This is what a lack of sleep does to you...
On the heels of the A-Rod for Soriano deal (the Rangers got jobbed, by the way), I'm wondering if maybe George Steinbrenner isn't a little more of a baseball lover than we give him credit for.

Is it possible that he's trying to accomplish two things here?

1) Win another world series, which would make (I'm pretty sure) 27 in the history of the Fall Classic. I can't blame him here - he's got the wherewithal, and the itch.

2) Actually IMPROVE the game?

Now, number two takes some imagining, so I'm going to explain it.

Let me propose that, perhaps, George Steinbrenner is a little more altruistic than we give him credit for. Is there a possibility that what he's actually trying to do is force the other owners to spend more money on quality players, and therefore force an improvement in the quality of competition in MLB?

By buying a world series, George is basically telling the other owners, "yeah, you can talk the talk, but you biznitches ain't walkin' shiznit." Perhaps he's trying to goad them into admitting that what baseball needs even more than a salary cap is a salary FLOOR, and more revenue sharing - something that will hurt him in the short run, but that will force the other owners to invest in more expensive (and, theoretically, BETTER) players. A collection of better players, in theory and usually in practice, has more of a chance of winning it all than a rag-tag bunch of minimum-wage losers.

Could it be that Georgieporgie is trying to force some hands in the upper echelons of MLB?

I doubt it, but it's something to think about.