YankeesGround.com | New York Yankees News, yankees Scores, Game Recaps & Commentary - <div>STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - You wouldn't know it from the way the Yankees are throwing boatloads of cash at any major-league pitcher who can still raise his arm above his shoulder, but the economy's in the ditch. </div>Maybe you heard. Unemployment's off the charts, bankers won't even loan money to other bankers, the U.S. automakers are on the brink of going bankrupt - and, best of all, nobody seems certain about how to get the whole mess turned around. The Yankees' largesse aside, even sports are starting to feel the pinch. Buick's cutting back on its sponsorship of Tiger Woods and the PGA Tour (which might sound like the same thing, but you get the point.) Honda's dropping out of Formula One racing. One of the WNBA's flagship franchises, the Houston Comets, has gone belly-up. The Arena Football League's considering suspending operations. So far, with their television money already locked in for this season, the Big Three - Major League Baseball, the NFL and the NBA - haven't really felt the crunch. But that may not last forever, which is why most forward-thinking teams not named the Yankees have been cutting back in big ways or small, saving for a rainy day, kind of like folks stocking up on groceries before a storm. The NBA is cutting 80 jobs. The NFL, which prints money, plans to lay off 4 percent of the league work force over the next 60 days. Heck, even Francisco Rodriguez, the Mets' new closer, had to settle for half of what he was after on the free-agent market. Sure, half of what K-Rod was after might be more than everybody on your block will make in their lifetimes. Combined. But still. The people who know about this stuff say in a worst-case scenario, the advertising dollars could dry up, corporations could decide they can no longer afford their luxury boxes and premium seats, and the whole industry could implode, kind of like the sub-prime mortgage market, and send us back to the Spartan sports climate of 1960. Or 1950. We should be so lucky. For those with short memories or short life spans, there was a time - before free-agency and the big television money changed everything, and before luxury boxes and Personal Seat Licenses - when most professional athletes were regular people who lived in the neighborhood. And when the cheering stopped, most of them went out and got real jobs. A lot of them even had to do a little something in the offseason, to tide them over. In that world, high school athletes treasured the promise of a college scholarship because it represented a free education, not an avenue to a sneaker contract, and ordinary working stiffs could afford to take their kids to see the games, most of which started before their bedtimes. And somehow everybody survived. Not only that, but even the ballplayers, who were little more than indentured servants compared to today's multi-millionaires, seemed to have more fun. Sure, there were always people who wondered if there was something wrong with a system where centerfielders and cornerbacks were paid more than teachers or cops or firemen. But in boom times, it was easier to shrug off the disparity. Supply and demand, and all that. When the economy's in the toilet - when working people are losing their jobs, and their pensions, and even that fall-back $8-an-hour job at Shop-Rite isn't so easy to come by anymore, and the smartest heads in the country are scratching their heads, wondering what to do about it, it's nothing short of obscene. If it's possible to have too much of a good thing, that's what happened to sports. For decades, while greedy owners and me-first players were doing their worst to screw it up - some of us kept waiting for the average fan to get fed up and walk away, and for the bottom to fall out of the whole enterprise. But it never did. The more they did to ruin a good thing, the richer everybody got. Until now. Every day, it seems, the firewall that separated sport from the real world gets a little thinner. If this keeps up, the Monopoly money may run out, and K-Rod may not be the only athlete who has to learn to live on a measly $10 million or $11 million a year. Pity. They say everything runs in cycles. Who knows? One day we may even go back to a time when the cheap seats really were, and regular people could go to the games without taking out a second mortgage, which they wouldn't qualify for in the current economic climate anyway. And wouldn't that be something?

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - You wouldn't know it from the way the Yankees are throwing boatloads of cash at any major-league pitcher who can still raise his arm above his shoulder, but the economy's in the ditch.

Maybe you heard.

Unemployment's off the charts, bankers won't even loan money to other bankers, the U.S. automakers are on the brink of going bankrupt - and, best of all, nobody seems certain about how to get the whole mess turned around.

The Yankees' largesse aside, even sports are starting to feel the pinch.

Buick's cutting back on its sponsorship of Tiger Woods and the PGA Tour (which might sound like the same thing, but you get the point.)

Honda's dropping out of Formula One racing. One of the WNBA's flagship franchises, the Houston Comets, has gone belly-up.

The Arena Football League's considering suspending operations.

So far, with their television money already locked in for this season, the Big Three - Major League Baseball, the NFL and the NBA - haven't really felt the crunch.

But that may not last forever, which is why most forward-thinking teams not named the Yankees have been cutting back in big ways or small, saving for a rainy day, kind of like folks stocking up on groceries before a storm.

The NBA is cutting 80 jobs.

The NFL, which prints money, plans to lay off 4 percent of the league work force over the next 60 days.

Heck, even Francisco Rodriguez, the Mets' new closer, had to settle for half of what he was after on the free-agent market.

Sure, half of what K-Rod was after might be more than everybody on your block will make in their lifetimes.

Combined.

But still.

The people who know about this stuff say in a worst-case scenario, the advertising dollars could dry up, corporations could decide they can no longer afford their luxury boxes and premium seats, and the whole industry could implode, kind of like the sub-prime mortgage market, and send us back to the Spartan sports climate of 1960.

Or 1950.

We should be so lucky.

For those with short memories or short life spans, there was a time - before free-agency and the big television money changed everything, and before luxury boxes and Personal Seat Licenses - when most professional athletes were regular people who lived in the neighborhood.

And when the cheering stopped, most of them went out and got real jobs.

A lot of them even had to do a little something in the offseason, to tide them over.

In that world, high school athletes treasured the promise of a college scholarship because it represented a free education, not an avenue to a sneaker contract, and ordinary working stiffs could afford to take their kids to see the games, most of which started before their bedtimes.

And somehow everybody survived.

Not only that, but even the ballplayers, who were little more than indentured servants compared to today's multi-millionaires, seemed to have more fun.

Sure, there were always people who wondered if there was something wrong with a system where centerfielders and cornerbacks were paid more than teachers or cops or firemen.

But in boom times, it was easier to shrug off the disparity.

Supply and demand, and all that.

When the economy's in the toilet - when working people are losing their jobs, and their pensions, and even that fall-back $8-an-hour job at Shop-Rite isn't so easy to come by anymore, and the smartest heads in the country are scratching their heads, wondering what to do about it, it's nothing short of obscene.

If it's possible to have too much of a good thing, that's what happened to sports.

For decades, while greedy owners and me-first players were doing their worst to screw it up - some of us kept waiting for the average fan to get fed up and walk away, and for the bottom to fall out of the whole enterprise.

But it never did.

The more they did to ruin a good thing, the richer everybody got.

Until now.

Every day, it seems, the firewall that separated sport from the real world gets a little thinner.

If this keeps up, the Monopoly money may run out, and K-Rod may not be the only athlete who has to learn to live on a measly $10 million or $11 million a year.

Pity.

They say everything runs in cycles.

Who knows? One day we may even go back to a time when the cheap seats really were, and regular people could go to the games without taking out a second mortgage, which they wouldn't qualify for in the current economic climate anyway.

And wouldn't that be something?