In case you were holed up in a bomb shelter last night, baseball's most-winning team did it again for the 27th time. Yes, the New York Yankees won the World Series. Whether you're jumping for joy, inconsolable, or indifferent, the 2009 World Series marked the Yank's triumphant return to the big show, and showed the sport's ability to bounce back from steroid scandals and faltering viewership. So who does the trophy belong to most?
- A-Rod After a highly publicized breakup of his marriage, word got around that the Yankees slugger did steroids in 2003. But according to Dan Shanoff at the Sporting Blog, A-Rod critics should now be silenced. "Hope you enjoyed the era of 'A-Fraud' and 'A-Roid' and 'Lipstick' and 'The Slap' and weird Toronto flings and franchise-crippling contracts and, most of all, the notion that A-Rod is a me-first all-star loser...He knows and we know: His legacy has been transformed."
- The Yankees says Sports Illustrated's Joe Posnanski. Asking why this particular squad was the one to bring home the trophy, he says, "You can say that there was something different about this Yankees team, something sturdier. The chemistry was better. They had a sense of purpose. And so on. And maybe all of that's true. It's hard to say...So: Why THIS Yankees team? Well, the Yankees were once again a terrific team. And as for the rest -- it probably comes down to that most unsatisfying of clichés: It was just their year."
- George Steinbrenner. While the Yanks in the World Series was a familiar sight, one thing was missing this year: their notoriously fickle owner, George Steinbrenner. Too feeble to travel, Steinbrenner watched the 2009 games in Florida, but he was not forgotten. New York Times Bats blogger David Waldstein says, "Long after the game had ended and the fans had left, the giant scoreboard in center field of the new Yankee Stadium glowed with an image of the golden World Series trophy. A message below it read, 'Boss, this is for you.'"
- The Fans, says Deadspin's Barry Petchesky, who sums up fan-feelings with this short post, "So they spent more money than anyone else. So they didn't have to wait as long as anyone else. Ask us fans if it feels any less amazing. It doesn't."
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