Wisdom from the interwebs

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Late to post it, but saw this on the interwebs (which one of you wrote it?):

Hal Steinbrenner is the problem. 

The rot in the walls. The soft-spoken accountant running a cathedral like a regional bank. The man who inherited an empire built on ego, obsession, and fire — and turned it into a moderately successful real estate holding with a ballpark attached. He doesn’t love baseball. He never did. And that’s why the Yankees have become what they were never meant to be: ordinary. Yankee Stadium is now just a wine and cheese factory with a baseball field in the middle. .

The proof isn’t subtle. It’s printed in Inside the Empire. 

@BobKlap

 asked Hal, point blank, if he loved baseball. And Hal — the owner of the most storied franchise in American sports — couldn’t answer. He stammered, deflected, meandered through a vague soliloquy about “responsibility” and “the business of the game,” then pivoted to talk about finances. That’s not love. That’s contempt disguised as composure. Every fan in New York felt it immediately: he’s not one of us. He doesn’t burn.

George knew. That’s what makes this all so tragic. The old man saw it coming. In his later years, he was so unimpressed — so disgusted — with Hal’s temperament that he originally gave control of the team to his son-in-law, Steve Swindal. George thought Swindal had his drive, his hunger, his fight. Then came the divorce, and the plan unraveled. The team reverted to Hal — the one Steinbrenner who never wanted it. And from that moment, the fire went out.

Under Hal, the Yankees have become the picture of high-functioning mediocrity. A 94–95 win machine that dies the same polite death every October. Six postseason appearances in seven years. One pennant. Zero titles. Boone’s been here eight seasons, the longest-tenured Yankee manager in the championship era without a ring. Every man before him — Huggins, McCarthy, Stengel, Houk, Torre, Girardi — delivered glory. Boone delivers process. He survives because he mirrors Hal: polished, calm, unthreatening. Leadership by sedation.

The 'baseball crapshoot' is an accountant term for bullshit. The Yankees are outclassed every year. 

Even Derek Jeter couldn’t take it. Many reported that Jeter left the organization frustrated not by analytics or talent, but by tone. He saw what fans now feel — the absence of pulse. The edge was gone. The urgency was gone. Winning had been replaced with “hoping.” The language of hunger replaced by the jargon of restraint. “Get in and give ourselves a chance,” Hal likes to say — the mantra of a man whose life’s work is minimizing discomfort. Jeter was raised under George’s law: losing meant rage, not rationalization. 

Under Hal, it means an insultin social media post 'thanking' the fans.

You can see it everywhere. Ninety-four wins, another early exit, and another press conference about how “anything can happen in October.” Other franchises — Houston, Atlanta, Los Angeles — bully variance. The Yankees negotiate with it. They talk about efficiency like that’s a virtue. It’s not. It’s a cope. Champions impose their will. Hal’s Yankees ask permission.

This is what happens when you hand a legacy to someone who treats it like a liability. The Yankees were built to terrify. Now they’re designed to reassure. Hal governs like a man who wants to make sure no one yells at him. He respects the luxury tax the way priests respect Scripture — as if breaking it were a sin instead of a strategy. His father saw that line as a toll to drive faster. Hal sees it as a leash to keep himself from feeling.

He cares more about the bondholders than the Bronx faithful.

Your father is turning in his grave. He didn’t build the Yankees to be a brand. He built them to be a kingdom — loud, impossible, immortal. His ghost must look down at this PowerPoint dynasty and weep. He once said that second place was just “first loser.” Hal calls it “a good season.”

The Yankees’ problem isn’t bad luck or bad players. It’s a bad philosophy — a failure of nerve, a collapse of standard, a drought of love. When the man at the top doesn’t love the game, no one beneath him can play it like it matters. You can buy talent, you can buy tools, you can’t buy belief.

As Jocko Willink says, it starts at the top. It always does. The Yankees don’t lose because of analytics, or depth charts, or the bullpen. They lose because their owner treats greatness like an optional expense. They lose because their culture reflects a man who hesitated when asked the only question that ever mattered.

Hal Steinbrenner doesn’t love baseball. He loves running it responsibly. And that’s the whole story. The stadium still gleams, the food is better, the fear is gone — and George’s ghost is pacing the halls, wondering how his empire turned into an internship.

The Yankees don’t exist to be efficient.

They exist to make other men question their gods.

And until the man in the owner’s box remembers that, the Bronx will stay silent.

Sell the team, you ignoramus coward