It seems that George Vescey and I are on the same page. I’ve been saying since the Yanks pathetically & meekly lost to the Tigers 3 – 1 that they are now they Atlanta Braves – a team that gets to the playoffs and then loses every year – and that I hate it. Sure enough, in the “Sports of the Times” article in Sunday’s paper, he starts his column with: “As of now, the Yankees are officially the Atlanta Braves. They have a nice little season. They qualify for the playoffs. And then bad stuff happens to them.” I am so pissed off and disappointed. They didn’t play like champs, they played like chumps.
As the Boss put it: “I am deeply disappointed at our being eliminated so early in the playoffs. This result is absolutely not acceptable to me, nor to our great and loyal Yankee fans. I want to congratulate the Detroit Tigers organization and wish them well. Rest assured, we will go back to work immediately and try to right this sad failure and provide a championship for the Yankees, as is our goal every year.”
The thing people need to realize is that the great Yankee teams from 1996 – 2001 had role players with heart as well as superstars. They need to go back to that model ASAP. Get SupercalafragalisticexpealaBrosious to play third. Get Chad Curtis to play the outfield. Bring back some hungry players, bring back Paulie to smash some helmets and yell. Get some better and younger pitchers.
Rodriguez and Teammates Fall Apart, and Yankees Fall Short Again
by George Vecsey
Detroit
As of now, the Yankees are officially the Atlanta Braves. They have a nice little season. They qualify for the playoffs. And then bad stuff happens to them.
This pattern worked well in Atlanta for a long time, but I have the feeling that Yankee fans (and the Yankees’ principal owner) are not going to put up with this, not for one more year. This kind of showing is not why a gross amount of cable revenue is being paid to Alex Rodriguez, who just may need to move on.
At the moment, the city of Detroit is thrilled — orange-flag-waving, horn-honking, income-anticipating thrilled. It was fun to see the Tigers’ players touching hands with their fans at the edge of the field (and spraying them with Champagne) after their 8-3 drubbing of the Yankees yesterday, but the Bronx Bombers do not exist for the humanitarian purpose of providing a lift to a downtrodden city.
The Yankees have not won a World Series since 2000. In Yankees thinking, this is a very long time. Yesterday’s loss was one of the most humiliating for the Yanks in the 11 years of Joe Torre’s tenure as the manager.
After winning their opening game Tuesday, the Yanks watched the upstarts play crisp, aggressive ball while the Yankees panicked, all over the place. Rodriguez was a wreck. Even Derek Jeter was lunging at pitches yesterday. And Torre was juggling players and showing he had lost faith in Rodriguez, his most expensive player. Now begins the revolution.
Rodriguez is not a bad person. He works hard, but he is being paid $25.2 million a year over 10 years to win the World Series, and that is not happening. He went hitless again yesterday, batted .071 in this short series, and has lost more than a series, more than a season. He has lost his teammates.
It’s a foxhole thing. The players know that Rodriguez has come up tiny in big games over the years. Now, with all of New York watching, A-Rod has come undone. If the Yankees’ management brought him back next year, the players would only ask, what about October?
After the final game, Rodriguez deflected any talk of moving on. He stood and faced the waves of news media and said: “I’ve never run from problems. I’m 100 percent committed to being a Yankee. This is the only place I want to play.” He added that he might think differently “if they’re dying to get me out of here.”
There was no talk of that from Brian Cashman, the general manager, who said he was stunned at the reversal in three days. He called the attention to Rodriguez unfortunate, saying that other players “let us down at the same time.”
Cashman also said he had no thoughts of trying to trade Rodriguez, or of making any other personnel moves at that moment.
“I would like to figure it out and wrap my arms around anybody,” Cashman said. “I believe in working through adversity — ‘I got your back.’ I’m not giving up on anybody.”
As admirable as Cashman’s sentiments were, he has seen Rodriguez become identified as the main problem. Before this series began, Torre announced he was dropping Rodriguez to sixth, saying he had so many superstars he could basically pull a lineup out of his hat.
Some managers might have insulted everybody’s attention by pretending there was nothing wrong with Rodriguez, but Torre did the opposite: he confirmed A-Rod’s distress to the one person who might be trying to deny it — A-Rod himself.
A-Rod was subsequently moved back to fourth, and then yesterday was demoted to eighth. “We’re trying to win a ballgame,” Torre said.
That did not happen. Rodriguez was hitless and even made a throwing error at third base, which led to the Tigers’ fourth run. It was a terrible end to his third year with the Yankees.
Rodriguez would have to waive his no-trade clause, but it may be time to persuade him to do just that. The body language in the clubhouse is brutal, with Jeter, the captain, and most other key Yankees visibly abstract about Rodriguez. On some great teams, strong clubhouse personalities would have cleared the air, but Jeter’s team seems to lack the crusty resolve of great Yankees teams of the past.
Only Tuesday, many of us were speaking of the Yankees’ lineup as the best in baseball history — stars at every position, a modern Murderers’ Row. After this series, the 1927 Yankees of Ruth and Gehrig are safe for a while.
The George Steinbrenner we used to know and love would be staging a King Lear imitation right about now, attempting to regain the powers of his youth. It is not clear how much Steinbrenner has left, physically or psychologically, but in his demanding prime he would have been firing or threatening everybody — relatives, executives, coaches, scouts, players and, yes, the manager.
Seeing the Yankees go from Murderers’ Row to virtual Hitless Wonders in recent days makes me wonder if Torre has a feel for this club anymore. However, moving Rodriguez just may revive the energy of this club.
Something’s got to change. Steinbrenner never meant for his Yankees to become the Atlanta Braves.
