Everyone of a certain age remembers the Charles Atlas ad. If you were looking through a comic book, the ad would be in there somewhere. And if you haven’t seen it before, the story goes like this:
A bully kicks sand in the face of “Mac” and his girl one day at the beach. The bully threatens to beat Mac up, but decides that he isn’t worth the trouble. Mac goes home, looks in the mirror, and decides to get the book that Charles Atlas, a renown body builder, offered through the mail. After the book works its magic, Mac returns to the beach and knocks the bully out, thus becoming the “hero of the beach.”
The Masahiro Tanaka signing today proves, if you had any doubts, that the New York Yankees are still the unnamed bully of the beach. They’re bigger and richer than everyone else, and when it comes to wooing the prize free agent of the offseason, of course he’s going to take the big stage and the big money in New York.
Masahiro Tanaka would have to be a fool to do otherwise, and Cubs fans — and those of every other team in the majors — must now realize this and move on.
