What do Petro-Dictatorships and the New York Yankees have in common? Vast resources which facilitate autocratic rule and encourage financial incompetence. In the case of the Yankees, cable contracts for NY-based sports franchises are the equivalent of extensive oil reserves in third world countries.

Brian Cashman, Joe Torre and Joe Giraldi have fans in at least one corporate headquarters in America, the offices of AIG. The ability to fail repeatedly with unlimited resources is not something that can be appreciated by your run of the mill failures.

Maybe what the Yankees need is a vigilant loan officer armed with basic covenants. If such a thing existed, a basic MLB covenant would be the cost in salaries per win [ML salaries/wins]. A look at this financial covenant for the New York Yankees since the glorious year of our Lord, 2003.

2003 – $1.5 Million per win [153/101] – WS Losers
2004 – $1.8 Million per win [184/101]
2005 – $2.2 Million per win [208/95]
2006 – $2.0 Million per win [195/97]
2007 – $2.0 Million per win [190/94]
2008 – $2.3 Million per win [209/89]

At the other end of the financial competency continuum, the Florida Marlins:

2003 – $0.5 Million per win [49/91] – World Champions
2004 – $0.5 Million per win [42/83]
2005 – $0.7 Million per win [60/83]
2006 – $0.2 Million per win [15/78]
2007 – $0.4 Million per win [31/71]
2008 – $0.3 Million per win [22/84]

Speaking of colossal failures, how about the design of the Yankees new ballpark? The park has given up the most home runs of any new ballpark ever. Some have speculated that the park itself is on steroids.

I prefer to give the Yankees the benefit of the doubt on this one. I believe they are not exploiting the steroids issue, but rather are attempting to solve it. The Yankees are trying to do their part to make steroids irrelevant. How? The Yankees now have a ballpark where anyone can homer. As they might say in my old neighborhood, ‘Esteroides para que tu?’