The Evil Empire Strikes Again

In this day and age we're told that the Yankees and George Steinbrenner can no longer steal players away from other teams due to the fact that teams are more financially competitive and due to the fact that the Yankees have NO players in their farm system that they're willing to give up. Obiviously who ever told us that was full of crap.

Today the Yankees struck again and stole Bobby Abreu from the Phillies and brought him into the Evil Empire.

Yes that's right, in their attempt for MLB domination the Yankees yet again paid a player a huge amount of money to join their squad. Abreu was paid 1.5 million dollas to waive his no-trade clause so that he could go to New York. Does anyone think that this is fishy? I do. I know that I'd probably be a hypocrite and say that if Abreu came to the Red Sox I probably wouldn't mind. However, this has gone on way too long. I truly believe that is deals like this one that has accounted for the drop of in popularity of baseball (well that and steroids). Do you think this is why people like college sports better? Once someone is at a college people can't lure the player away with money (unless they go to the pros). But to make it truly simple, college is the one venue where all colleges are on the same playing field with who they can bring in (when it comes to recruiting).

We all know that their is an unfair advantage to teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, Mets, etc. when it comes to player salaries. Is the gap between those upper tier teams and the lower counterparts growing larger and larger? I almost feel like there's a class system when it comes to baseball teams. It's almost like capitalism at it's best. The rich get richer and the poorer get poorer. The poorer clubs always just bank on their farm system but the richer teams end up stealing them away when they realize they have talent. What can be done to make the Kansas Cities and Tampa Bays more competitive?

I don't know. It's times like these that make me frustrated about baseball. What do you all think?