The Yankees And The Subway System

The Yankees have bought themselves a brand-new, shiny pitching rotation. I do not take issue with this. They have the money to do so, and rather than roll it over into a perpetually self-renewing endowment (We call this The Harvard Model), they have chosen to use it to upgrade their roster. Fine. This sucks for fans of non-Yankees teams, but you deal with it. However, I live in New York. This is the part that gets me. Not that I am surrounded by Yankees fans and their continual borderline-obscene trade proposals (Whaddaya mean the Padres declined Melky and Matsui for Peavy? Did they hear we'd pay $5 million of Matsui's salary? (Full disclosure: I suspect that somewhere there is a Red Sox fan trying to build a package for Taylor Teagarden based around Julio Lugo. But at least I am not regularly subjected to this)). Rather, it is with the new stadium (Read as: Cash cow) that is allowing the Yankees this new stream of income to spend as they see fit. This stadium is being largely publicly funded by the city of New York, because the stadium will bring in lucrative new dollars to the city, paying for itself in the process. The only problem with this line of thinking is that it is not true. Not even close. What a new ballpark funded by the public does (Beyond removing the threat of the team skipping town. Which, while normally a real concern, is not even fucking close to being remotely possible in this case. What, the Yankees threatened to move to South Carolina? [Grape Ape] off) is line the pockets of the team(s) that play there, at the expense of the sucker (Much more can be found regarding this point here, written by someone much smarter and better at math than I am) that ponied up the cash (Bloomberg!). Which, to a (very) small extent here, as a New York City taxpayer, is me. This is [a dirge played on the bagpipes]. I demand the right to at the least get a swing at AJ Burnett's knee with a Wiffle™ Bat if I'm going to help bring him here. But instead of getting this, what I am getting is the city slashing a property tax rebate from the budget (I rent. Whatever) and cutting its funding to the MTA (Whose mismanagement is another story that I won't be getting into here), causing them (The MTA. Not the city. I probably could have worded that better) to try to make up the projected large hole in their budget for next year by kicking around the idea of raising their prices. Under their preliminary plans, starting next year an unlimited Metrocard© for one month will cost approximately $100 (Up from $81), and each individual ride on the subway will go from $2 to $3. [Samantha Who] you, CC Sabathia and AJ Burnett. [Bananaphone] you both.