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The Yankees will always have a bright future.  Success is in the team's DNA.  It is not  just an accident that the Yankees have won more championships than any other team  in any sport,  and have more folks in the Baseball Hall of Fame than live in Chester, Conn. (a town located exactly between the "House That Ruth Built" and that cold and dreary little  ball field in Boston).  No accident!  It is a biological fact that the Yankees carry  the Vee Gene,  the victory gene.  That is correct:  a biological fact, a scientific certainty.  The Yankees are  genetically engineered to win.  If one were to put a dollop of Derek Jeter's blood under a  nuclear microscope, one would see the Vee Gene, and the  Golden Gloves gene, and the  World Series multiple rings gene, and the Most Valuable Player gene, and the Yankees Captain  gene, and, of course, the Cooperstown gene.   Do the same test on A-Rod, Mariano Riviera,  Jorge Posada, on the Yankee grounds keepers, on the play-by-play announcers, on the dude that sings the National Anthem,  and you will find the Vee Gene.  You can't beat Mother Nature,and the Vee Gene  comes directly from Adam and Eve.  So look out baseball.  The Yankees will be playing once again this October, 2011.

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There will not be an NFL lockout, as the players call the potential work stoppage, nor, if you are  a team owner, will there be players' strike next year. No one can afford it, and the television  networks will not allow it.  Who benefits when a company's  employees go on strike?  Who  benefits when an employer locks out the workers?  The answer in the short run is nobody.  The answer in the long run is nobody.  Employees loses wages that, depending on the length of  the non-work period, they can never mathematically recover.  Often the employees lose their  jobs. The employer loses profits, customers, investment capital, market share, and the economic purse to hire people, pay well, give raises.  Professional football players have careers that last, on average, less than five years.  If a player is making a few million a year, one lost year

is big money.  Team owners depend on non-ticket revenue to make it.  No football means no fans, no food sales, no advertisers, no beer and bratwurst money.  No money means bank loans  don't get paid; interest on stadium bonds doesn't get paid; player pension funds don't get  funded; Eli and Peyton don't do ESPN commercials; and Pepsi doesn't win any advertising  awards. The players and owners will snarl and growl and pontificate and threaten and and wail and gnash...and they will settle.  Both sides have leverage over the other.  Both sides know they are right and the other guys are wrong.  Both sides are praying to the same God to see it their way.  But both sides are greedier than Donald Duck's uncle.  The current players won't put a penny into funding pensions,  or into health care, for former players who made today's good life possible. The current owners would play 52 games a year, as long as the fans  and advertisers showed up,  without even a fleeting care if all the players became permanently  mangled or mentally retarded.  Both parties know that greed is good.  Big money makes big men crawl.   And crawl they will.  Everyone of the participants would crawl through a mile of broken glass to get the money.  Show 'em the money, and get ready for Monday, make that Money Night football.

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It can be argued, albeit whimsically, that if you love Rome, then you love the  

preservation of antiquities, and that if you love Shanghai, then you love the

encouragement of entrepreneurs,  and that if you love New York City, the greatest city on the planet, then you love the rescue and  restoration of the New York Yankees.   Whether you love the Yankees or love to hate the Yankees, you do love that team that attracts millions of spenders to NYC.  You do love that the greatest brand name and logo in the history of world sports, are once again shiny jewels in New York's crown, in America's crown.  The Yankees return to glory days is due to George Steinbrenner.

Ah, George Steinbrenner.  The Boss.  The most scrutinized and vilified owner of any sports team in existence. (Quick:  Who owns the Edmonton Oilers, The San Diego Chargers, Manchester United, the Boston Celtics?)  George Steinbrenner:  the firer of the beloved, the hirer of thebehated.  And the man who individually saved the Yankees from the abyss of corporate  clutchery and restored the majesty that Ruth and Gehrig and DiMaggio and Mantle and   Huggins and McCarthy created.  Mr. Steinbrenner is playing catch with Peter and the apostles now, but his imprint on the sports universe is forever.  Go Yankees!