The Boston Herald has the gloat down pat:
NEW YORK - For $185 million, Yankees owner George Steinbrenner bought himself what amounts to the lowest, most dubious place in baseball history.
Yes folks, for the largest payroll on the planet, the Boss purchased what will now be considered the greatest collection of chokers ever assembled, as last night, the House of Pain turned into the House of Shame.
Indeed, how sweet it is! Darth Steinbrenner's Empire has struck out.
As a sports commentator once commented, ‘The rest of baseball is the Yankee's farm club.’
Each off-season, Sith Lord Steinbrenner wages war against the Rebel Alliance. Lavishing millions in Imperial credits, he woos the cream of the Rebellion's free agent crop to the Dark Side. Fighter jockeys of renown, who had broken into the League in X-Wings, inevitably fly TIE Fighters tomorrow.
Steinbrenner is old man Potter—he may have bought up the rest of Bedford Falls last off-season (A-Rod, Brown, et al), but for another glorious year he has been thwarted from getting his grasping hands on the Bailey Savings & Loan (World Series Championship). Yankee fans are despairing, but for the rest of the baseball cosmos, It’s a Wonderful Life. Atta boy, Clarence! :-)
Now back to more delicious quotes from the Herald article:
[T]he 2004 Yankees are poster boys for unprecedented failure. Hands down, they represent the biggest sporting collapse of all time.
And by the time Georgie Porgie is done paying the luxury tax for spending well over the limit and hands over what's expected for revenue sharing, the number he will wind up dishing out for this disaster will be more like $265 million.
Talk about gagging.
George's boom-or-bust lineup went belly-up for the fourth straight game. [...]
Plain and simple. The Yankees served up the most expensive choke in the history of the sport.
Correction, it was the most expensive choke in history. Period. End of story.
Now that the Yankees are toast and the Sox are representing the American League in the Fall Classic, it's only a matter of time before John 'Lambert' Kerry says, "I can't wait to see the Red Sox play at Fenwick Park."
UPDATE:
For a short list of other stunning baseball debacles, check out Kevin Murphy's post.
Posted by clark smith at October 22, 2004 02:42 AM | TrackBackTime will tell if this choke was worse than the 1951 Dodger collapse that ended with Bobby Thompson's walk-off home run in the one-game Giant-Dodger playoff.
I note that the announcers Wednesday night missed their line:
"The Sox win the pennant! The Sox win the pennant! The Sox win the pennant!"
Posted by: Kevin Murphy at October 22, 2004 08:38 AM (Permalink)Did you know that the Giants stole signs during the last 10 weeks of the season, and during that fateful game?
The more appropriate call is: "The Giants stole the pennant! The Giants stole the pennant! The Giants stole the pennant! ..."
The Giants 1951 pennant ranks second only to the 1972 Olympic Basketball Finals as the greatest ripoff in sports history.
Stealing signs is part of baseball.
Posted by: Kevin Murphy at October 22, 2004 09:25 AM (Permalink)Stealing signs is part of baseball.
Certainly not in the way the '51 Giants did, with a telescope and buzzer system. Face it, they were scoundrels.
Posted by: clark smith at October 22, 2004 11:39 AM (Permalink)Being a Dodger fan, I'm prepared to accept your argument.
Posted by: Kevin Murphy at October 22, 2004 01:28 PM (Permalink)