2009 World Series MVP Hideki Matsui

America’s most famous, richest, biggest spending  - and most hated – baseball team ended an unacceptable nine year spell without a World Series late on Wednesday night.

The New York Yankees defeated defending champions Philadelphia Phillies four games to two in the best of seven Series. The embarrassment of the preceding nine years was washed away in a display of batting, pitching and sheer determination that even the most hardened Yankee-hater must accept was truly deserving of winning the World Series.

This year’s Series was contested without doubt by the two best teams of the season but it was the Yankees – through Japanese designated hitter and eventual MVP Hideki Matsui and Panamanian closer Mariano Rivero – that came out on top. And in the end, while not easy, it wasn’t really in doubt. Once the Phillies had taken Game One in a convincing display, the Yankees stepped up a gear and out-muscled their opponents.

While Matsui and Rivero were the undoubted stars of the Series, the latter finishing off the Phillies on Wednesday to secure victory, even Alex Rodriguez, the sports highest paid and, according to some, worst performing player stepped up when it mattered to help his team.

Having spent $1.5bn (£1bn) on the new Yankee Stadium – paid for in large part by New York taxpayers – this win is even more vital to a team that has outspent every other in the League for years.

Sporting Fare salutes the New York Yankees team – for that is what they are and why they won, a team – but can’t help feeling sorry for a Phillies side brimming with their own talent. That they failed this year just goes to show what a thrilling World Series this was – in the context of World Series over the years at least.

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