Nurse the Hate: The Christmas Miracle

I woke up this morning absolutely filled with a sense of joy. The first Christmas Miracle has apparently arrived. Yes Virginia, it appears that Cliff Lee will not be signing with the Yankees, and will instead be signing with the Philadelphia Phillies (or Yankees Part 3, as opposed to the Red Sox, or Yankees Part 2). My hatred of Yankee Fan is very well documented. To review, the reason why we hate Yankee Fan is A) public obnoxious behavior B) a sense of entitlement C) belief that their team's success equates to their own success and finally D) the use of the pronoun "we" to describe the Yankees.

All year long Yankee Fan has confidently breezed along, waiting until the inevitable year end shopping trip where Yankee GM Brian Cashman would pick up the best available players to put in the Yankee pin stripes. I work with a wiener Yankee fan, who commented about Cliff Lee during the Yankees playoff loss saying, "He'll be really good for us next year." This is such a great microcosm of Yankee Fan, isn't it? You've got the sense of entitlement in "Why would Lee not sign to be a Yankee?". The fabulous use of "us" in the mention of the Yankees, as if this wiener I work with was a Yankee team employee and not some dopey media grunt. And of course, the dismissal of this season's ALCS playoff loss as being irrelevant, but rather just a tool to identify the next Yankee star.

So here we are... The Yankees don't get Lee. They also don't get Carl Crawford, who goes to the equally obnoxious Red Sox, as the Yankees had Carl's potential payday offered out to Lee. Instead the Yanks paid $74 million dollars too much for Derek Jeter to turn gray and hit .258 over the next 5 years. Wow, did they bungle this one! Brian Cashman must have the easiest job in all of professional sports. He has to put a good team on the field with at least twice the resources of his competition. If the team wins, the Network TV cameras pan to him in the World Series and talk about the genius he exhibited in piecing this squad together like a jigsaw puzzle. If they lose, they show the long faces of the players in the dugout, and the commentators lament on how such a high priced dream team could have possibly lost. The fault always goes back to the manager first, or perhaps a player scapegoat like Alex Rodriguez.

I would have loved to have listened in on that call when the Yankees found out they weren't getting Lee. I will guarantee you they have a Yankees jersey with Lee's number primed and ready to go for what they thought would be their triumphant press conference. That will be hastily shoved into a bottom drawer of Cashman's desk, and never mentioned again. Now we can only hope that they spray that Cliff Lee money around and sign somebody like Bronson Arroyo for$78 million. By the way, can you imagine being one of those second tier free agents this morning? Your agent must be doing cartwheels knowing that Cashman is going to throw money around like a drunken sailor to help pacify angry Yankee Fan. If there is any justice, we'll get the triumphant return of Carl Pavano and his Tom Selleck mustache, or maybe Brad Penny for $67 million.

It's a good morning. God Bless Us! Each and every one!