"But what are you?"

 

Poor Ma Boone. 

If the Yankees' meltdown ends up being as complete and record-setting as we fear it will be—"No, no! Live, Tink, live!!!"—then the Yankees manager might well serve as scapegoat, even as The Brain That Wouldn't Die goes on to run the Yankees for another 3 or 4 (or 5 or 10 or 20) seasons.

We all know that the real culprit for the Yanks' continuing failure even to get back to the World Series, lo these 13 years, is one Brian Cashman. Or, in a more meta sense, HAL Steinbrenner, the guy who just won't fire him. 

And yet...I have to say, Boone getting chucked under the bus won't be all that undeserved. 

For the latest, soap operatic turn in this most annoying of all Yankees seasons—and most unwatchable of all Yankees teams—we must turn to yet another movie analogy. (Yes, we must!)

This was Big Night, a 1996 indie with an incredible cast—Isabella Rossellini, Minnie Driver, and Alison Janney are also in it, among others—and a subtly intelligent screenplay.

The plot revolves around two brothers from Italy, trying to keep their American restaurant alive, lest they have to go back to the home country. The brothers are played by Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub, which is extraordinary, mostly because it's amazing they weren't always required to play brothers.

Shalhoub plays the restaurant's master chef, a temperamental genius at his art, who despises his ignorant, American suburban customers, and would just as soon go back to Rome. Tucci is the business side of the partnership, someone who loves the U.S. and wants to stay, but is more than a bit of a finagler, cheating pretty much everyone on the side.

I won't spoil the plot, but at a big moment, Ian Holm, a rival restauranteur (I think; been awhile!) who is trying to steal away Shalhoub and shut them down, tells Tucci that his brother is a real artist, while he, Holm, "is a businessman. I have to be whatever I'm needed to be, every two minutes." Or something like that.

But then Holm, looking at Tucci, asks him. "But what are you?" Neither businessman nor craftsman, Tucci looks miserable.

In the same vein, there are great field managers and great clubhouse managers. Buck Showalter, for instance, is an outstanding field manager. Joe Torre was a poor field manager—but maybe the greatest clubhouse manager of all time, considering all he had to do to handle Mad King George, the New York press, and put the Yankees back together again.

Occasionally—very occasionally—as with Casey Stengel or his mentor, Muggsy McGraw, you get someone who is both a great field manager and a great clubhouse manager.

I don't think anyone believes that Ma Boone is an outstanding field manager. But hey, who really could be under Brian Cashman? Forced, as any manager inevitably would be, to play along with Cashman's body-wrecking, sport-killing version of Three True Outs Outcomes baseball. (Though disturbingly, Ma seems to be a true believer, too.)

That leaves clubhouse manager. Which, in some ways—in these days of runaway salaries, union arbitration, and the like—is harder than ever to be good at. 

The days of overturning postgame buffet tables, obscenity-filled tongue lashings, and punitive fines and benchings by managers are long gone. As Phil Jackson demonstrated, while coaching his team of stars through six championships, skippers today often have to resort to some whacky, Zen shit (my new garage band name!), to keep a team going. This is especially true in baseball, during the dog days of August.

I try not to be naive. I understand that there will be untold temptations for young men, unduly burdened by riches and testosterone, venturing into the lush folds of California. Maybe, during their stay by the Bay, our boys got into some especially fine jeroboams of Napa Valley Zinfandel. Maybe Giancarlo introduced them to one of Priscilla Quintana's highly pressable posses of models/actresses.

Hey, it happens! But no matter what the excuse for this weekend's abominable play by the Bay, it's up to a good clubhouse manager to keep his team focused and winning.  

Not even our "Hit Strikes Hard" philosophy—not even the garbage truck full of washed-up, broken-down ballplayers that Brian Cashman has once again dumped on us—can account for how horribly this Yankees team played, Friday-Sunday, against maybe the worst team in baseball. 

The one-hit-in-11-innings extravaganza on Saturday night. Performances nearly as bad, against pitchers who are some of the very worst in the majors, the day before and after. Combined, as usual, with bone-headed base running blunders, bad clutch pitching, and some terrible fielding at key moments.

Nor is this some aberration. We have been seeing this sort of play from these knuckleheads, on and off, for months now. It is indicative, I think, that after weeks and weeks of slumping, this Yankees team is still leading the AL in run differential. When they feel like concentrating, these Yanks can hand out a beating. 

When they don't—which is more and more and more often—their play is lackadaisical. It is indifferent. It is insulting.

Which brings us back to Ma Boone. If you're not a good field manager, then you have to be a good clubhouse manager. If you can't keep your team focused, even for a week at a time, then you're not a good clubhouse manager. 

But if you're not either, then...what are you?