Yanks hit with $25.69 million payroll tax

For the Yankees, winning the World Series came with a hefty price tag this year as MLB announced on Monday that the Yankees were the only team to be levied a tax on its payroll in 2009. The team must pay its $25.69 million to the Commissioner’s Office by Jan. 31. This marks the seventh straight year that the Yanks have had to pay the tax, and of the $190 million in luxury tax payments collected by baseball, $174 million of that has come from the Yanks. Considering that the idea of the luxury tax was to rein in the Yanks’ spending ways, I’d say it’s been a stunning failure for baseball. At least the other teams can to benefit in form of added revenue earnings when the Yanks’ money is redistributed.