Vazquez Deal: Why it’s Less Fun to be a Fan

Let me start by saying that I’ve been a Yankees fan for more than 30 years, share a Stadium season ticket package with some friends and watch about 120 or so of their games each year.  I am about as big a fan of the team and the sport as there is.

Today, while in the Manhattan office that I work out of a couple of days a week, one of the guys, also a huge Bombers fan, bursts in, excited about the Yanks getting Javy Vazquez in a trade with Atlanta this morning, for Melky Cabrera My first thought was, Didn’t we try that already?

Okay, Vazquez’s first stint in New York was brief, and didn’t end well, punctuated by the crippling first-pitch grand slam he served up to Johnny Damon in relief of Kevin Brown in Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS, effectively ending the season.

But then I remembered how dominant Vazquez was for the Braves.  Now, the #4 pitcher in the National League in 2009 (15-10, career-best 2.87 ERA) is the #4 pitcher on the Yankees in 2010.  But because cash-strapped Atlanta, still burdened with three more years on Derek Lowe’s onerous $15 million per year contract, had to unload salary, the Yankees and maybe two other teams were the only possible destinations.

I don’t blame the Yankees and Red Sox for their annual arms race; the rules are as they are and no team should eschew a deal or signing that can help if its revenues allow.

The thing I like most about being a sports fan is living and dying with my team, whether it’s the Yankees, Packers, Mavericks, or any of the many college teams I follow, and the feeling that your team accomplished something by winning a game, a division, or a championship. 

For me, although the 2009 Yankees World Series title was exciting, there was definitely not the same feeling I had when they won in 2006, or when the Packers won the Super Bowl the following January.  As much as I would like to bask in the accomplishment, maybe I’ve been beaten down by the constant references to the team’s payroll, or its de facto Mission Statement — World Series title or Bust — or the rantings of fans like those who think the “Gaping Hole” in left field now is a major problem.

In any case, I hate that my enthusiasm for 2010 feels tempered, not by the fact that Brian Cashman is doing everything he can to improve his team, but that the obvious advantage (read: $$$) he has over most of the other 29 general managers makes beating those teams less of an accomplishment. 

And less fun.