From RichieAllen: Reggie jumps ship.

From the tortured mind of our own RichieAllen:

Buried down in the lower left hand corner of the New York Times Sports section (such as it is) was an article that made my heart sink. The headline read: “Mr. October Traded His Pinstripes for an Astros Cap”

I rarely read the sports pages of this particular rag owing to their undeniable Boston bias (they seldom report on baseball and it's been decades since they deigned to publish a box score), so this hidden gem was of interest to me because: a) the Yankees aren't playing baseball, and b) when that happens I become desperate for any baseball news at all, and c) I am a pathetic old man who dreams of close plays at home.

There it was. The stark and disturbing news that one of our own had jumped ship and made a home for himself amidst a team that I will always hate for all the reasons we are all too familiar with. And now here he was proclaiming his allegiance to a team of cheaters, allied to a man who helped usher in the era of tanking. And worst of all, in a roundabout way, he had damning things to say about his former employer.

“Asked if it felt strange to be with them in October, and not with the Yankees, he paused.

“It feels good,” he said. “It feels good. It’s the right person, the right guy for me to be with.”

Crane is not the blustery agitator George Steinbrenner was but Jackson said there were traces of the old Boss.

“He’s very involved, very similar to George by being involved and making decisions to run the club, trying to make it better all the time,” Jackson said. “He’s got empathy and he’s got care.”

I am prone to reading between the lines everywhere in the world, because that is where true sentiment lies hidden, and in between these lines was a condemnation that Harold and The Intern, were NOT the right guy(s) to be with.

At the end of the article, it is noted that:

“Crane counts two other Hall of Famers, the former Astros Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio, among his advisers, and said he was planning to expand their roles.

“We’re going to use them a little more on the drafting side before we draft guys, to get a better look from a player’s perspective...they can see what’s inside of guys sometimes or where he’s coming from, where it’s not all analytical.”

That's when my light bulb went off. Crane is surrounding himself with winners. Hall of Fame winners and he's using them along with any tool that can make his team better. Here in Yankeeland, who advises Harold? Who is The Intern surrounding himself with? The answer: nobody. Two guys making decisions in a vacuum. While the team playing for the World Series is surrounded by winners. When a guy like Reggie leaves the team whose cap he wore into the Hall, it is a telling and damning statement.

They weren't listening. And they never will. The man who cannot take advice or criticism is doomed to a life of mediocrity. Not failure. Mediocrity. Because if the man was a complete failure, he'd be gone. So he treads water, remaining forever stagnant in the same place he started out.

That is our real problem. Our beloved Yankees are run by people Mr. October turned his back on.

Chew on that for a while.