The Yankees Are Dumb, Steinbrenner Incapacitated, Film at 11

See ya!

It is often said that the undoing of the coup that temporarily deposed Mikhail Gorbachev in August of 1991 was a disastrous press conference broadcast on Soviet state television that pretty much gave everyone the impression that nobody was running the ship. Well, right now, the New York Yankees are having that same press conference.

As we speak, team president Randy Levine is on a conference call with the media following Joe Torre's rejection of the Yankees' $5 million, one-year deal to manage the club. Over the past 10 days, the Yankee dynasty off of the field has completely unraveled. After the Yanks bowed out 3-1 to the Tribe last Monday following Steinbrenner's senile grumblings to a Bergen Record reporter over the weekend that Torre "probably wouldn't be back" if the team lost the series, everyone figured his goose was cooked. Then began the bizarre waiting game, which has extended through now, which all of the sudden went from a Torre death watch to a what the fuck is going on with the Yankees? watch. Torre was coming back; no, LaRussa's the manager; no, Mattingly; wait, Mattingly said he's not ready for the job; no, Mattingly's agent says that's a lie; we're still meeting at Chez Steinbrenner in Tampa, the mahi mahi was lovely, but no decisions yet, don't call us, we'll call you.

Frankly, here's what we know: Steinbrenner is out of the picture, or at least people are saying "that's nice George, but Vince Lombardi is a football coach, and he's dead besides." Everyone else has slaved under his iron fist for so long that they totally have the zap on them like Iraqis after the fall of Saddam. "Free? You give us electricity and politics, G.I. Joe?" The Steinbrenner sons are acting like "we can give a shit, pls mail us the checks when you sell team, kthnxbi."

Look, if you wanted Torre, you should have sucked it up, given him a two year deal at what he's earning now, and be done with it: 4 WS rings, and 12 playoff appearances in 12 seasons is a pretty goddamn good record. Instead these chuckleheads fly him down to Tampa to sing for his supper and then hand him some "fuck you, take or leave it" offer - the option automatically vests if the team wins the World Series next year, ho ho ho - and he rightly said "suck my dick, I've danced with The Boss when he had a head on his shoulders and something inside of it." Peace!

Yankees Go Home

"Off with your head."

And so it is that much to the chagrin of the New York sporting apparatus (the media, fans, et al) that baseball season has once again come to an unseasonable early terminus, with the vaunted Bronx Bombers turning a best-of-five into over-and-out against the Cleveland Indians, a team the Yanks swept 6-0 during the regular campaign. Chien-Ming Wang, brought back on short rest following a disastrous game 1 outing at Jacobs Field (8 ER), gave up a home run to Indians' lead-off man Grady Sizemore and never looked back, on the hook for 4 eventual runs before being yanked (Yank-ed?) in the 2nd inning for long-man Mike Mussina. Moose kept the Yanks in the game, but they were never able to do quite enough damage at the plate to make up difference, getting a two-out RBI from Jeter and three solo homers to keep it respectable.

Victory may have a thousand fathers; defeat, in this instance, is of multipartite parentage as well. First of all, tip your hat to Cleveland: their hitters batted to an above-.300 average for the series, and almost always seemed to come up with the huge hit (the Tribe scored an astonishing 15 two-out runs in four games). Their pitching was equal to the task: C.C. Sabathia and Paul Byrd pitched solidly and to the score, getting the game to the bullpen with a nice cushion in tact; Fausto Carmona, he of the 1-10 record in 2006 (and the 19-7 record in 2007), turned in a performance for the ages in game 2, outdueling Andy Pettitte with 1 ER over 9 innings. The bullpen held up their end as well, giving up only 2 ER during the series (both last night) and completely shutting the door on the Yankees' modern-day murderers' row.

To be sure, the Yanks did themselves no favors: their starting pitching, which had held out across the team's miraculous 2nd half renaissance, imploded in the Division Series. Wang was atrocious in games 1 and 4, and Roger Clemens lasted a mere 2 1/3 innings before succumbing to Father Time in game 3. Their bullpen was a mixed bag: in games 3 and 4 they got the job done, highlighted by strong outings by Phil Hughes and Mike Mussina; Joba Chamberlain flubbed it in game 2 while pitching under extreme insectile duress; and Joe Torre seemed to throw in the towel early on game 1, bringing in rookie Russ Ohlendorf, who promptly turned a 7-3 game into an 11-3 score. The hitting was even worse, with Derek "El Capitan" Jeter (three double play balls in the series, including a rally-killer last night) and Jorge Posada (2-for-15, 0 RBI) stinking the joint out. A-Rod ho-hummed his way through the series, making several big outs with men on base, but playing just well enough to keep out of trouble with the fans. With exception of game 3, the Yankees' bats simply never managed to get on a roll, stranding runners left and right and failing to deliver in the clutch.

So, now that it's settled that the Bombers' epic World Series drought will extend to a seventh consecutive season (how these people made it between 1978 and 1996 I'll never figure out), the focus shifts to the new drama du jour - when will the ax fall on Joe Torre? George Steinbrenner, Mr. Nurturing-and-Supportive himself, managed to break out of seclusion (and probable dementia) long enough to deliver an ultimatum with the Yankees in an 0-2 hole: win the series or you "probably" won't be brought back. This "backs to the wall" order seemed to work for one game, but evidently even pure terror wasn't enough to motivate the team to rip off three straight wins and save the manager's job.

Now, Steinbrenner has flirted with canning Torre before, most famously after last season's Division Series flameout against the Detroit Tigers. The difference between then and now (and 2005, when the team lost to Anaheim in the first round) is that Torre was still under contract, and it was clear that no matter how much The Boss wished to get rid of him, he didn't relish the though of paying Joe $7 million a year to sit on the couch, or worse yet, manage another club. Now Torre has no contract, and it's difficult to believe that the organization is going to offer him a new deal in the aftermath of yet another early exit. The death watch, so fraught with drama in '06, is being handled as more of a fait accompli this time around: the salutatory chants of "Jo-oe Tor-re!" from the Yankee faithful as the manager walked off the mound following a pitching change in the 8th, the elegiac tenor of Torre's post-game press conference, Suzyn Waldman's teary report from the clubhouse. After 12 years, Torre's number appears to have finally come up.

And what a 12 years. In each season of Torre's tenure, the Yankees have found their way into the playoffs, winning 10 A.L. East titles (9 consecutively) and 2 Wild Card berths (1997 and this season). During that run, the Yanks amassed six American League pennants (the last in 2003) and four World Series rings ('96, '98, '99 & '00). If anything, Torre appears to be a victim of his own success, convincing both the Yankees' fans and ownership that championships are both a birthright (something you most certainly didn't hear in, say, 1988) and easy to come by.

Looking at his resume, you might think that the Yankees would be insane not to bring Torre back; then again, you aren't the guy spending $200 million a year to field the team. George Steinbrenner is. And for that kind of money, the expectation is that the Yankees aren't going to fold when faced with teams put together with a third of the payroll. The sad part of this is that Joe Torre has always been a stand-up guy and a class act, something that even I, an avid Yankee-hater, am forced to admit. He doesn't deserve to be branded a failure. But that's the thing about unreasonably high expectations: they're virtually impossible to meet.

Epiphany #437

One step closer to being an Obama man

Watching, the Yankees-Tigers game today on Fox, I came to the sudden realization that Yankees fans are the closest thing that the New York metropolitan area has to rednecks. Look at those crowd shots sometimes. I mean, I don't think it's just me, or anything. After all, I love the Yankees and their fans.

Cameron Maybin, a 20 year-old called up from Detroit's farm system yesterday just took Roger "The $30 Million Dollar Man" Clemens yard to the deepest park of Yankee Stadium, dead center, for his second career hit in the Majors. 2-1 Tigers, in the top of the 5th.