The Yankees are finally back in the World Series, but it certainly didn’t come cheap, and the team’s path could soon grow even more expensive.

The club, by far Major League Baseball’s most successful team with 27 World Series titles, clinched the American League pennant on Saturday, closing out the Guardians in a hard-fought, five-game series. For all that historical success, 15 years had passed since the Yankees’ last pennant, tied for the longest such stretch in franchise history. 

In the intervening decade and a half since its 2009 title, the Yankees have paid nearly $3.5 billion in total player payroll, consistently ranking among the league’s top spenders, including a $309 million outlay this year that ranked second only to the crosstown Mets. Before this year, though, the Yankees continued to come up short on the field, including four AL Championship Series losses between 2012 and 2022 that often frustrated fans and failed to meet their lofty expectations. 

The Yankees’ big contracts over that time ranged wildly from bona-fide hits such as the nine-year, $360 million deal for star outfielder and likely AL MVP Aaron Judge to outright busts such as a separate, $153 million pact over seven years for oft-injured former outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury. In the pennant celebration at Cleveland’s Progressive Field, though, such fiscal matters were at least temporarily far from the mind of Yankees ownership.

“This has been an incredible year, and it’s an incredible group of guys,” Yankees managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner said of the team during the AL championship trophy ceremony. “We had our ups and we had our downs, but they never had a doubt. They never panicked. Every day, they went out and did their job, and that’s why we’re here.”

The Yankees are now set to face the National League champion Dodgers, giving MLB a dream matchup and continuing what has been a scintillating MLB postseason. The World Series is scheduled to start on Friday. 

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The big hero in Saturday’s clinching Game 5 against the Guardians was Yankees outfielder Juan Soto, acquired last offseason in a trade with the Padres. Soto hit a clutch three-run home run in the 10th inning, providing the final margin of victory for New York to clinch the pennant. 

He will be a free agent after the World Series, and after another excellent season in an already-legendary career, Soto was already expected to receive the second-largest contract in MLB history, trailing only the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani. The latest dramatics have only amplified that anticipation. Prior projections of a multiyear deal beginning at $500 million may soon start at $600 million, or more. Fan chants imploring Steinbrenner to resign Soto were quite noticeable during Saturday’s trophy ceremony. And even Soto’s teammates were quickly imploring Steinbrenner to dig deep to retain the star.

“Pay my guy! Pay Juan Soto!,” third baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. said on the YES Network, suggesting a $700 million deal that would match Ohtani.

Austin’s big sports weekend, filled with excitement and expectation going into it, ended instead with unexpected fan conduct, recriminations, apologies, and even a fine. 

The hometown Texas Longhorns, college football’s No. 1 team heading into the weekend, lost on the field 30-15 to No. 5 Georgia on Saturday night, sinking the top ranking to a No. 5 slot in new polls released Sunday. It was much worse in the stands, though, as Longhorns fans littered the north end of Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium with water bottles and trash to protest a pass-interference penalty that wiped out a defensive interception for Texas.

Officials soon reversed the call, and the Southeastern Conference later confirmed that there was no penalty on the play. But that’s hardly the end of the story as both the conference and University of Texas officials condemned the behavior and the SEC levied a $250,000 fine on the Longhorns. That amount is consistent with a conference fine on Tennessee in 2021 for similar fan behavior after former Volunteers coach Lane Kiffin returned to Knoxville while coaching Ole Miss. 

“The throwing of debris and resulting interruption of play that took place Saturday night cannot be part of any SEC event,” conference commissioner Greg Sankey said in a statement.

Additionally, Texas will be required to identify individuals, where possible, who threw debris and ban them from university athletic events for the remainder of the 2024-2025 academic year. The Longhorns also must review their game management procedures and alcohol policies.

Prior to these sanctions, Georgia coach Kirby Smart went further, suggesting fans are now emboldened in a new way to protest game officials’ decisions.

“I will say now we have a precedent that if you throw a bunch of stuff on the field and endanger athletes, you’ve got a chance to get your call reversed,” he said after the game. 

The conduct and the loss bring an unfortunate turn to Texas’s season in which it achieved its first No. 1 ranking since 2008, coinciding with the university’s first campaign in the SEC.

“While we deeply appreciate the passion and loyalty of our fan base at the University of Texas at Austin, we do not condone the unsportsmanlike conduct that was exhibited by some fans,” said several school officials, including president Jay Hartzell and athletic director Chris Del Conte, in a statement.

Race Matters

Formula One’s U.S. Grand Prix Sunday at the Circuit of the Americas, conversely, was a much calmer affair, with Charles Leclerc claiming the race. Fellow Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz finished second. Lando Norris originally finished third, but was assessed a five-second penalty for forcing Max Verstappen off the track, allowing the current F1 leader for 2024 to instead claim the spot for the race. 

Final attendance numbers for the three-day race weekend have yet to be released. But strong crowds were seen throughout, and the total is likely to at least challenge last year’s 432,000, if not surpass it. In addition to the motorsports action itself, race festival events included headlining concerts by Sting and Eminem.