This being the holiday season and all (what, New Year's Day isn't a holiday?), we all face interesting ethical conundrums in our own heads. You know, reflections on our behavior and our world view and all that.
In other words, we are wondering if it is an acceptable thing in the eyes of our chosen deities to wish crushing and enduring bankruptcy upon the Steinbrenner family.
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| Go ahead and wish the Steinbrenner's go bankrupt ... just make sure you're covered. (Getty Images) |
But that religious debate aside, we wonder if our enjoyment of baseball is better served by the Steinbrenner Kids discovering that their entire portfolio has been wiped out.
After all, this is the first time such an event was even conceivable. Money is being sucked into an economic wormhole at a rate never before imagined, affecting millions at a stroke.
And while there is no indication that any sports owner is heading for crushing and irreversible poverty (although a few here and there might end up tending roses in some federal penitentiary for tax evasion, debt evasion or simple evasion), Hank 'n' Hal have spent the last month running through the family trust at a breathtaking rate. After all, the $423 million they just promised CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and M.C. Teixeira tops the valuations of 66 of the 132 major league sports franchises, and all but 11 of the European pro soccer teams.
The beauty of this new profligacy is that it has been greeted with the same horror as all the other Steinbrennerian profligacies of the past 35 years -- with cries of doom all around. That doom, of course, has never been realized no matter how many times the Steinbrenners tried to play "Our Eyes Are Bigger Than Your Stomachs," and the new shrieks of horror resonate not because there is evidence to prove the validity of the shrieks, but because of their extraordinary artlessness.
It's the boys out-daddying Daddy, with no indication that they are doing anything but trying to humiliate their partners with their we-have-money-you-only-dream-of posturing. It's a middle finger raised to the 29 other owners, some of whom might actually be facing some form of bankruptcy (the Cubs) if not jail (hey, anything's in play these days), and others who wanted to run with the Yankees (the Red Sox and Angels, to name two).
I mean, who knew that Hank's haircut would be the most sophisticated part of him?
But this isn't about them, it's about us. If we are offended by the Yankees' latest exertion of Yankee prerogative, knowing history does not support their exertions, is it still OK to wish them to go bankrupt just for our own satisfaction?
This is a moral issue, one that is addressed in one way or another in each of the major religions and most of the minor ones. They all agree that killing folks is uncool, and that beating them near death in most circumstances is frowned upon as well.
But when so many folks are losing their jobs with no indication that there are new ones to be had, can it be moral to wish that the kids felt the sting of gut-gnawing want just because they are outsized showoffs?
This isn't as easy a call as it seems, because while the Steinbrenner family has enriched thousands of players, helped create the agent industry and driven prices through one ceiling after another over the decades, they have not actually ruined baseball. Indeed, for the money they've spent, their six championships seem a relatively paltry return.
Indeed, this new burst of screw-the-grandkids is actually $96 million more than their revenues in 2007, according to those capitalist hyenas at Forbes, so at some point they might actually run out of money whether you wish it for them or not.
But is it moral to yearn that that day come sooner rather than later? It is justifiable to want to see them wearing barrels and cadging change at freeway on-ramps? Does a god or gods find it reputable for their believers to want such punishments to be rained upon other members of the human family?
The theology says no, as much as you'd like to find a way for it to say yes. On the other hand, there are also rituals of atonement in most religions, so yes, you probably can curse the Steinbrenners without risking eternal damnation.
Thus, as your Internet spiritual advisers, we here at CBS grant you absolution in advance for what you are thinking re: the Yankees. We will pray on your behalf to the power of your choice that He, She or It sees it that way as well, though we cannot be held legally responsible in case They don't see it that way.
After all, the Steinbrenners pray, too, and when they tell their own God that their 2009 payroll will be lower than their 2008 payroll, and that they can actually afford the extra $40 million in luxury taxes and revenue sharing, their God has accountants, too.
Still, we're about you feeling good as you go about your day, so go ahead and wish them the pain of going broke if you want. I mean, $3.75 million for Damaso Marte? Will these people stop at nothing?
Ray Ratto is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle.
