According to baseball fans and even some owners, MLB has a serious problem with its payroll disparities. In the wake of the Yankees' off-season spending spree -- featuring surefire moves to lock up 3rd place in the AL East in 2009, everyone's favorite New York team flexed its financial muscle, showing off its finely sculpted body to the jealous chubsters in Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Tampa, and Oakland, among other places. 

The MLB has a severe problem with payrolls, revenue sharing, and needs a salary cap. Right?

I'm not convinced that this is what we should be upset about.

In the course of building Yankee Stadium (for the 2nd or 3rd time), the Yankees secured grants and loans from the federal agencies that were based on a severe over-estimate regarding the land in south Bronx, on which the new stadium site resides. The Yankees say that without these loans, they wouldn't have been able to build the Stadium -- I don't necessarily disagree, and I certainly don't disagree that if the Yankees didn't secure incredibly low-rate construction loans and grants, they certainly would not have been able to go on a $400+ million shopping spree.

The scenario all seems rather clear to me -- this economy reflects the entire phenomenon. The market would not have supported new Yankees Stadium had the Yanks been forced to build the stadium without those federal loans and grants. The Stadium funding and planning would have taken a different route, perhaps one that was less favorable to everyone's beloved Bronx Bombers. The beauty of the loans and grants, and the severe misjudgment of the land on which new Yankee Stadium sits, is that they allowed the Yankees to secure a route to build a stadium that supported their financial interests in baseball, as well as their financial interests outside of their payroll interests, and all of this occurred without any consideration whatsoever of whether or not Yankee Stadium was a viable project without such misjudgment of the land.

Given Guiliani's box seats, Billy Crystal's contract, and the decades of tradition of which the Yanks can boast, it seems rather intuitive that the Yanks should have a stadium built for them --  I think that even President George W. Bush and President-Elect Barack Obama would agree that it's UN-AMERICAN! for the Yanks to not receive a stadium.

Luckily, federal agencies agreed.

Don't be upset about the lack of revenue sharing in baseball, or the lack of a salary cap. Don't be upset about the amount of free agency contracts.

Be upset that the Yankees' plan for opening their stadium with a revamped line up featuring baseball's newest hired guns required stark dishonesty in order to secure construction funds. Be upset that the completion of the stadium with those suspect funds probably helped to spur the Yanks' spending spree. And now, be upset that this team will collect the revenue generated from this new stadium, with their new line up, with their new hired guns, on ground that wasn't worth what they said it was.

Luckily, the free agents they signed have the same problem -- they're not worth the advertised price. Of course, that's probably the way of business in New York.