Lincecum wants 0.86 Selgs: How dare he! And guess who is to blame...

The Yankees, of course.

Yes, blame for the Giant pitcher's overwhelming, sickeningly lustful greed falls squarely on pinstriped shoulders: The damn Yankees pay too much money, because they actually try to win each year. (At least, I think we do. This winter, I've had reason to wonder.) We chase free agents - (Damn that Curt Flood!) - and return calls to Scott Boras. We've ruined the game. Players are now seeking Selig money! Damn Yankees! Damn us!

Now this: A seemingly nice young hippie, Tim Linceum - who should be above materialism - is demanding nearly an entire Selig. (That's the universal measurement of $25 million per year, what our nylon-haired Commissioner gets paid.) What is happening to our children!

Fortunately, for the owners, Bud the Rug recently brokered a de facto salary cap, masquerading as a massive luxury tax upon anybody who tries too hard to win. Strangely, this group of moral giants has not publicly come out to support higher income taxes on America's 1 percent, which would jive with their management style in baseball.
Remember, folks: They are billionaires, pretending to be millionaires so we will feel sorry for them.

Now Tim Lincecum wants 4/5th of a Selig? Heavens to Murgatroy.

Listen: Nobody poormouths more than the owners of sports teams. You'd think they live hand-to-mouth. They own franchises worth hundreds of millions of dollars - in some cases, billions - and they tap into public money whenever needed - yet they wail like sidewalk rag ladies to anybody near.

Well, last week, we did their bidding. We traded Jesus Montero to shore up our pitching staff, rather than sign a free agent. Maybe it'll work. But if the Yankees simply used the money from taxpayers and corporate boxes - signing Darvish or Wilson or Edwin Jackson, while keeping their kids, they cannot fail. 

Now, there's a chance this kid from Seattle will blow an elbow (Humberto Sanchez!), shrink from the lights (Carl Pavano!) or simply be pitched out (Javier Vazquez!), and we'll spend the next 15 years rueing the day we traded Jesus.

But at least our owners will have saved some precious pennies. They're burning furniture to stay warm, I hear, in the Poorhouse that Ruth Built.