A marriage of sporting gods

By Paul Sussman, CNN.com writer

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Greek mythology gave us the marriage of Zeus and Hera, the two most powerful gods on Mount Olympus.

Now, with the signing of a joint marketing deal between soccer's Manchester United and baseball's New York Yankees, the sporting world has its own equivalent.

Fans of rival clubs might argue otherwise, but most commentators would agree that United and the Yankees are not merely the wealthiest clubs in their own sports, but among the most powerful and glamorous sporting teams on the planet.

"Manchester United are legendary," says British soccer writer Bill Barclay. "They're known all over the world. And it's the same with the New York Yankees. They're one of the best known names in world sport."

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Both stand at the very pinnacle of their respective disciplines. The Yankees are the current holders of the World Series -- baseball's equivalent of soccer's World Cup -- a title they have won a record 26 times.

United, meanwhile, are England's League Champions, a title they have won 13 times -- only Liverpool, with 18 championships, have won more.

In 1999 they achieved the unprecedented feat of winning the "treble" of League Championship, FA Cup and UEFA Champions League in the same season, the only English club ever to have done so.

"The Yankees are in many ways the Manchester United of baseball," says sports commentator Jim White, "And vice-versa. They dominate their sports completely at the moment."

Triumph and tragedy

Both teams have a long and illustrious history. United was founded in 1878 by a group of workers from the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, originally styling itself the Newton Heath Lancashire and Yorkshire Cricket Club before adopting its current title in 1902.

The Yankees started life as the Baltimore Orioles in the 1890s before re-locating to New York in 1903 with the title The New York Highlanders (they eventually became the Yankees in 1908).

The clubs' subsequent achievements have become part of popular sporting mythology, to the extent that they are now widely regarded as the embodiment of their respective disciplines.

To baseball fans the Yankees line up for the 1927 season -- affectionately known as "Murderers' Row" -- will always be the greatest batting team in the sport's history.

The legendary United squad of the 1950s -- nicknamed Busby's Babes after manager Matt Busby -- has likewise achieved a quasi-mythical status among soccer aficionados.

As much as for their triumphs, however, the teams are idolised for their tragedies. The death of eight of "Busby Babes" in the 1958 Munich air disaster earned the club a place in the hearts of world soccer fans in a way no amount of success on the field could have done.

Similarly the untimely death, aged only 38, of Yankees' legendary first baseman Lou "Iron Horse" Gehrig touched baseball fans across America, irrespective of whether or not they were Yankees supporters.

Gehrig's emotional farewell address to a packed Yankee stadium on July 4, 1939, by which point he was visibly enfeebled by the wasting disease that was to kill him two years later, stands as one of the most powerful moments in American sporting history.

The two clubs' new business alliance looks set to make them even more famous than they already are, not to mention a lot richer.

Both stand to make billions from joint marketing and merchandising deals, although White thinks the Yankees will probably benefit slightly more from the deal than United.

"I can see United fans buying Yankees apparel, but not the other way around," he says. "The only United shirts I've ever seen people wearing in the U.S. are on the backs of English tourists in Orlando, and most of them probably came from Basingstoke."

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Manchester United
New York Yankees

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