Serfing The Wave Of Corporate Feudalism

We are only who our masters are.

Or who we recognize our masters to be.

I thought about this as I thought about something someone said to me last night.

My son and I went to an Atlanta Braves game last Saturday. The Braves played the Detroit Tigers and lost 2-1. It was hot as hell. Seriously, if hell exists, and hell is hot, that's how hot it was. And they only had standing-room-only tickets, mostly because there's not an American League ballpark closer than Baltimore.

But it was Free Hat Day, so it was all worth it.

Last night, when I was finished playing ball, a guy asked me where I got my hat. I told him I got it for free at the game.

"See?" he turns to his friend. "Free hat day. I told you we should have gone."

(The hat's nice enough. It's got "NAPA" on the back, because NAPA sponsored the whole thing, but anything's cooler when it's free).

At which point a guy who tells me he's headed back to "New Yawk" this weekend says, "Yeah, but it ain't the Yankees."

As in, the Yankees are better.

And I suppose they are. There was that whole "Who's the Team of the '90s?" thing in 1999, when the Braves and the Yankees met in the World Series. The Braves had won in '95, the Yankees in '96 and '98. Whoever won in '99 would be the "Team of the '90s," because the Braves would have won as many World Series and would win the tie-breaker because of all their divisional championships.

And the Yankees proceeded to sweep them.

Which leads me to my point:

The Yankees have been able to maintain a high level of success because of the nature of how teams are built in Major League Baseball.

There's a limit on how much the team can pay for its players. Beyond the salary cap, the owner of a certain team has to be willing to pay a luxury tax to exceed the limit.

George Steinbrenner is willing to do this to make the Yankees a winner (which hasn't really worked out so well in the past seven years in terms of actual championships). In fact, he's willing to pay just about anything.

The Yankees are a convenient target because of this. Or a cause to join the bandwagon.

I do neither.

Other than respect the fact that an owner is willing to spend money on his team instead of stand aloof on the sidelines and line his own pockets with the money that comes in from those who follow their respective teams.

George Steinbrenner wants to win, and he will do anything, within the rules, to do it.

The Atlanta Braves used to be like that, when Ted Turner owned them. Then they sold out to Time Warner, then AOL/Time Warner. And on and on ...

It strikes me, as someone looks at my free hat and compares my team with another team, that neither of us are able to define our success by the success of a team.

(That's not to say that what a fan invests in a team is without merit. You earn the right to be a winner if the team you suffer with and celebrate for wins. That's how the whole thing stays afloat).

But if you think about it, we're only what our masters allow us to be.

A Yankees fan is only worth as much as his master is willing to pay to make his team successful.

Even if lightning strikes and the Marlins or the White Sox win a World Series, the Yankees are in it every year. They are the standard-bearers.

The Braves used to be in that class, before the master decided to spend less money.

And that's the way it is.

My success, currently, depends on who my master allows me to be.

Work. Want. Need. Acquire. Have. Owe. Default.

It's true of so much of the world, as the world consolidates ever closer to corporate feudalism.

You can aspire to be a master, but then you are nothing but a ruler of others.

Unless you are nothing more than a master of yourself.

And to do that, you have to be willing to want nothing.

Nothing except your freedom.

Or nothing more than a free hat.