Amazon is OUT! Should the Yanks Go, Too?

So word is that Amazon is pulling out of its New York "commitment" because the citizens of our fair city actually demanded their representatives have a say about their vast subsidies and tax breaks.

Seems they objected to "taxation without representation."  Crazy, that.

Speaking of which, I'm all for a citizens' movement to force the Yankees out, too.

For the last 45 years or so now, the Yankees have taken enormous public subsidies that we rarely got to vote on, mostly in the city building two new stadiums for them.

The first one ended up costing us $160 million by the time it opened in 1976—or $672 million in 2014 dollars.

Within 15 years, though, George Steinbrenner was already demanding a new stadium—this one on prime Manhattan real estate—or he would leave for Connecticut, or Denver, or even New Jersey.

That little extortion scheme fell through.  But the Yanks DID get ANOTHER new stadium, this one costing a jaw-dropping $2.3 billion—with $1.2 billion in public subsidies, according to this study:

http://www.fieldofschemes.com/documents/Yanks-Mets-costs.pdf

And now, as 13bit points out, the Yankees have violated the basic public trust—the unspoken covenant—they have held by for over 100 years.

Ever since the reprobates who first owned the team sold it to the Colonels, the understanding has been that the Yankees—no matter what awful, bullying, money-grubbing little monsters owned them—would try to put the best team they could on the field.

That is, sadly, about the best that any fans outside of Green Bay, Wisconsin, can hope for from their team owners.

And now that's gone.

As Hal finally informed us this off-season, the old way of doing business is over.  The Yankees will now pinch pennies and give up worrying about performance on the field.

To which I say:  It's time for them to go.

We really should encourage it.  Tell 'em they don't have to make anymore payments on the Stadium.  Just pack and go.

We can find another team to move into the biggest market in the country in a heartbeat.  Hell, we could find two.

Sure, the sportswriters would weep and moan about the loss of tradition, the sacred pinstripes, and the Babe, and Mickey, and the Clipper, and blah-blah-blah.

But Hal Steinbrenner and his band of merry pranksters in the front office are not the keepers of that flame.  I bet Hal could not name you a single member of the 1976-78 Yankees not called Thurman or Reggie.

We are the ones who maintain that legacy, and we'll keep it always, in our hearts and minds, no matter what the corporate entity known as the Yankees does.

So let 'em go.  We'll haul in some dog of a franchise like the Rays, or maybe we'll invite Derek to move his Marlins up, or maybe we should just start a whole new team on our own.

We'll call 'em the Bronx Bombers, or the Woolly Mammoths, or anything we please.  And they'll be our team.  They can stay as long as they keep their promises.

The old Yankees can follow Jeff Bezos to whatever dump he's headed to.