El Duque has spot on identified the worst (now perhaps second worst) team of the quarter century.
As chance would have it I was leafing through a copy of the October 1982 Life Magazine yesterday that my ex found in an old trunk and came across two articles of interest.
The first was on the proliferation of "Cop and Stops" in NYC.
For the uninitiated... the cop and stops were local stores where you could buy weed. Mine was on Queens Blvd. when I lived in Astoria. The store had no clerk. It was just a window with one way glass and a slot, like a food slot for a prisoner.
There was a small bowl. I would place a five dollar bill in the bowl and slide it through the slot. Ten seconds later a nickel bag would take its place.
Good times.
Compare this experience to last month's California State Fair where, I kid you not. the California Cannabis Experience was an entire zone and had taken over the footprint of the former Raging Waters.
Click on the map to get a sense of just how big this place was.
The second article of note, and the reason I'm writing, was the lengthy article on the 1982 Yankees. That team, if you recall, had just lost to the Dodgers in the 1981 World Series in humiliating fashion.
I'm pretty sure that was the series where George Stienbrenner got into that fight in the elevator with some Dodger fans.
The 1982 team was so disappointing that Goose Gossage said, among other things, that it was not fun to play for.
I tried to find the article on-line but no such luck.
Here is the cover.
--
I did however find an article from a month earlier in the New York Times that covered the same ground. I bolded some of the salient points that were worth noting (along with my comments in parenthesis)
https://www.nytimes.com/1982/09/19/sports/the-yankees-anatomy-of-a-team-s-decline.html
THE YANKEES: ANATOMY OF A TEAM'S DECLINE by Murray Chass
"On the day after the sixth and final game of the 1981 World Series, George Steinbrenner sat at the large round table in his Yankee Stadium office and said, ''We've studied it pretty darn carefully, and I think we know where we have to go.''
Steinbrenner meant he knew the direction in which he had to go to make sure the Yankees wouldn't do anything so embarrassing as to lose the World Series after being the best team in the American League and after leading the Dodgers by two games to none.
However, the direction the Yankees have traveled in the standings is down - down far enough to where they might not even be a .500 team, down so far that Friday night they were eliminated from the East Division race by a 14-0 loss to Milwaukee with two weeks of the season still remaining. Embarrassing?
''It's embarrassing for us, as players who have played on good Yankee teams, to go through what we have gone through this year,'' Lou Piniella said recently. ''I empathize with George; he takes a lot of heat. But we take a lot of heat, too. It's hard to accept what's happened.''
Rich Gossage, another Yankee veteran, who has been outspoken during the season, didn't even want to think about what has happened. ''I don't feel like dwelling on the subject,'' Gossage said. ''There are too many things. It's mind boggling.''
Steinbrenner Takes Full Blame
George Steinbrenner does not disagree that many things have happened to the Yankees this year. In a telephone interview Friday, he cited various factors that contributed to the team's fall from contending status. But, he said, ''I will take the full blame for the decisions that were made because I had the ultimate say.''
In the previous six years, the Yankees were divisional champions five times, league champions four times and major league champions twice. This year they never were a serious contender. Their longest winning streak was six games, which they achieved once; they made it to five games over .500 for the first time last Sunday, but then lost five straight to Baltimore; they haven't been closer than six games from first place since June 2, and since the first week of the season they have been higher than fourth place for only 12 days - and that was when they were in third place in late May and early June.
What happened to the team that Steinbrenner, in spring training, said was the most balanced squad he had put together in his 10 years as principal owner, the one that had a chance to be ''awesome?''
That characterization in itself says much about what happened. As developments have proved, Steinbrenner and his advisers badly misjudged the talent they had gathered for their 1982 World Series photograph. Not only that, but they also made bad decisions when they realized their original decisions were not so good.
As they tried to correct their winter mistakes in the spring and summer, the Yankee brain trust made a seemingly ceaseless series of trades and roster changes that created instability and kept the players in an unsettled mood for much of the season.
Nothing epitomizes the unsettled nature of the situation better than the roll call of managers, pitching coaches and hitting coaches the Yankees employed this season. They have had three managers, four hitting coaches and five pitching coaches.
''Has that happened anywhere else?'' one player asked not long ago. ''Am I lucky to be on a club that sets that kind of record?'' The player, like some others, did not want to be identified. The players know that Lou Piniella, Bobby Murcer and Ron Guidry, among others, have been reprimanded by Steinbrenner this year for having made remarks he didn't like. And, as one player said, sounding like a high school student talking about a harsh principal, ''I don't want to go up to the office.''
But there was more, much more, than managing and coaching changes and reprimands and verbal attacks by the owner. For example, the Yankees made a flurry of trades early in the season that kept subtracting players from and adding players to the lineup, creating an unsettled atmosphere.
In addition, injuries decimated the Yankees in the first half of the season, although as one man in the upper echelon of the organization said, ''You have to be deep enough to overcome injuries and still win.''
Nevertheless, the first problem Steinbrenner mentioned in discussing the team's failure was injuries. ''We had major-type injuries, breakdown-type injuries,'' the owner said. ''They played a large part in our demise.'' Wrong Assessment
The Yankees' problems began long before the siege of injuries. They began when the management decided to let Reggie Jackson leave and substituted speed for the power that Jackson took with him to the California Angels. Speed, Steinbrenner and his staff concluded, was what would win games for them in the future.
Earl Weaver, for one, was happy to see the Yankees reach that conclusion. ''I'd much rather see them sliding into second,'' the Baltimore manager said, ''than trotting around the bases with one swing.''
But the Yankees didn't even slide into second with stolen bases very often, or race around the bases on singles and doubles. For instance, Dave Collins, who was signed as a free agent primarily for his speed - he stole 79 bases in 1980 for Cincinnati -has only 12 stolen bases this season.
''We definitely didn't emphasize speed when we played our game,'' said Dave Winfield. ''When we hit the field, that didn't seem to be the plan.''
The plan, as it appeared on the planning board, wasn't a bad idea, Piniella said. ''The problem was we were near the bottom of the league in stolen bases,'' he said. ''I think they gave it a chance, but when it didn't materialize early in the season. there was a change of thought in midstream and justifiably so because I don't think the team was going anywhere.''
The Yankees weren't out of spring training when they realized they lacked power. Steinbrenner had decided not to re-sign Jackson because, he said, his advisers told him Jackson had perhaps only one productive season remaining. It would not, the owner decided, be a good business decision to sign Jackson to a lucrative long-term contract. So there went the power.
The decision, Rick Cerone said, ''hurt an awful lot, especially in light of the year he's having.'' Wrong the First Year
Steinbrenner readily acknowledged that Jackson has had a great year in California. ''It's something I would have expected,'' he said. ''He has a flair for that. But as I said before, the judgment of my baseball people was that he could not do it for four years. We have missed him this year, but you can't judge it on this year. You have to wait four years to evaluate it.''
Instead of giving Jackson, say, a million dollars or so per year for three or four years, the Yankees gave Ken Griffey and Collins contracts worth close to a total of two million dollars a year. While Jackson has flourished in his advancing age in southern California, with 34 home runs on a team contending for a division title, Griffey and Collins have spent the season being largely unproductive and unhappy. Both want to be traded.
(George got cheap! A first.)
Actually, Steinbrenner had a replacement for Jackson in mind - Al Oliver, then with Texas. But a trade for the first baseman fell through when Oscar Gamble refused to go to the Rangers. Oliver ended up being traded to Montreal and is leading the National League in batting. ''He is the take-charge hitter that we needed on this team that we didn't have,'' Steinbrenner said.
The Yankees, though, have felt Jackson's absence in another way. Not only did he take his bat with him, but he also took his lightning rod.
When Jackson wore pinstripes, most of Steinbrenner's wrath was directed at him. ''Reggie took a lot of the heat,'' Rudy May said. ''He thrived on that stuff.'' With Jackson gone, the streaks of Steinbrenner lightning struck just about every player on the team at one time or another. There was no evidence that any of the players, like Jackson, thrived ''on that stuff.''
Only Winfield among the hitters picked up the run production that had been Jackson's responsibility. But last year the Yankees had Winfield and Jackson. In their efforts to find someone to help Winfield, the Yankees turned to Toronto in May and lured John Mayberry south of the border for a hefty package that included a $200,000 enticement for Mayberry and sending two of their best minor league prospects to the Blue Jays.
The only problem was that the Yankees might have been the only team in the majors not to believe that Mayberry's productive days were past. Gene Michael, when he was the manager, kept playing Mayberry, hoping he would return to his power-hitting role of yesteryear. But Clyde King, now that he is the manager, has used the first baseman in only five games in the last five weeks. Dent Deal Backfires
(Old star fails to play to the back of his baseball card because...old.)
About four weeks before they acquired Mayberry, on the day before the season opened, the Yankees obtained Roy Smalley from the Minnesota Twins for Ron Davis. The trade was puzzling because the Yankees already had Bucky Dent at shortstop, but they felt that Dent couldn't contribute punch and that Smalley could. In past seasons, Dent never was needed for punch; but it was different in 1982. So the man who was their shortstop for five years, four of them division winning years, became another unhappy member of the club.
That trade, though, not only disrupted the infield, but it also sorely affected the relief corps. Davis had done a superb job last year in spelling Gossage on days that the No. 1 reliever couldn't pitch, and in innings leading up to the eighth and ninth - Gossage's prime time.
(Too many guys at one position and weakened the bullpen to make the trade.)
Steinbrenner didn't mention Davis, but he said that the bullpen definitely lacked effectiveness. ''We didn't get the performance out of the bullpen we needed. Without Goose we're in tough shape out there.''
The Yankees thought they had a replacement for Davis in Shane Rawley, whom they earlier had acquired from Seattle. But Rawley failed in that role and eventually was put in the starting rotation, where he has had greater success.
The Rawley and Smalley trades were parts of the wholesale changes the Yankees made from late spring training to the end of the first month of the season, a time when most teams try to have a settled situation.
Piniella didn't see the trades as all that detrimental, when viewed as part of a larger picture, because, he said, ''Our club was becoming an older club.''
''There's no greater danger in sports,'' he added, ''than having a team get old on you at once. I think that's what they were concerned about and they did what they felt they had to to eradicate that possibility.''
Such a flurry of trading, though, could benefit a team better if it were done in the offseason. Then the players would have a chance to get to know each other before the season began.
''You can't keep filtering players in and out,'' said May, who has pitched for five teams in his 15 years in the majors. ''You have to develop a closeness, a relationship that fosters winning. I don't know a lot of these guys. I haven't had time to really get to know them.'' Playing in New York
As the season nears the end, the Yankees have on their roster only nine players who helped win 103 games in 1980. Many of the players who have joined those nine have come from losing teams.
''There's certainly a correlation between talent and being a winning ballplayer,'' Piniella remarked. ''You have to have talent to be a winning ballplayer. But you also have to know how to win.''
And, May added, you have to learn how to win in New York. ''Some of the new guys,'' the pitcher said, ''found out it isn't as easy as they thought to play in New York.''
Steinbrenner acknowledged the trades could have had unsettling effects on the team. And he agreed on the necessity of having winning players on a team. ''You have to understand what it is to be a winner,'' Steinbrenner said, ''When you come off a club that isn't a winner, that takes a while to sink in.''
It was not easy for many players to play for the Yankees this season. Collins never learned his role. Reluctant to sign as a free agent because he didn't see a place for himself on the Yankees, Collins was assured by Steinbrenner that, indeed, there was a spot. Collins has learned that his first instinct was correct.
Besides choosing speed over power, the Yankees made other decisions on personnel that were contrary to past judgments. In past years, the Yankees were content to have what baseball people call ''role players.'' Fred Stanley and Larry Milbourne were good examples. They were on the team as utility infielders and they understood and accepted their roles.
Players such as Collins and Dent were not utility players and were not prepared to accept that role. Nor could the two catchers, Cerone and Butch Wynegar, have accepted it if both had been healthy at the same time.
''You need utility players,'' said one man involved in the operation of the team. ''You can't have all starters. It takes a while to convince these guys and it happened this year.''
Perhaps when Steinbrenner and his staff draw their 1983 World Series blueprint, they will pay closer attention to some of the moves that have brought pennants in the past. Piniella, for one, doesn't think the team is as far away from returning to contending status as some people believe.
''There's a lot of talent on this club,'' Piniella said, ''and if it's properly orchestrated over the winter, in trades and with free agents, this club could be right in the thick of it next season.''
(They didn't win the pennant for another 14 years!)
Based on his previous offseason record, Steinbrenner figures to be a busy man in October, November and December. There are those among his advisers who don't view the present talent as optimistically as Piniella. There are indications that Steinbrenner himself doesn't.
As a result, some surprising changes could occur before the start of next season. ''We're already making plans for next year,'' Steinbrenner said. ''Don't count us out.'' Anything Possible
The Yankees need power and they need pitching. To get it, they may trade such players as Willie Randolph, their second baseman, and Jerry Mumphrey, their center fielder. Smalley, whose range at shortstop has disappointed the Yankees, could become the third baseman if they decide Graig Nettles must be replaced, or if not, Smalley could become the first baseman. He has, in recent weeks, shown the kind of punch a team needs at those two positions. Then again, if the Yankees sign a Steve Garvey or a Jason Thompson as a free agent, Smalley could become an everyday designated hitter.
As for free agency, the Yankees already have indicated their interest in Don Baylor, and they appear ready to allow Cerone to become a free agent and make Wynegar their regular catcher.
Those are some of the decisions they must make in the next few weeks. Until the last offseason, Steinbrenner and staff seemed to make mostly correct decisions in preparing for the next season's race. How well they rebound from their decision-making slump could determine if, at this time next year, the Yankees will be playing in someone else's pennant race or their own."
--
Ironically, the headline from today's Athletic (The NY Times Sports Website) is
| "The Yankees ‘wholeheartedly believe’ they can turn their season around. Do you?" |
Posts
11 comments:
That's an amazing article, Doug. So incredibly familiar. Cashman has been able to channel the worst of old George without any of the redeeming value, which had run out by '82.
What that season and many more after it may have shown is that there are certain moves that are almost guaranteed to fuck up a team. That Cashman has managed to make those moves so consistently for so many years is something for the history books. Learning from the past? Obviously not the Yankee Way. Also not the American Way, from everything going on these days.
I second what JM said. Thanks, Doug.
Thanks for digging that up, Doug. It’s like a flashback to a day of bad acid.
The years of Mad King George were awful and embarrassing. Even when they were actually winning. Which wasn’t all that often.
The Son of the Mad King knows what winning is all about and it is the only thing on his mind:
In 1982, the Yankees drew just over two million fans.
The 2025 Yankees will draw close to three million. As they did last year, and every previous year save the covid season. Oddly enough, that number exceeded four million for years until it finally dipped in - get this - 2009 and has been in a slow steady decline and may not hit three million this year. It will be close.
That is the only thing The Son cares about. That is his idea of winning. He does not care about rings. He’s taken his father’s legacy and turned it into a gold mine.
And does not give a fuck what we think. The only way that will change is if the seats have fewer fannies in them.
Doug, my first question is what volume or weight did you get for that $5.00?
My second question is, what article are you referring to when you say that you couldn't find it online? I saw that NY Times article online, but I'm not clear as to which one you couldn't find. You mentioned Goose's comment on the Yankees no longer being fun to play for, but you might have been conflating the one you couldn't find with the Gossage statement, because I could only find one reference to that quote in a 2020 NY Post article (linked below). Of course, Gossage was a frequent critic of baseball's overuse of analytics and completely excoriated Brian Cashman on several occasions, calling him "a fucking asshole" and stating that "he has no balls." All true, right?
https://nypost.com/2020/04/15/goose-gossage-wonders-what-couldve-been-for-yankees-with-hank-steinbrenner/
I could not find the Life Magazine article on line. Just the cover.
The Gossage line was from the Life article.
Also from that article on August 3rd 1982 the crowd erupted with the following chant, "REFUND! REFUND REFUND"
We should bring that back!
Great piece, Doug! Oh, how well I remember "the Speed Team."
I was at the awful, awful August 3rd doubleheader at the Stadium that year, which they dropped to a mediocre White Sox team, 1-0 and 14-2. By the second game, the booing and the chants of "Steinbrenner Sucks!" had become so loud that Bob Sheppard, sounding like a hostage, went on the PA and announced that "Yankees fans—the greatest fans in the world" would be getting a ticket to a future game in compensation.
Afterwards, Gene Michael, a man of considerable baseball knowledge and almost infinite patience, was fired for the second time in two years, and replaced by the Idiot of the 20th century, Clyde King...
...The crazy thing was that George and his (On-) Crack Baseball People decided that the Yankees had to be a "speed team." It wasn't like everybody was stealing bases all of a sudden. Just a few teams, such as the Royals...all of which played on a carpet.
And as the article notes, the "speed" players they got were old (Ken Griffey) and not that good in the first place (Dave Collins). Roy Smalley had zero range at short, and was one of the worst clutch hitters I ever saw. Opening Day, 1983, my friends and I stayed in a frigid Yankee Stadium through the end of a wretched game that saw them losing, 13-0, to Detroit, going into the 9th. Roy Smalley, of course, hit a two-run homer. The final score; Tigers 13, Yanks 2...
...But maybe the biggest irony was that they had already got rid of the best "speed player" on the roster, before 1982 even began! That was Willie McGee, who they traded to St. Louis for one Bob Sykes, a middling middle reliever.
Sykes never pitched an inning for the Yankees or any other major-league team. McGee helped spark the Cardinals to a championship that year, and two more pennants in the 1980s. He also went on to win repeat Gold Gloves, a batting championship, and an MVP in St. Louis.
All they had to have done was put him in center, between Mumphrey and Winfield, keep Reggie (who really didn't want that much) as DH, and they would've had a helluva lineup...
...I don't know if that could've got them a division title; after all, they finished fifth. Cerone, after a fantastic first year in NYC, decided to spend most of his time doing jeans ads and partying. Dent had got old all of a sudden. And Mayberry was a disaster. (Balboni and Mattingly both got cups of coffee that year, but were deemed unready. Sound familiar, T.J. Rumfield and Spencer Jones?).
The awful trades and misjudgment of talent went on and on throughout the decade, in good part because nobody was fully in charge. Now? The management organizational chart is crystal clear, and always followed. And everything is worse than ever.
Thanks Doug. Very illuminating. It knocks the rose colored glasses off my face when I reminisce about the 'good old days' of George Steinbrenner, casting the current malaise in sharp relief.
The problem is the Steinbrenners. Sure, George wanted to win, in that overbearing Trumpian way. But like our esteemed President, he was just an overbearing bully who used bluster to cover up his incompetence and utter inability to put together a strong organization.
Maybe that's why George's ship-building business sank like the Titanic and his useless son has even less talent for organizational building than Ol' George did.
Post a Comment