Saturday, March 30, 2019

With an easy opponent and a symbiotic media, the Yankees can preen over their greatness, but fans know better

In The Wall Street Journal this week, Jared Diamond calls it our "lost decade:" the 10-year barf since the Yankees last played for a world championship. Depending on how you spike the cocktails, this year's team either is poised to resurrect the Yankiverse, or we are stuck on a merry-go-round of hubris, doomed to believe the self-serving bleats of our own propaganda machine.

Two days ago, we celebrated the easy dismantling of baseball's worst team in this millennium. Today, with the wind at our backs and the pathetic O's in our cross-hairs, a seemingly magical season looms - no pain, no hardship, Allah Akbar! God is great! - and we can go through the motions of devouring ourselves in a vast buffet of expectations. 

But something's wrong. Today, we find the Yankiverse boiling with anger. What happened? Why are fans so hostile when we have it so much better than most teams? Are we spoiled brats? Ingrates? Or is it that we sit on the cusp of a lost decade, and here we are - exactly where we were last year? 

Let me digress. Ten years ago, when Hal Steinbrenner took over from his dying dad, the official plan was to build the Yankees along the models of great small market franchises of the past, like the Royals of the '80s and Blue Jays of the '90s. Along with Hal's virtually unlimited financial resources, Brian Cashman would build up from Single A, and the Yankees would contend every season - never needing to rebuild.

It didn't work. The team floundered. By 2013, a year when we should have pulled the plug, we instead signed Vernon Wells, Travis Hafner and others, and became a barge of mediocrity. Then came farewell tours for Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera, when other wheels fell off the cart. Instead of giving them post-season appearances, their final outings became meaningless pageants. We failed them both. 

In mid-2016, the Yankees finally adopted the "tanking" model, which Boston had used to win two world championships. They pushed A-Rod out the door and traded for enough prospects to vault to the top of the MLB farm system rankings. Last year, we dealt away that surplus in a failed run. To make matters worse - actually, about as bad as things can get - Boston won again.

This winter, we saw public angst over Manny Machado's statement that he'll never be a "Charlie Hustle" type. His words infuriated fans: A millionaire player  doesn't always play his hardest. That doesn't cut it. 

But why does not the same view hold for a billionaire owner? This winter, Steinbrenner sat on the sidelines, holding back with his wallet. This was the equivalent of a player jogging out a grounder. One can argue that Machado and/or Bryce Harper simply didn't fit the Yankee roster; fine. But the Yankees ignored auctions for Patrick Corbin - who at the end of his contract with Washington will still be younger than the pitcher we signed, J.A. Happ - and Dallas Keuchel. Again, we enter the year with the third highest payroll - below the Cubs and Redsocks. 

Hal is jogging, while the NYC media - bowing and scraping to Yankee influence -looks the other way. We even see hostility toward Machado and Harper, for being paid so much money. And of course, when writers want to make sure their calls get returned, they always mention the real culprit: Jacoby Ellsbury.  

So yeah, I'm still seething. Today, if all goes well, we'll sit back and cuff around lowly Baltimore. But our owner and GM have had 10 years to build the organization, and the Wall Street Journal now has given their tenure a name.

It's called "The Lost Decade." Worst in Yankee history.

10 comments:


  1. Jogginson Steinbrenner?

    JoggyBrenner?

    Steininson Jogbrenner?

    Can we get a DNA test on Hal, to discover whether or not he's the son of George (and not DJT)....?

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  2. Joe FOB - you beat me to the post. As I clicked the button to write this, that's what was on my mind.

    Joggy Hal?
    Hal Jogbrenner?
    Hal Steinjogger?
    Hal JogItOut?
    Lazy Hal?

    Duque hits the nail on the head. Maybe we'll win. Maybe we won't. It's much harder to get excited when the ownership doesn't care. I know the players want to win. You know what one big incentive was on the truly great Yankee teams? Money. If they won the Series, they didn't have to sell furniture and mens' clothing in the off season. I guess we'll never see performance-based contracts, but maybe we should. The game has lost its edge. People are just phoning it in.

    I'm tired. I'm not going to watch the game. I have more interesting stuff to do today, like taking a nap. Wake me up when an interesting team comes to town. The Orioles? Meh.

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  3. Hemorrhoid faced fucker. When are we doing the Food Stamps Hal banners?

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  4. I REMEMBER WHEN WE WON IN 2009, AND HAL HELD UP THE TROPHY, AND PROCLAIMED,
    "THIS ONE'S FOR GEORGE!"

    NOW, LOOKING BACK AT THAT MOMENT, IT SEEMED, AND SOUNDED LIKE THE ONLY TIME HAL LOOKED COMMITTED TO WINNING.

    THE NEXT COUPLE OF SEASONS, I INSTINCTIVELY HAD THE FEELING THAT HAL WOULD RESET EVERYTHING TO HIS SPEED, HIS IDEAS, AND HIS MINDSET.

    HE DID JUST THAT, WITH HIS SELF -IMPOSED BUDGET RESTRICTIONS, AND FRONT OFFICE/MANAGER STABILITY, (WHICH IS FINE, UNLESS YOU TURN A BLIND EYE, THINKING EVERYTHING IS IN A MASTERS HANDS).

    HAL'S TRUST IN COOP, IS SO ABSOLUTE, THAT HE IS BLIND.

    IT IS BECAUSE OF 4 DEALS, OVER THE YEARS, WHICH WERE BIG WINS, (SWISHER, DIDI, HICKS, AND NOW VOIT).- NO CREDIT WILL BE GIVEN ON THE CHAPMAN DEAL, AFTER THE SHOOTING, NO TEAM WANTED HIM- COOP WAS LUCKY, CINCY HAD TO DUMP HIM).

    THOSE 4 DEALS HAVE BLINDED HAL, (AND THE SPORTS MEDIA), OF THE COUNTLESS SHIT DECISIONS, DEALS, MOVES, AND NON-MOVES HE HAS MADE.

    THE SAD PART FOR US IS, BECAUSE OF THOSE 4 DEALS, HAL THINKS COOP CAN MOVE MOUNTAINS.

    BLIND TRUST.

    NOT GOOD FOR US, FOLKS.


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  5. This is a genius analogy. Joggy Hal. The owner who didn't try too hard. But as a billionaire owner, he is beyond criticism, and hey, the Yankees won 100 games last year and they've only improved the team since! Yeah, bullshit. It's amazing how perplexed everyone on the Michael Kay Show is by how some fans reject this completely reasonable and sound analysis.

    Fucking hell. The Yankees should just join the NBA and be done with it. We'd always make the playoffs since 75% or whatever number of teams do.

    This is the entire owner/media complex conspiring to make fans believe that fiscal prudence and almost-good results are the new ring we should all hope for. Not a Series ring, which takes vision and big outlays of dough to create a true Death Star of Baseball team.

    We're into a new era. If this were the Oscars, we now belong to the "it's an honor just to be nominated" camp.

    Greedy, cheap, bullshitting bastards.

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  6. Amen, Duque! And all the rest of you guys.

    I feel the same way. I have never gone into a season so deeply apathetic about the Yankees.

    Oh, I've endured some bad Yankees years. My very first year rooting for the team was when they completely collapsed, 1966, their first last-place finish since 1912, and the one and only time a Yankees team will ever finish 10th.

    There were other years that were often long, awful slogs. 1969. 1971. That whole terrible run from about 1989-92.

    I also despised George Steinbrenner for most of his reign. He was an awful human being, a cruel, nasty thug, and he knew jack all about baseball, and often damaged the team.

    But...but...he was always trying to win.

    For better or worse, every single owner who has run the Yankees since they were sold by those old reprobates, Devery and Farrell, has wanted to win.

    Until now.

    And I agree about the strategy. If Hal had announced, "Look, I just don't think committing ourselves to a couple of huge contracts is the way to go. Instead, I've pensioned off Elf Boy and his minions and have hired the best baseball people in the land to rethink and rebuild this team and this system," I would've had no problem with it.

    But that's not the case, either.

    Hal has decided to go with the herd. To maximize his sure and immediate earnings—much of it money that we the taxpayers of New York stuffed into his pockets—by not trying too hard.

    I find this tremendously disillusioning. And Duque is right that it is very much analogous to a player admitting he is not trying too hard.

    There has to be a certain suspension of disbelief to root for any professional sports team. These aren't the guys or gals from your chemistry class, and they're not giving their all for dear old State.

    It's a transaction—and part of the transaction is that they will do their damnedest to win.

    If the actors in a play decided to mail in performances half the time, and forgot their lines, or the lyrics, no one would go to Broadway. If you went to a magic show, and the magician announced that we would just have to imagine he was pulling a rabbit out of the hat because, hey, bunny chow costs money....he wouldn't be playing Vegas.

    Zieg Hal Steinbrenner announcing that the Yankees are essentially going to be Kansas City—only without the first-rate GM Kansas City no doubt has—doesn't cut it.

    I don't live in Kansas City. I don't pay Kansas City prices. I don't have a Kansas City attitude.

    I live in New York. I want to win. If Hal doesn't, well, he can retire on the billions we gave him.

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  7. If 2010 to 2019 is the Lost Decade, what do you call '82 to '96? You guys don't know how lucky you are.

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  8. I fully agree with the sentiment. However, I must say I don't see Hal's offseason as analogous to a player jogging out a grounder. The jogging player is at least pretending to try to reach base - and perhaps if the fielders toss the ball into the stands he will make it. The fact that he even has a grounder to jog out means that he took a swing at a pitch, and actually made contact - if his timing and luck were a bit better, it could have been a base hit. Hal's offseason was worse than that. It was worse than a strikeout, which also usually entails a certain amount of effort. The Yankees apparently weren't even remotely involved in the hardly-extant bidding on the top free agents. I'd call that analogous to a player refusing to even stand in for an at-bat. Perhaps not even bothering to show up at the ballpark.

    Truant, forfeit, AWOL - unfortunately nothing springs to mind that rhymes with Hal or Steinbrenner.

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