"Dear Mr. Cashman": A Reply From Yankees Fans Everywhere.

 

Dear Mr. Cashman,

We see that you are unhappy with us. Again. It seems that you don't like the complaints you are getting from us fans about the Yankees losing a playoff to the same team for the fourth time in the last eight seasons—a record unprecedented in the team's long and illustrious history. 

We know that you are also unhappy with us for having dared to complain about your failure to even get the Yanks to a World Series (much less win one) for 13 consecutive seasons—a streak now tied for the second longest such dearth in the team's history. 

The implication—always echoed by your friends in the media—is that any fan base anywhere else would be more appreciative.

We would like to apologize. And to offer you the following deal in exchange. 

We Yankees fans will never complain again. 

In exchange:

—The Yankees will cut all ticket prices to the major-league average.

—The Yankees will cut all food, drink, and souvenir concession prices to the major-league average. (Please note: we're not even demanding a major decrease in rodent effluvia on the Yankee franks.)

—The Yankees will cut all pay television packages to the major-league average.

—The Yankees will return to the taxpayers of New York City, New York State, and the United States of America, all of the monies provided—with the accumulated interest—to build your franchise not-one-but-two, subsidized stadiums. Both of which had thousands of fewer seats open to the general public.

The Yankees will be relieved of this last obligation if they agree to use these funds instead to significantly improve the poorest neighborhoods of the Bronx, the borough they play in.

(We kid, we kid! We know the Yankees have never given a rat's ass about the Bronx. We'll take the cash, thank you.)

We know what you or your boss, Hal the Lucky, are likely to say. That New York is hugely wealthy, we can afford all of the above, yadayadayada. 

In fact, the Yankees play in what is only the 14th-wealthiest metropolitan area in the United States, but charge the second highest prices for pretty much everything. And now we fans are not even supposed to complain.

Hey, we hear you, sir. And we will comply. 

The moment you drop your prices to the national average, we New York Yankees fans promise to be as uncomplaining as the average fan, dropping in for a game or two every season when we run out of things to do with the kids, arriving in the third inning and leaving in the sixth to beat the traffic, doing the wave and ooing at the kiss cam, talking about how many days are left until football season, duly clapping as another badly coiffed millionaire we've never heard of steps up to the plate, expecting nothing and getting nothing, just as the average fans expects and gets nothing almost everywhere in this favored land of ours.

Is it a deal?

Sincerely,

Your Humble Servants, the Fans.

(Coming to you from the shores of beautiful, frozen Lake Mendota. Don't ask.)