NEW YORK | The 2009 World Series is set. The festivities begin with workouts Tuesday at Yankee Stadium. And if anything about that last sentence turns your stomach, feel free to put baseball politely to bed for this season.
This year’s matchup between the Philadelphia Phillies (the defending champions) and New York Yankees (they of the 26 World Series titles and 40 American League pennants) is going sugar-free.
To conclude a 10-year stretch that sent 14 teams to the World Series and afforded countless opportunities to talk about the revenue-sharing structure that has brought widespread parity to the game, major league baseball gets this: no cutesy Cinderellas, no executive-level talk about competition and the good of the game - just two East Coast blue bloods slugging it out for a championship.
Not since the Yankees faced the Braves in 1999 has there been a World Series matchup like this one, pitting two of the game’s model franchises in a Fall Classic sure to repel as many people as it compels.
The Yankees have the game’s highest payroll; the Phillies ranked seventh on Opening Day, and that was before the acquisitions of pitchers Cliff Lee and Pedro Martinez. Before Game 1, the Yankees will trot out Jay-Z and Alicia Keys - two musicians hardly wanting for commercial success - to perform “Empire State of Mind,” their current chart-topper that is an ode to all things New York, including the Yankees themselves.
The teams have combined for five playoff appearances in the past three years. They play long games before loud, crass fan bases and feature high-priced sluggers. And in Lee and Yankees starter CC Sabathia, the teams will put former teammates on the mound for Game 1 whom the Cleveland Indians shipped out because they were about to get too expensive.
“It is really not a surprise that we are here,” said Sabathia, who in the offseason signed the biggest contract ever given to a pitcher (seven years, $162.5 million). “I hate to sound like that, but this is a really good team. Like I said, we get along. We have fun. This is what you get.”
If television ratings for the first two rounds are any indication, this series should bring more interest than last year’s dud matching the Phillies and Tampa Bay Rays. In a Monday conference call, Fox Sports president Ed Goren said Game 6 of the Yankees-Angels series drew a 9.3 rating and a 15 share, good for 15.5 million viewers nationwide. The entire series pulled a 6.5 rating and 12 share, compared to 4.8/8 for the 2008 National League Championship Series between the Phillies and Dodgers, which Fox televised.
In the Phillies, at least, baseball everymen will find some common ground. Their payroll, while boosted by one of the nation’s largest markets, has grown mostly as a function of re-signing in-house talent (Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins, Cole Hamels, etc.). They’ve drafted smart, and even their splashiest moves have been modest in comparison to those of the Yankees.
After winning the World Series last year, the Phillies let left fielder Pat Burrell leave in free agency and signed Raul Ibanez to a three-year, $30 million deal to replace him. That move came around the same time the Yankees were on their scorched-earth free agency path, signing Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Mark Teixeira for a combined $423.5 million, but Ibanez was just as critical to the Phillies’ success as any of those moves were to the Yankees. He hit .272 with 34 homers and 93 RBI, making the All-Star team and surpassing Burrell’s production of a year ago.
“The Phillies were very, very smart in making an early signing of Raul Ibanez,” Fox baseball analyst Tim McCarver said. “They picked Ibanez before any organization could ready themselves and make a determination as to whether they were going to sign him or not, and Ibanez was an immediate success in Philadelphia. So they filled a huge hole. That’s the type of signing - and Pedro is the type of signing - that leads to dynastic proportions.”
Still, there’s little in this series that speaks to MLB’s ability to create an even landscape despite McCarver’s assertion Monday that “the system is working.”
The 2000s are ending the same way the 1990s did: with a couple of teams you’ve quite possibly already seen too much on your TV.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.