The morning after the Yankees won their 27th World Series, one of their scouts sent an e-mail that read: "You cannot believe how Brian Cashman treated all of us scouts and the little people. It was tremendous."It was refreshing, because the clichéd response to winning the World Series seemed to be a universal "The Yankees bought the Series," as if somehow they went outside the rules of law and bought Cook or Palm Beach County.Look, there are serious inequities in the system that we will see spelled out in the coming months that are creating a canyon between big and small markets, coastal and mid-American economies. In this current system, however, the New York Yankees played by the rules. The Mets outspent the Marlins by $103 million and finished 17 games behind them. The Tigers outspent the Twins by $62 million. No one decried the Blue Jays when they won with the highest payroll in 1993.They are the Yankees, they hadn't won a World Series since the Clinton administration, they were opening a ballpark that cost more than the GNP of Bolivia, they have a regional television network worth more than $3B. What were Hal Steinbrenner and Brian Cashman supposed to do -- concede to the Red Sox, Rays and Blue Jays and say "We really feel for the economic plight of the Indians and Royals"? Were they supposed to say "We feel for the Madoff victims and thus will try to create an appropriate level field"?They played the system. They spent for the winningest pitcher in baseball the past three years, CC Sabathia, and he did what they paid him to do -- lead the American League in wins and pitch brilliantly in the playoffs. They paid A.J. Burnett to be a power No. 2 starter, which he was. They paid Mark Teixeira what it took to get him away from the Red Sox, and he ultimately probably was the eight-game difference between the two teams. The Yankees' payroll actually went down from 2008. Could a small-market team afford the $16M Nick Swisher is owed the next two years? No. Or Damaso Marte's $4M. Any more than the Marlins could afford the $2.25M Jeremy Hermida could take to arbitration, hence his trade to Boston. Any more than the Indians can afford a legitimate starting catcher in Kelly Shoppach, which is why he will be moved to some place like Boston, soon.This is the baseball economic system. Teams like the Yankees and Red Sox can afford to pay lower-round draft choices first-round money if they have first-round talent -- which is why the two best prospects in the Boston organization are outfielder Ryan Westmoreland and pitcher Casey Kelly -- because the commissioner's office failed to negotiate a slotting system in the last basic agreement.This winter, creative minds need to move beyond the current revenue-sharing system and -- with the appreciation that the current economy inflates the banana-republic dichotomy between rich and non-rich -- try to find ways to equalize the path to championship opportunity. Whining about the Yankees is as pointless as it is tedious.The new Yankee Stadium has its flaws, and because Wall Street's economics changed, that moat between the average and the super-rich paying customers sapped a lot of energy from the park, to the point that Wednesday night had the feel of an April matchup with the Orioles, but it is a tremendous, spectacular stadium. OK, sometimes the Andrew Brackmans take awhile, but how'd you like to be Drayton McLane, spend $105M on a major league payroll and have a second-division team because you bowed to the commissioner's office and refused to sign draft choices. Or Fred Wilpon, who had the second-highest major league payroll in baseball and had a void of high-minor league talent because of a refusal to invest in draft choices? The fact is that the Yankees pour millions in luxury tax dollars into a pseudo-socialistic system that may be teetering on David Halberstam's view of the late days of the Soviet Union.Sure, Alex Rodriguez, Sabathia, Derek Jeter and Teixeira next season will make more than $100M by themselves, which will likely be more than all but seven teams in 2010. But in a year when A-Rod and the Marlins were on a level playing field, the fact remains that the Yankees played better baseball than the Red Sox and won the AL East; they played much, much better baseball than the "fundamentally sound" Twins, Angels and Phillies. Their Mount Rushmore of Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte and Jorge Posada produced and carried themselves with dignity. As did Joe Girardi, who on the morning of winning his 114th game and the World Series had to read stories that his job might be in jeopardy if they lost because of the Yankees' payroll.Hal Steinbrenner and Brian Cashman spent what they could afford to assemble the best team in the sport. They also remembered to make area scouts and minor league folks feel part of the 27th world championship. Yes, it is painful to watch if you watched Sabathia versus Lee from your home in Cleveland, but your problem isn't with the Yankees. It is with the system.