I have been a lifelong Yankee fan. I am always impressed with what George Steinbrenner, the owner, and his associates have done in making the Yankees a franchise worth over $1 billion. The Yankees were late getting started on the Internet, but now they have taken to the Internet with gusto.

The Yankees own part of Mlb.com (the Web site of Major League Baseball). Pundits claim that Mlb.com is worth over a billion dollars and getting more valuable every year. This means that the Yankees have a big Internet financial win (Mlb.com) to combine with their baseball operation value.

Now the Yankees want to make even more money via the Net. They announced on Friday that they have been analyzing Yankee playoff tickets being offered on ticket sites such as Stubhub.com. The Yankees do not want season ticket holders to make a profit by "scalping" or selling playoff and potential World Series tickets at a premium to the face value printed on such tickets.

Prior to the Internet age ticket holders used ticket brokers and word of mouth to sell playoff tickets for a premium. The Internet age has allowed the ticket holder, through Stubhub and eBay and other tickets sites to reach thousands of additional ticket buyers - and of course such reach means higher selling prices.

The Yankees say that they have caught over 70 tickets holders selling playoff tickets on Stubhub.com and other Web sites and that they are no longer going to allow these ticket holders from getting season tickets for future years. The reason for this sleuthing and new policy is that Yankees claim they want to protect the public from paying prices for above the face value of the ticket.

BUT the real reason is that the Yankees are reportedly going to offer their own ticket service online to allow ticket holders to sell seats in coming months. And of course the Yankees will get a commission on such sales.

As stated above, I have been impressed how my team has used the Internet to make the team more valuable. Now they are trying to squeeze out Stubhub and other sites from reselling tickets so that they can offer the service themselves.

Who said baseball is not a business?