Go Yankees go! Once I learned that the New York Yankees fetch the highest salaries I gave them my full support in the American League playoffs.

The typical Canadian attitude is to cheer the underdog, particularly if they're up against an American rival. But sometimes the underdog is really just a dog.

At a Pan Am Games boxing match at the University of Winnipeg last year, the audience heckled the American fighter while howling support for the Cuban opponent. "Go kooba," roared the crowd in that Latin American accent that only academics can master.

Why, I wondered would anyone cheer for a political tyranny that detains about 300 political prisoners, fears democratic elections and forces surgeons to wait on tables in tourist resorts for American green backs

Unlike the Cuban boxer, the hapless American represented values, institutions and a culture far more in keeping with those of Canada but found himself the target of the audience's scorn. Remarkably no one torched the American flag.

The audience had it all wrong. The American should prevail. Canada is joined to America at the hip and our national schizophrenic identity was at stake.

I howled back, "U.S.A!" Given all its faults, quality of life in America stands head and shoulders above Cuba, embargo or no embargo. Success in the boxing ring should mirror America's economic and political accomplishments as well.

That's why I support the Yankees. They deserve to win because the Yankees represent a metropolitan wonder that incidentally has the resources to field a fabulous team.

To cheer the Yankees is to pay tribute to one of the greatest cities on the planet - the nerve centre for international trade and commerce, a sports Mecca and a cultural trendsetter. Its skyscrapers are monuments to limitless human potential.

The Yankees should be successful because New York is successful. And nothing breeds success quite like success.

Agreed, the Seattle Mariners are not Cuban shock troops in disguise (even though there is no shortage of Cuban ball players in the major leagues). But let's face it, Seattle is no New York and it can't lure as many crackerjack ball players as can the Big Apple.

A professional sport franchises is the sum of its city' potential. The best teams hail from cities with dynamite economies because they can muster the financing to draft the best athletes.

Cash-strapped cities with inferior athletes rarely win and often forfeit their right to field a profession team.

Exhibit A: the Winnipeg Jets. Plain and simple, Winnipeg could no longer afford a NHL team. The city's population and income base fell behind the rest of the continent. It's even questionable whether the Blue Bombers will live to see another season.

Never mind new fancy arenas or stadiums. Forget all the worthless boosterism. The precondition to the return of the NHL to Winnipeg and a successful CFL franchise is a rapidly growing population base with rapidly increasing disposable incomes sufficient to pay for high priced seats. That's how they do it in America.

Governments can help by removing the obstacles to economic growth and private sector investment in local sport franchises.

Professional sport rivalries breed healthy competition among cities. It's time for Winnipeg to come out of the doghouse and get back in the game.