I Demand an Investigation

I swear I could hear King George yelling from the great beyond. As Cliff Lee headed down the road, turning his back on pinstripes and dollars, the axis of the baseball world tilted towards Philadelphia. As a lifelong Yankee fan, I demand an investigation.

This is the time of year when everyone is supposed to be grousing about the inequity of it all. Once again, the story goes, the Yankee green has the rest of the world seeing red. Now it is just a Philadelphia shade of red.

Sure, we missed some along the way. The great Greg Maddux shunned us and teamed up with Glavine and Smoltz in Atlanta. That one hurt a lot. But now Lee joins Oswalt, Halladay and Hamels in a foursome that should be nicknamed "piling on". This is something only we are allowed to do.

So we have an infield whose combined annual salary is just short of the budget for the war in Afghanistan. So we retain every star in our galaxy because it is in our galaxy. Mariano and Derek belong to us. Don't touch our guys, and don't stand in our way when we want what we want because we deserve it.

I am asking the commissioner to intercede on our behalf. I don't want to go into spring training with the thought that we will have to be lucky to win the World Series this year. That is something for the rest of the world to contemplate. New York is well, New York. That is all I need to tell you, Mr. Selig. Just find some reason why this is illegal, immoral or at the least intolerable.