers for a left fielder (that were at best marginally better than his other good years -- years in which his teams did NOT win anything) is a stretch on the author's part. Now if Melky Cabrera had put up those numbers -- that would have been something! And, I wouldn't have had a problem at all with the part about the Phillies leading off the article. First of all, it's correct. Second of all, I'm from Philly!

absolutely agree that baseball should have a salary cap. Interestingly, on my local all-news station, they always have John Madden speak (knowledgably) about football during football season and also (rather pedestrianly, embarrasingly) about non-football issues during the rest of the year, while their celebrity-blinded news people kiss his rather sizable rear-end. You might think I'm exaggerating, but no, sometimes he talks about dropping chili-peppers down a ladies dress at a buffet and I feel like I'm listening to an old Jerry Clower album.

Anyhoo, the other day, on the occasion of the (money-bags) Yanks' series victory, John "bravely" chided those such as Alex here who think that parity in sports is a good thing, going way out on a limb to say he likes that there's an elite team such as the Yanks to fend off mediocrity. Then, not one of the so-called journalists at the station asked him was he then fully in favor of baseball's lack of salary cap to reach his elite team/non-parity goal? or why can the NBA do it--and Koby and Lakers still battle Yao's then Howard's then King James' teams ANYWAY, but baseball can't?? Not one. Madden has a big rear-end to kiss, you see, they need everyone. Did you know his video game is a big seller? Yowza!