What the Yankees' win really meant

Sigh.

The baseball season is over. The team that played the best ball down the stretch and in the playoffs -- the New York Yankees -- won the World Series last night. That is as it should be but it hurts nonetheless.

Next to the closing of Conny's Creamy Cone down the street, this was the saddest night of the year because it means baseball is over. The good news is spring training is only a little over three months away and hope does spring eternal.

I have no problem with the Yankees themselves winning the title. They are an admirable group of veterans who may not get another chance. It is not a popular notion in my part of the world but Derek Jeter would be a perfectly good MVP choice. Every day, he made all the plays he should have (and a few he had no business making)and hit like a sonofagun. My suspicion is Minnesota's Joe Mauer, who missed a month but still won the batting title and was a superb defensive catcher all year, will win it.

But if Jeter does win, it is not a miscarriage of justice. (Now if CC Sabathia sneaks in as the Cy Young winner ahead of Kansas City's Zack Greinke, that would be a travesty of justice. But I digress.)

No, the problem with New York's win is a little more basic. It is very clear that the commissioner - along with his broadcast partners Fox, ESPN and TBS, had a vested interest and openly rooted for New York to succeed. The reason is the oldest one in the world - money. New York is still the financial epicenter of the country. A Yankee post-season appearance gets bigger ratings. Bigger ratings mean more money for everybody. When you are getting paid $17 million a year (as is Bud Selig's current per annum salary), you best be producing some big bucks for somebody.

So I am sure there were sighs of a different sort -- the relief type -- when US Steel won the World Series last night. The local comptrollers at MLB and the networks can get out the calculators and get to work.

I won't go as far as to suggest the conspiracy went down to the level of the umpires. However, it was an astonishing coincidence that NY got several breaks from obviously incorrect calls in the postseason.

What Mr. Selig and the network boys forget every year is the country cares more about good baseball than the actual teams playing it. In 1991, Atlanta and Minnesota -- hardly major TV markets produced boffo ratings because the games were wonderful. It is not necessary the Yankees, Red Sox or a LA team playing to have good, interesting baseball. But when those teams are not on the air, you can tell the networks are basically bored and only doing the games because they have to. If given their druthers, the network execs and MLB give me the impression they would rather be at '21' having a martini.

Major League Baseball was so disinterested in the playoff game for the AL Central title between Detroit and Minnesota that they refused to schedule it for prime time and assigned a home plate umpire who shouldn't be working in Little League. Turned out to be a hellacious 12-inning game that ended up going into prime time anyway. Served them right.

Granted, the above rant is not particularly fair to the Yankees or their fans. Regardless of the fact the Yankee roster's combined income could help reduce the national debt, they won the games they had to. For that, they deserve all the congrats and the city should celebrate accordingly.

But it would serve the commissioner and the networks well to remember the fans in Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Minnesota, Cincinnati, Seattle and San Francisco are just as rabid about winning and root just as hard for their teams as do the denizens who come to Yankee Stadium.

They do so knowing in advance their chances of post-season success are slim. But the beauty of baseball is hope does spring eternal and perhaps next year will be better. And if they get to the post-season, the commissioner and the networks have to show up ... even if they end up wearing snowsuits because the final games are played in November.