Desire.

 

The day after Don Larsen's perfect game, the Brooklyn Dodgers tied the 1956 World Series at three games apiece when Jackie Robinson stroked his last major-league hit, over the head of Yankees leftfielder Enos "Country" Slaughter, to walk off a 1-0 win in ten innings, at Ebbets Field.

After the game, on the bus back to Yankee Stadium, Billy Martin confronted manager Casey Stengel, and voiced what a lot of the Yankees were thinking:

"If you're going to keep playing that National League bobo out there, we're going to blow this series."

Casey supposedly asked Billy what he would do instead, and was told: 

"You better put Elston out there. And you better put Skowron's ass back on first base."

This was not entirely fair to Country Slaughter—a lifetime .300 hitter and Hall-of-Famer, who had hit .350 in that World Series, with a homer and 4 RBI—or to Casey, who wasn't playing Howard because Ellie had been hospitalized with strep throat through the first six games. 

But Casey listened—and he made his own, bold move for Game Seven, starting Johnny Kucks, a young righty, over Tom Sturdivant and even the great Whitey Ford, who had won his last start against the Dodgers.

Casey knew that Ford often got beat up in cozy Ebbets Field, with its short fences and the Dodgers' largely right-handed lineup. Kucks, on the other hand, was a groundball pitcher who had won 18 games on the season—but none for five weeks.

Need I tell you what happened?

Howard came off his hospital bed and hit a double and a homer. Skowron hit a grand salami to clinch the game. Johnny Kucks pitched a three-hit shutout, collecting 17 groundball outs.

Now that's a Yankees seventh game!

Cut to July 13, 1977, one of the most shameful nights in New York City history, the evening of the blackout riot.

The Yankees didn't care—they were in Milwaukee, scuffling. They'd just lost a hideous game, 9-8, and were in third place in the AL East. 

Lou Piniella and Thurman Munson took it upon themselves to go see George Steinbrenner in his hotel room that night. They were doing this to try to persuade George to make Billy Martin stop harassing Reggie Jackson, and just stick him in right field and the cleanup spot.

Piniella and Munson—obviously—were no fans of Reggie. Neither was Graig Nettles, who backed their move. But they thought something had to be done before the whole season went down the drain.

Hilarity ensued, as Billy Martin, next door to George's room, heard voices and assumed, of course, that people were plotting against him. He banged on the door, and demanded to be let in. George told Lou and Thurman to hide in the bathroom, lest they be discovered. Billy insisted on looking in the bathroom.

The upshot was...they all had a four-hour confab, before Billy said that, okay, he would do what they wanted.

He welched on that promise, of course, for another three weeks, while the Yanks went 11-10 and dropped to five games back, still in third place. Then he gave in, and started playing Reggie in the four-spot and, usually, right field.

The Yanks went 40-13 down the stretch, and the rest is history.

Why do I bring all this up?

Because there was not one leading Yankee player on those teams—or, indeed, on the other 25 world champions or 38 pennant winners in the club's history—who would have sat silently by while their managers, say, brought the same flailing twit out to blow leads in game after game after game. 

Or while he let better players sit on the bench, game after game after game.

Or while their general manager decided to use the stretch pennant run as a time to teach a new acquisition how to play a new position. Or to refuse to bring up the best prospect the team had in its organization, even though he was knocking the cover off the ball in Triple-A.

But not now. 

Now we hear nothin' from nobody, and the thought inevitable arises that this, too, is a key to our dear Yankees' unbearable shittiness of playing...which is that maybe they just don't care all that much. Maybe they are quite content to go along with Hal & Pal's yearly slouch toward a wild card spot, while never putting together a team that could actually win again. 

Maybe they feel a little short, shall we say, in the old desire department?

I dunno. But if I have to watch our own collection of dear old fucking bobos play like this much longer, I'm going to change the channel.