When empires fall it is from excess, not want.

So it will be with the New York Yankees, who are sowing the seeds of their own destruction with a 1 million payroll.

Baseball has always been a sport of great teams, especially great New York teams.  They have built baseball's traditions, expanded the fan base, fed the media.  So it isn't a bad thing to see the Yankees winning.

But not by spending million above the next closest competitor.  Not by eliminating the Orioles, Rays, and Blue Jays before the season starts.  Not by driving up the price of tickets throughout baseball by setting arbitration salary standards out of reach of many teams.  Not by creating "the Yankee contract" as the ultimate goal of stars under 27 years old, depriving the teams which developed those players of any chance of retaining them.

This is where we are at.

$75 million is the salary base to make the playoffs.  The Twins are the only exception this season and they'll be gone faster than the memory of summer on a cold, October night.  Unless the Phillies return to the World Series, it will cost 0 million plus to play the final games of the season.

A family of four must spend well in excess of 0 for a night at the ball park.  Some will pay, but go less often.  Some will stop going.  A quick look at attendance this years says the downward spiral has started.

It is a foregone conclusion Joe Mauer of the Twins, the best young talent in the American League, will command at least a million a year contract after 2010 and will be the center of a bidding war between the Yankees and RedSox.  The Twins and Mauer will say the right things about a return to the twin cities, but it isn't going to happen.

In a weak free agent year, the Yankees could turn over some free agents of their own like Matsui, Damon, and Petitte and restock with the likes of Jason Bay, Matt Halliday, or John Lackey, making 2010 the second year in a row the Yankees have drained the pool of marquee free agents.  While the economy limits the number of bidders, the Yankees could upgrade at several positons without adding huge amounts of salary.

Then there are potential 2011 free agents like Carl Crawford and Roy Halliday.  Adding Halliday to the Yankees rotation is almost a nuclear option.  After cornering the market on marquee free agent pitchers in 2009 with Sabathia and A.J. Burnett, it is hard to imagine the Yankees adding a pitcher.  But Yankee paranoia about the RedSox pursuing Halliday could put him in pinstripes in 2010.

If the Yankees make even two or three of these plays, where does that leave baseball?  The economy and attendance are in decline, arbitration will keep salaries high, and the public will be in a surly mood over Yankee imperialism in the AL East.

The current collective bargaining agreement will expire in late 2011.  Baseball owners will be under pressure to make changes in free agency.  Yankee domination will increase demands for change. 

If the economy stays bad, and I believe it will, we will see deep divisions among owners and ultimately attempts to negotiate a salary cap.  So much money will be lost in smaller markets the next two seasons, there will be owners hoping against hope for a long lockout.

the Yankees aren't the only reason we'll likely see a prolonged strike in 2012, but they are a big part of why we may end up with some form of a cap.  Bad for baseball (witness the pariocrity of the NFL) and worse for the Yankees.

We can hope the Steinbrenner family excercises some common sense and judgement during the off season.  Maybe they won't vulture the cream of a limited free agent crop.  Perhaps they won't get into insane bidding wars with the RedSox.

Who believes that?

The Yankees would argue, and not without some logic, that the problem is with the industry model and not their spending.  If there is not enough talent available, if some teams can't compete, the answer is obvious.  Let them go out of business.  Fewer teams with the same number of players equals lower salaries and better competition.

Baseball won't buy that.  The powers that be will come up up with some Rube Goldberg version of a cap. 

The MLBPA won't buy into a cap.  Then comes the strike, then comes a lost season, and then?

Maybe a cap so severe it will be the end of the Yankees as we know them.

Which won't be fine.