Are You A Yankee? F***ing Yankees!! The Yankees Are Responsible For All The Wars In The World!!!

That's the sort of drunken Gibson-esque rants that I expect to hear on the air and the blogosphere for the next couple of days. I laughed my ass off when I heard Chris Russo and his minions saying that the Cinderella dust had worn off of the team with the pickup of Abreu, Lidle and Wilson. That the Yankees were no longer a fun underdog sort to root for because we were no longer winning with Guiel, Melky and Phillips. Like the Bombers would all of a sudden be the likable group they were in 1996.

Really? The fact that we were winning with a patchwork outfield would suddenly melt the hearts of the hardest Yankee haters and make Russo and his crack committee wear Jeter jerseys?

The hypocrisy concerning these media types and the Yankee payroll knows no bounds. Let me understand this....a ballplayer who makes seven figures is overpaid...but the sports writer who writes columns and books on him...and the talking heads that spend six hours or more talking about him...aren't? It's ok for them to make six or seven figures writing and ranting....but it's not ok for the subjects of their praise, rants etc to get theirs?

If you want to question why a society would pay a baseball player $25 million a year when it only pays teachers $30,000.....What about the society that pays someone who yacks about it over $1 million a year? Where's the outrage there? Or the fact that there are people who make a living off sports merchandising....selling items hit or thrown by these same athletes? Or mooks with blogs who make money off of advertising who write about these same athletes? Where's the outrage there?

Sports is only the profession where you're allowed to kill the golden goose on a regular basis. You never see the Hollywood media throwing their folks under the bus for making too much money. Just the opposite. Am I saying that they can't be criticized? Absolutely not. But keep it focused on what happens on the field. Not their checkbooks.

The Yankees pulled off a great trade on Sunday getting Abreu and Lidle. Were the financial considerations a big part of it? No question. But whose fault is that? If you want to blame someone, blame Pat Gillick. He's the one who went for it. Obviously, getting payroll relief was more important than getting back players who can help the Phillies right now. And there's no way to tell what BJ Henry and company will become. In three or four years, one of those prospects could become the best players in the trade.

The Yankees have made trade like this before and they've given up players who became everyday starters....Eric Milton, Luis Guzman and Jake Westbrook among them. Sometimes it works....sometimes it doesn't.

But here's the deal Yankee fans....you can't win this one with the haters. If you believe that even one of them would root for the Yankees under any circumstances, you're sorely mistaken. They throw the payroll issue in our faces for one reason and reason only....they wish that their teams had the means pull it off.

Read these Hater blogs and the comments....these are the same hypocrites who were calling the Yankees, "the worst team $200 million can buy". Ready to bury us as soon as we fell a few games back. Now we control our destiny by finding solutions from within the ranks...and strengthen our team with Sunday's trade...and they whine about the Yankee payroll.

At least Metstradmus was honest about why the trade pissed him off. He was angry that the Phillies didn't ask for more and let the Yankees seal the deal without giving up their top prospects or Proctor. A legitmate beef.

Cinderella? Please. The Yankees never have been and never will be the underdog that everyone rallies around. Not in 1996, 1998 or even 2001. Because everyone knows what's lurking around the corner. It's like rooting for Ric Flair or Triple H. They'll come off like the sympathetic good guys for a little while...then as soon as things don't go their way....out comes the brass knuckles and the sledgehammer.

If you want to compare them to a woman, compare them to the Williams Sisters, Steffi Graf, Chris Evert, Dianne Sawyer or Queen Noor. They're the smooth, super athletic chicks with perfect bodies who you can't possibly keep up with. Or the cool statuesque Ivy League educated blondes who speak several languages and date movie stars and heads of state. In other words, the women you have no chance with. To beat or lay.

Happily ever after? In real life, Cinderella lives in the projects with her five kids and her man Ray-Ray who's out on work release.

So embrace the hate, Imperial fans. Wear it like a badge of honor. Guilt is for the weak.