THE DODGERS ARE STEALING A PAGE FROM THE STEINBRENNER PLAYBOOK

The Los Angeles Dodgers went big this past weekend and clearly Magic Johnson is on his way to become the George Steinbrenner of the West Coast. In case you live under a rock, Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford, Adrian Gonzalez and Nick Punto were traded to the Dodgers for James Loney and 4 minor leaguers.  Read HERE.  It was a crazy weekend if you were a fan of one of those teams.  If you were a Yankee fan, it was just nice to see the Red Sox being disrupted for a change.  It was interesting to me because I just don't know how I feel about rooting for Don Mattingly's Dodgers and wanting guys like Josh Beckett do well... I am not a fan of that guy at all!

This is a picture from Nick Punto's Twitter account of Beckett, Gonzalez and Punto on their way to LA on an airplane.  Man, Twitter's so freaking cool.

What's interesting to me though is the Dodgers and how they'll be perceived.  Lord knows, the Yankees have been bashed for years because they went out and bought players that would help their team win.  Seems like a weird strategy right? Notice the sarcasm.  The Los Angeles Dodgers are doing what they're supposed to do.  If you have the money to purchase guys and guys you think can help your team are available, don't you go for it?

The Yankees did it for years, the Red Sox have done it.  Last season the Rangers and Marlins did it.  Team's are catching on and it doesn't make sense to me that it's the Yankees...always the Yankees, that are the ones that are buying championships.  Why? Why not the Dodgers? They literally bought 4 guys, pretty good ones I might add, that can offer a lot for their club.  Now their is talk that they want to buy into a TV deal... read HERE.... let me guess... the moon is next, right?

Look, I wish the Dodgers well.  But, I wish the media would be alittle more consistant when it comes to teams and their purchases.  The Yankees will forever be hated by the sports media because when George Steinbrenner came in, he came in with an iron fist, demanding wins and in turn, he got wins with guys like Reggie Jackson and Catfish Hunter.

Then again, with Tino Martinez, Paul O'Neill and David Wells.  The media jumped all over him suggesting he was buying championships and then anti-Yankee fans joined in.  All I have to say is, where are those sports pages that are defending the great Yankee teams? My friend Tony said it best in a tweet to me the other day. He wrote:

So true.  Magic Johnson is a business man at the end of the day, if he wants to get whatever players he needs to win a championship, let him.  Shane Victorino. Hanley Ramirez. Josh Beckett. Adrian Gonzalez.  Hell, he had an opportunity, he has the money, he's going for it. It's the American dream, you play to win, in baseball, in life!  So let him, but I just wonder, will the media start blasting the Dodgers for buying a championship? Monitor it...watch it closely, because I have news for you...they won't.  God forbid the Yankees sign a big name starter this winter though, they'll hear it again from around the globe, much like they did when they signed CC Sabathia, AJ Burnett and Mark Teixeira... and won a championship.

Look, all I'm saying is this...at the end of the day, the whole reason for owning a team isn't to just get by, it's to win it all.  So... the Dodgers are taking a page from the Yankees playbook.  I applaud Magic Johnson, but I wonder if he'll hear the same crap us Yankee fans have heard for years... No... I doubt it.

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