This excruciating wait on Manny Machado has really gotten old

Tampa _ Responding to critics, Yankee owner Hal Steinbrenner yesterday emerged from his secretive inner sanctum to perform magic tricks with freshly minuted coins. 

In front of astonished reporters, Steinbrenner swallowed 10 pennies, along with castor oil, milk of magnesia and a quart of Fleet Phospho-Soda. Minutes later, to rousing cheers, he excreted the coins into a heated metal press, where they were remolded into shiny copper earrings displaying the renowned Yankee logo. Each pair was then auctioned off as a limited edition Steiner Collectible, starting at $1,000, with proceeds going to the Randy Levine Family Boat Fund Charity, named for the famous Yankee executive who was once considered for the Trump administration's White House Chief of Staff...

Okay, this is what happens when nothing happens. 

And that's where we've been now for nearly a month: Baseball's version of the government shutdown.

Today, the owners - led by Hal Steinbrenner - continue to squeeze pennies in their butts, while dear Manny Machado takes his good, sweet time in deciding where to play next year. T'was the week before Christmas when The Man toured NYC, Chicago and Philly (where he stood in the rain), and got to see his face plastered across stadium Jumbotrons, the new cheap way of glad-handing a self-indulgent star.

This happened about 10 days after Food Stamps Hal pulled out his pants pockets and said "No mas" in the bidding war over Patrick Corbin, the best free agent pitcher on the market. Hal didn't have the money because - well, we were told - there were other free agents out there. (Wink, wink. Cue the Manny footage on the Jumbotron.)

According to accounts today, the Yankees have never made Manny a formal offer, which - if you think about it - is not only damning from a management angle, but almost infuriating. They're not even low-balling the guy, because - what? - do they fear he wants to mollify his wife so badly that he might accept it? In which case they'd be stuck with one of baseball's best players for seven to ten years. Oh, no! can't have that!

What's clear is that MLB's ownership cartel has obliterated the once formidable players union. While it's hard to summon sympathy for Machado - who will wrangle $25-$30 million per season, wherever he goes - scrap heap veterans will scramble for peanuts. Meanwhile, the profits going to the owners - (see the chart in a previous post) - are literally soaring off the pages. How many pennies can Hal swallow? With money, the guy has become a Pac-Man. 

Listen: I still dunno what to do about Machado. He's a great player but a bad fit on the 2019 Yankees. (Bryce Harper, on the other hand, would electrify Gotham and terrorize Boston.) But it apparently doesn't matter. And if Hal continues to plead poverty in the face of unprecedented profits - and if there is a God - the Yankees shouldn't matter, either. They have one advantage - money from the strongest market in American sports. But will they use it? 

Increasingly, it looks like the answer is no. The Yankees will stand pat around the $200 million payroll mark, let the Dodgers and Redsocks outspend them, and chase another Wild Card. Hal will accept what has become the worst decade in Yankee history - yes, fewer world championships than the Horace Clarke 60's and the Matt Nokes '80s - the darkest periods in Yankee history. Our boy owner will turn out to be worse than CBS. But it doesn't matter. There is no God. Hal has a super power: He can eat money, then shit it out and sell it, as a profit. 

And this is how we pass the time, while Manny decides...