THE YANKEES HEADLINE THAT WILL MAKE YOUR BLOOD BOIL!

This is why Sports writers aren't Yankee fans... because they just don't get it.

You want to say something provocative and then just move on? Write a column.  I say that for certain writers who clearly want to cause a stir.   The other day I wrote a piece titled THE YANKEES NEVER QUIT & NEITHER DO YOU. In it, I was clearly making a point that, if you just go out and read whatever the sports guys put out there, certain ones at least, you will not get the full story.  With that, I was clear that you needed to read all sides, and if that included reading the Yankees "root" sites, Bleeding Yankee Blue, Yankees Fans Unite, or true journalists who bring you the entire story, like Pete Caldera of the Bergen Record, Ken Davidoff of the New York Post, Marc Carig, Mark Feinsand, etc... you will see what's really going on in Yankeeland.  You'll also see a flair that keeps you coming back.

Enter a headline that came out late last night that will make every New York Yankee fan angry just days before Opening day.  Yankees should trade Mariano Rivera and Robinson Cano is the headline.  That's right... you read that correctly.  It's by a guy named Tom Van Riper.  I like him and I've read him but he got me in the door and now I'm aggravated.

Now look, let's put this in perspective.  This piece is about money and rebuilding and it's from Forbes and I understand what he's saying about the whole process of baseball, but there is one important part of this piece that is not being told.  Yankee fans and the Yankees do NOT part with icons... and it doesn't matter if they're in last place or first place... believe it or not, Yankees fans DO come first. More on that statement in a moment... but back to Van Riper...

He writes: "...it’s time for the Yankees to look ahead. How do you do that? By dealing your best assets to reload the talent base.  Robinson Cano might be the best player in the major leagues right now. But he’s also 30, and heading to free agency next fall represented by Scott Boras, who will no doubt be looking for a deal that pays his client well over $100 million until his 40th birthday, give or take.  That means the Yankees are faced with the age old problem that they and so many other teams have historically succumbed to: watching a player put up his best years in his 20s, and then paying him huge money afterward as his production declines...

As for Rivera, last season proved that the Yankees don’t particularly need him. With a deep stable of bullpen arms, holding leads after eight innings – Rivera’s only job – isn’t a big problem. And if the team doesn’t contend strongly, the extra one or two wins that Rivera gives them make no real difference anyway."

We don't need him? That's what I don't understand. I mean, sure, Rafael Soriano fit the bill when we needed him last season, but it's not about NEED as much as it is about WANT.  We love our guys... Van Riper is missing this.

Now, we can all get on board with the "looking ahead" part, but the Yankees are the Yankees for a reason.  We love players who contribute. We love players that do great things, and with it, it's clear that Van Riper doesn't get our side of it and probably never will. 

No, The Yankees won't ever trade Mariano Rivera.  They will most likely re-sign Robinson Cano because to them, while we may need "young", the Yankee brass knows that half the reason we fans come to the stadium every year is because of those guys.  We come to the stadium because we love 38 year old Derek Jeter and 40 year old Andy Pettitte.  They are Yankees that never die and because of them, we fans never give up. In short, we love them and will never part with them.

So yeah, Van Riper's a smart guy with his breakdown, but how smart can you really be if you don't get the Yankee fan side of this scenario?  Sure it's about money, but when it comes to the New York Yankees... it's about the love of our team and our wonderful Mariano and Jeet and Cano and Pettitte. 

And look, I get this too.... a lot of Yankee fans can't stand the Steinbrenners.  I however, am not in that category. Why you ask? Because running a team ain't easy, but one thing I do know is they believe in tradition and they want to please the fans because it they didn't, they'd pull a Jeffrey Loria.  So yeah, our players may be old and sure, we may save a few bucks if we were to unload them... but in the end, they're ours, they're Yankees, they're icons and they're champions... and that's something Van Riper will never understand.

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