Calling the Yankiverse: Empty your piggybanks! Through Kickstarter, we can buy the future Yankee outfield

Diehard fans of the former TV show Veronica Mars recently raised $2 million from Kickstarter, the crowd-sourcing investment site, to finance a movie that none of us will ever see, unless we’re lashed into place in some “Clockwork Orange” prison, with our eyes clamped open and aides slathering our pupils with Visine. The funds come from toddlers piggy banks, high-schooler condom money and poor itinerant fishermen in remote villages of China, who have long dreamed of seeing Kristen Bell solve crimes, or do whatever Veronica Mars does, on the Imax screen.

Well, if it’s good enough for Veronica Mars, it should be good enough for Bryce Harper.

It’s time for Yankee fans to put up or shut up! Let’s use Kickstarter to finance a team that our poor itinerant owners, Hal and Hank, simply do not have the money to support.

(By the way, this idea comes from Mustang, who lives for the Veronica Mars flick.)

As we speak, MLB is tightening restrictions on spending – forcing the owners to bank their money instead of spending it on bonuses and salaries. This June, the MLB draft will be expanded worldwide, meaning Latino and Asian players are thrown into the mix. This was the Yankees’ last great chance to spend their extra money, their advantage over other teams. Now, it’s gone. We are all Royals now. Every city is San Diego. Remember how you used to think that, by attending a Yankee game at some ridiculous price, you were at least plowing money into the lineup, and how buying Yankee swag you were helping the owners buy the next generation of Yankees? Well, forget that notion. It’s no longer the case. Your money will simply go into the pockets of the Steinbrenner heirs.

Instead of signing free agents, the Steins will spend the money on more important matters, such as lawyers who can sue Stubhub to keep Yankee season ticket holders from selling their seats at below cost prices, because fewer people are attending games. And the lawyers can sue to retain copyright trademarks on catchphrases such as “Evil Empire,” which fuel Jay Leno monologues and bumper stickers. Or they can pay public relations companies to smooth over the latest steroids investigations into A-Rod, lobby for more tax breaks from the citizenry or set the parameters to sell off more of the YES Network to that beloved scion of New York and America, Rupert Murdoch.

So here’s the problem, Yankee fans. Hal and Hank – billionaires who are pretending to be millionaires – simply have been forbidden to spend extra money on players. That’s why they’ve set the $189 million salary cap next season, why they’re preparing to show Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain, Curtis Granderson, maybe even Robbie Cano, out the door next winter. It’s not that they don’t want to pay the money. They simply cannot. (Robbie Cannot.)    

So, what if we – the Yankiverse – were to help these penniless street urchins, through Kickstarter?  In the name of Veronica Mars, we could raise, say, $10 million, and buy the best free agent on the market. The Steinbrenners don’t even have to put him on the books. They can officially pay him a salary of one dollar, and plow all the saved money into – how about Lifestyle Lifts! (If the face looks younger, that's what they notice!) The fans can add the player to the team. This way, Hal and Hank will have extra revenue for more creative work by the legal teams – such as, well, how about paying off critical blogs! Hey, put us on the payroll, sirs, and we’ll be happy to write about how well Michael Pineda is throwing off the mound!

Kickstarter, folks. Let’s get this team some money. Now batting, the Yankee centerfielder, number seven… Veronica Mars.