I hate the Yankees and their "fans" even more

I thought about coming up with a witty title for this blog post, but then I realized a more "to the point title" would be more effective. I have been meaning to release my bottled-up aggression towards the Yankees for awhile now, and with the latest news of Cliff Lee likely headed to the Bronx, I deemed it necessary to finally let it all out.

NOTE: Lee traded to the Texas Rangers! Hallelujah! But since I already had this mostly written, I'm not going to change it.

So here it goes. I hate the Yankees. I hate all Yankees fans. Extreme apologies to my boyfriend, but in this instance, I cannot make any exceptions. Look, I've been a baseball fan for as long as I can remember. I've experienced good times - 1995 World Series win, 14 consecutive division titles (longest streak in professional sports history, I might add), and have had the luxury of watching the majority of two future HOF's careers in Chipper Jones and John Smoltz. But with the good, there has been the bad. Let's start with the fact that the year I move to Atlanta is the first year since 1990 the Braves did NOT win one of those division titles. The following year I had the genius idea to buy season tickets. To make a long story short, that ended up being one of the Braves worst seasons in decades. I've also had to suffer through the Jeff Francouer saga, Tom Glavine putting on a Mets uniform (still one of the worst images that I can't seem to get out of my mind), Bob Wickman ('nuff said), the endless money pit named Mike Hampton, and then there was the 18-inning post season loss to the Houston Astros in 2005 - which I might mention was the last post-season game for the Braves.

OK enough about the Braves. The point is that I've been through up's and down's, good and bad, great and not-so-great. All of the memories have shaped me to be the fan that I am today. I've cried, cussed, cried of joy, thrown remotes (broken a few too), and drank away both my euphoria and sorrows.

So can you even call Yankees fans actual FANS?! What hardship have they been through? What tears of complete and utter misery have they shed? I mean geez, it must be heartbreaking to not win the World Series every single season. How upsetting those Yankees fans will be if Carl Crawford isn't signed in the offseason. Those poor Yankees fans.

Seriously, the list of free-agents the Yankees have signed - even in just the past few years - is redonkulous. CC, Burnett, Vasquez, Granderson, Damon, Teixiera... the list goes on and on, and I haven't even mentioned Alex Rodriguez. This all might be well and good for Yankees fans, but it's absolutely horrible for the sport of baseball. Whenever free-agency season starts, I always knock off the top 2-3 players because I know they're going to the Yankees, and then see who else is left for the Braves as a possibility. Yankees fans always like to claim it's not their fault their owners have so much money to spend. OK, maybe not your fault, but still completely unfair for the rest of us low lifes who don't have a payroll of $207,000,000. It's kind of sad that the Boston Red Sox, 2nd on the list comes in $46,000,000 lower at $161,000,000. UGH, those damn Yankees!!!!!

But I think there are a few silver linings to this post --

1.) Every single non-Yankees fan gets to laugh extremely loudly every time the Yankees don't win the World Series. I mean, if you're spending THAT much, you better win a ring every single season. It's pretty pathetic if a team that's not filled with an All-Star at every position beats the Yankees in a best-of-seven.

2.) All other baseball fans are brought together with the shared hatred for the Yankees. I think every fan has felt the pain of the Yankees stealing away one of their franchise players. I'm so glad there are still a few guys left, like Chipper Jones, that feel it is more important to stay with one franchise then go take the big money.

3.) If the Yankees do end up trading for Cliff Lee, they will ultimately have to part with one of their top catcher prospects, Jesus Montero. If the Yankees could just hold their greed until the offseason, they wouldn't have to dump a prospect and instead just sign Lee to the huge contact we were all expecting anyway.

4.) Yankees fans have to follow a team full of egotistical, money-driven d-bags. OK, I admit, a lot of other MLB players fall into this category, but not as many as the Yankees have.

5.) Eventually (hopefully) MLB will have a salary cap, and the Yankees will no longer be able to continue on as an evil empire. In fact, because they will have depleted their entire farm system, the Yankees will probably suck and sink down to one of the worst teams in the league. We'll see how many "fans" are left after that.

I love the sport of baseball, but I hate the Yankees who are corrupting the game I love so much. Go Braves!