Empirical evidence?

OK, here's something that doesn't work: playing the Imperial March from The Empire Strikes Back during pre-game introductions for the Phillies last night and the processional theme at the end of Star Wars (during the heroism medal ceremony) for the Yanks.

WHAT????

The YANKEES are the EMPIRE in baseball, the Phils are the rebels, and the Yanks should glory in it. Not only did the Yanks win 20 World Series in 42 seasons from 1923-64, since the advent of divisional play in 1969 only one franchise has even been to as many World Series (A's) as the Yanks have won (six). Why shy away from that? The Yanks should be the big, dark, intimidating bad a**es of baseball and embrace it, not the scrappy little rebels -- that's beneath them. And it's tone-deaf too. The Yanks should be telling the baseball world "we're back, now commence to trembling." (Of course, sucking demonstratively less against Cliff Lee would aid in projecting such aura.)

RedSax president Larry Lucchino dubbed the Yanks the "Evil Empire" and you know what? F--- him and his team. The Yanks, win or lose, are the only reason that Fox pulled NFL-level ratings for the World Series last night and they make the television rights worth the immense lucre that the Murdochs pay . . . and that pile of gold is split between the teams.

The Yanks draw, period. No matter how much ESPN and it's New Englander tilt (Bill Simmons, Peter Gammons) likes to prattle on about RedSawx Nation and shill for the sport's historically most racist franchise, which is centered in a backwater provincial city that reached the zenith of its global relevance 234 years ago, the fact is clear -- the Yankees are the top team in all of American sports.

So whine and cry as much as you want, the Yanks are the Empire, and it's a good thing too.