This post will piggyback off of one coming soon addressing concerns I have that the new New York ballparks, while assuredly fantastic venues for fans to watch ball games, will do more damage to the game in terms of further skewing revenues, and thus payrolls, further deteriorating the competitiveness in Major League Baseball.

In researching that post I came across a question-and-answer session conducted with Hank Steinbrenner, who will herefore be known on this site as the Idiot Son of George Steinbrenner.

George Steinbrenner is an interesting character. He was sometimes crass, even occasionally criminal (yes, search “pleaded guilty” at the linked bio page) in his business dealings. But he represented the Yankees proudly and even occasionally made sense.

He’s handed the reins largely over to sons Hank and Hal. If this interview was transcribed correctly, George should muzzle Hank and make sure the supposedly more reserved Hal becomes the team’s more frequent spokesperson.

Hank rants in this interview on revenue sharing, the divisional playoff system and the lack of logic displayed by sports media.

He’ll get little argument from me on the lack of logic in sports media – there is often a lack of competence and intelligence in today’s sports reporting. It mirrors that of general news reporting in being reactive and unanalytical, to perhaps create a new word.

But his rants against revenue sharing (Socialist and possibly unAmerican) and the divisional playoff system (the Dodgers made the playoffs while we had a better record – unfair) are little more than self-serving whining from someone who runs a team that has all the advantages in the world.

Were these systems not in place the Yankees could simply make the rest of the league its farm system – not that it already doesn’t do that to a large degree. But look at the payrolls over the years – revenue sharing isn’t perfect. The small market Florida Marlins exploit it in almost a reverse-criminal way, as illustrated previously on this blog.

But if revenue sharing weren’t in place, there would be little point in even having a regular season. Sure, every once in awhile you’d get a small market contender in there, but you could pretty well assure that the Red Sox, the Yankees and a couple others would be in the playoffs 90 percent of the time. … Hell, they already are in the playoffs about that often.

Which brings me to his rant on the divisional playoff system. Hank, your team made the playoffs for a dozen years in a row. Were you complaining about the divisional playoff system then?

Sure, the Cardinals were a fluke in 2006. So what? Quit whining. Your team was in the playoffs that year. Win the AL and beat them in the World Series if it’s so ridiculous.

Hank Steinbrenner has come off as a bumbling idiot pretty much since the time he became the face of the team last season. The backtracking on deadlines to make trades made him look foolish and many of his public statements, such as this one, were eye-rolling in their stupidity and obvious pandering for even more advantages for the already more-than-blessed Yankees.

I do not begrudge New York its advantages at garnering revenues. The city remains one of, if not my favorite places to visit and it was truly fantastic making my one and only foray into the old Yankee Stadium in 2008. I anticipate making several visits to the new building in the years to come as well.

But Hank Steinbrenner illustrates to a T why many, many people around the world are turned off by the Yankees and Major League Baseball in general.

The founders of the National Football League had it right. They realized that sacrificing some geographic revenue advantages was for the betterment of the league’s competitive balance. Major League Baseball has been an abysmal failure at realizing these benefits.

Revenue sharing helps equalize the playing field, but it just tips the iceburg. If the systems Steinbrenner ragged on in this story were not in place, Major League Baseball would be the worst for it – in fact as a fan living in the Midwest, there would be little reason to even bother.