Hour 1: Need New Philosophy

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Michael Kay (0:34)

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Michael Kay (0:41)

And good afternoon, everybody. This is indeed The Michael Kay Show. We thank you for joining us on this Thursday, October 8th, 2026 Me and you for two. Those are the rules of engagement. Fastest moving two hours in sports talk radio, and it's fast moving because of you, the great co-host that I have, 1-800-919-3776. That is the membership number, the password, whatever you'd like to call it, to be involved. And this is going to be two hours of therapy, I am sure, and a lot of people need it, and it's warranted. And let's get right to it as the Yankees lose last night by a score of four to three to get swept by the Tampa Bay Rays and lose in the American League Division Series, a series in which they did not lead for one half inning, not one half inning. And I hate to tell you, they got beaten by a better team. Now the big question is, why does Tampa Bay have a better team than the Yankees? In fact, when you look at the eight years that Aaron Boone has lost in the playoffs at whatever round, he has always lost to a better team. The team with the better record, a higher seeded team. So that's almost understandable in a weird way. But the question is, why is there always a better team than the Yankees? There is not one team in the American League that has more resources or spends more money on payroll than the New York Yankees. The other teams with the high payrolls are all in the National League. In the American League, it's the Yankees by a long shot. So yeah, they lose to teams that are higher seeded. But again, the question is begged, why are the teams better than the Yankees? Why are the Yankees with a $330 million payroll, not better than the Tampa Bay Rays? Why? Why the Rays better? What happened in this series is unacceptable. It is a massive embarrassment. And now you have to start asking why. I've long defended this organization and told you how tough it is to be a really good team every single year and to make the playoffs almost every single year. I've long said that, and I know that you've all been angered by what I feel is just my honesty, that I'm not on your side on some things. And that's fine. That's the price of fish, I guess. But 17 years without winning a championship is unacceptable with the amount of money that the organization pours into this team. It's unacceptable. How do you go 17 years if you're the New York Yankees and not win a championship? You've been to one World Series, you lost that in five games to the Dodgers. And I don't just poo poo go into the World Series, no matter what route you take. They got to a World Series, but they lost. They have not won a World Series since 2009 To put that into proper perspective, the Kansas City Royals have won a World Series since the last time the Yankees won one.

So, there has to be a deep dive on why this happens. Why is this happening? And why is it accepted? I don't think we can go back to the days of George Steinbrenner saying, World Series are bust. Because I don't think it's as realistic as it was when he was alive. There are more layers to it. There are penalties going over certain tax thresholds. I'm not going to get into the minutia and bore you. But no championships in 17 years when the Steinbrenner family has spent billions of dollars of payroll, during that time.

It's unacceptable to go that long without winning a title. Now, I know that each and every one of us, including me as a broadcaster of the team, we were completely spoiled by what happened in the mid-90s. Spoiled. It was such a wondrous time. It was such an unbelievable team. And so we thought, well, this is the way life is going to be from now on. And I think what we failed to realize is how difficult that was to achieve, to have all of those players ripen at the same time, stay together for as long as they did, and reel off those championships. So no one is saying that the Yankees should be winning four out of five World Series. I'm not saying that because, again, it's a different time. But there is not one cogent explanation that could be put forth that would tell you that they should not have won a championship in 17 years. It's one of the longest stretches in the history of this organization which began in 1903