by Gary Cain

Created on: March 12, 2009   Last Updated: March 25, 2009

Those bleeping Yankees have done it again! Forked over unspeakable sums of money to sign more of the best players on the planet. Having missed the playoffs in 2008 for the first time in 14 years, the New York Yankees over the winter went on a spending rampage and shelled out the equivalent economic output of several small countries in order to add star free agents C.C. Sabathia, Mark Teixeira, and A.J. Burnett to their roster for the upcoming season.

Imagine what the Yankees will do if they fail to make the playoffs again in 2009. Their shame and embarrassment will probably lead this cash-flush team to buy out all the other teams in the American League East and immediately disband them, just to ensure that the Yanks never miss the playoffs again. The Yankees really, really don't like to lose; cost be damned.

With their chronic free-spending ways, the Yankees make it easy for the rest of baseball to hate them. No other Major League Baseball team has the bucks to consistently outbid for the elite players. Financial restraint appears not to apply to the Yankees. By constantly signing the cream-of-the-crop players, it's a wonder that they're not only in the playoffs, but World Series champs every year. It's no coincidence that they've won it far more than any other team. That's also why they're so hated outside of New York. It's not a fair and equitable playing field.

But rather than hate and bash the Yankees, the rest of America should embrace them. With this country in a major league financial meltdown, the Yankees are certainly making a heroic effort to inject wads of money into circulation and keep the U.S. economy afloat. They've just built a brand-spanking new palatial stadium to the delight of builders and trade unions throughout the northeast. And think of all the houses, cars, big screen TVs, swimming pools, basement bowling alleys, and other top-dollar toys that Sabathia, Teixeira, and Burnett, plus their agents, will be buying with their newfound riches in the near future. They may reignite the U.S. economy all by themselves. This country could use more cash machines like the Yankees.

Of course, the reason the Yankees pay these astronomical salaries to continually stock the world's best players is because they can afford to. Say what you will about the owners of the Yankees, the Steinbrenner family, but they must be incredibly successful businessmen. To perpetually throw around the sums that they do, the Steinbrenners must be making money hand over fist.

With the Yankee owners' such obvious financial acumen, President Obama should throw out current Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and replace them with Steinbrenners. The "win at any cost right now" attitude espoused with the Yankee brass in charge would surely unleash a U.S. economic juggernaut and reestablish America as the envy of the world. And damn it, we'd stay on top. And probably give the rest of the world even more reason to hate the U.S. But we'd be winners. Let's go Yanks!

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