Imagine

 

Imagine there's no Manfred

It's easy if you try

Imagine no HAL or Cashman

Or that awful Lonn Trost guy...

Deep down inside, there is a small, anarchical part of me that hopes the MLB lockout is never resolved. That it goes on and on, until the entire, rotten structure of the sport we all love falls apart.  

...you may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only fan...

Oh, I don't mean an end to baseball itself, because that will never die. 

I mean an end to "major-league baseball," to "organized baseball" as we have known it. Before it goes on mindlessly destroying any remaining interest in the sport. Before it goes on killing still more of the many things we love and value—the minor leagues, extra innings, municipal budgets, reasonable ticket prices, etc.

I think I can safely say that I am as enthralled as the Yankees' legacy as anyone on this site. I have wasted ridiculous amounts of time in my life reading about it, watching shows about it. Writing about it (and WHAT a waste THAT was, I hear you saying).

But you know, I really wouldn't mind wrapping that legacy up right now, and going on to something else.

All we have to look forward to with your (and my) New York Yankees is years, probably DECADES of one awful Steinbrenner heir after another playing the fascinating game of Salary Cap At All Costs.  

Just picture it.  DECADES of wondering if we can be one of the 12 or 14 or (someday) 20 teams to make the play-in playoff round. 

Oh, the excitement! Be still my heart.  

And then there is the ever-diminishing excitement of the MLB product itself. An endless succession of strikeouts and walks, punctuated by towering home runs celebrated for their "veto." 

A baseball where nobody can pitch more than 3 innings, or do anything but throw hard.  

A baseball where the prices keep rising, while more and more money is extorted from the public till—and the entertainment value keeps dropping.

You know that's the future.

What if it wasn't? What if the MLB lockout is never resolved? 

What if the grand and glorious history of your New York Yankees was enveloped in amber and put away in some sacred place where we can revisit it and honor it from time to time—and then we could all start over? 

Baseball isn't going away. All of those taxpayer-subsidized parks aren't going away. And of course, MLB won't go away. 

But would its presumed, all-scab league actually beat out whatever league the players came up with? Or that our cities, taking over, decided to build?

Picture a future with major-league-quality teams still in the Bronx and Queens—but also in Brooklyn, and maybe Staten Island, in that park the Yankees are trying to dump back on our heads.

Picture teams in every city owned by the people, just as the Green Bay Packers are in football. Picture the minor leagues up and running, everywhere—and who knows if they'd even be called "minor leagues"?

Who is to say? 

My friends, to quote that great New Yorker, Thomas Paine, "We have it in our power to begin the world over again."

Why not seize the moment? 

...Maybe some day you'll join us

And the sport can be fun again...