“Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all become respectable if they last long enough,” Robert Towne wrote in the screenplay for Chinatown. He could have added, “Also, monstrous sports owners become figures of sympathy.” Many people have decided it isn’t enough the New York Yankees beat the hell out of everyone; now you have to like them while they do it. So not only does Yankee owner George Steinbrenner get another World Series title (his seventh); this time he deserves to have it. Having gone through similar experiences with my own family, I’m very sorry that rumors suggest George has slipped into senility, but the fact remains for most of his life he was the loudmouth jerk who earned countless millions while threatening to cut the dental plan for his janitors. Somehow the Boss having to get by on a mere six championships doesn’t seem too cruel to me.

I love the Yankees for geographic reasons, but I completely understand why people hate them (indeed, I once worked on a guide to doing so properly). Having far more money than any other team isn’t the only reason they win, but it’s the biggest one. Not so much because it enables them to make good moves — their farm system is responsible for the core four of Jeter, Posada, Pettite, and the incomparable Rivera — but when they make horrendous decisions they can quickly move on with no harm done (this was a team that as recently as 2005 was betting on a rotation of Kevin Brown, Jaret Wright, and Carl Pavano). It’s deeply unfair to the rest of baseball…but since it works in my team’s favor, I can ignore it.

Or I could until 2007, anyway. That was the year the Yanks signed Roger Clemens to a $18.7 million deal for part of a season (including minor league starts as the Rocket played himself into shape). I hate Roger Clemens, partly for playing for the Red Sox, mostly for being a douche bag. I hated him even before I found out about the steroids and the way-too-close-to-statutory-rape affair with a country singer and, strangely, those revelations failed to win me over to his cause. When the Yankees signed Roger (who went 6-6; yes, that is $3.1 million a win) and then crapped out in the first round, they had become really evil, as well as incompetent, which was more than I could handle.

But now Roger’s battles are limited to courtrooms and the Yankees are fielding a team filled with guys who seem genuinely nice. Indeed, my two favorites dragged them over the finish line. Closer Mariano Rivera’s greatness is known to all baseball fans, but maybe his most impressive stat is that he has appeared in 88 playoff games and in 83 did exactly what he was supposed to do (to their credit, New York sportswriters still refuse to let him forget the ones he screwed up). More unexpectedly, 2009 saw Hideki Matsui finally steal some thunder from his countryman Ichiro with his World Series MVP (he can combine it with the Japan Series MVP he won in 2000 for some seriously impressive bookends). Both players are quiet, deeply dignified men who reveal little of their lives to the public, with the exception of the time Hideki inexplicably discussed his unbelievably massive porn collection. I can see why even non-Yankee fans would respect and, yes, like them.

But remember that Steinbrenner’s kids are total pricks who can buy and sell your team five times over before you start feeling too mushy.

__ appears each Wednesday.

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