Vision.

 

The second key word of the day is: vision. Hal Steinbrenner needs to get one.

Another question that the sporting press might try asking Hal is this: what is your vision for the New York Yankees?

Is it to build an incredible system, from top to bottom, that will churn out terrific young players (at a reduced cost to you, not incidentally)?  

Fine! If so, that will mean replacing Brian Cashman and the many other hangers-on and incompetents around him (looking at you, Lonn and Randy!).

Is it to shoot the wad, bringing in all sorts of superstars to buy championships? Have at it!

Is it to...just mellow out? 

Say, 'Don't worry, be happy, and you know what: I'm going to make the Yankees the most terrific, affordable, wonderful fan experience in professional sports—and to top it off, I'm going to devote myself to reviving the long-suffering borough of the Bronx where we have played for so long."

I'd buy that. They wouldn't even have to win!

But Hal possesses none of these visions, of course. He has no vision whatsoever, other than to keep steadily increasing his incalculable, inherited fortune by so much more, year in and year out.

And if that's so...fine.

Sell the Yankees for the $12 billion or so they're supposedly worth, and make a big buy into Trump coin crypto, or whatever other "investments" strike your fancy.

If you really don't like baseball—and it does not appear that you do—and if you really don't want to learn much about the game—and it does not appear that you do—then sell the team, cash in, and spend the rest of your days spreading joy and light where're you tread, or whatever.

Nobody could possibly blame you for not loving a sport which your awful, horse's ass of a father made into an obsession—probably at the abject neglect of you and your siblings.

Instead...Hal complains about paying taxes. And is about to lead an effort to rain still more havoc and destruction on the sport of baseball.

Terrific. 

This is America in the age of the Nepo Baby Numbskulls.  

There is not the slightest concern for anything greater than themselves, in any way, shape, or form. 

Not even a Carnegie-style inclination for showering libraries and other good things upon the world (after horribly exploiting his workers for decades). Not even some remaining, rapacious sense of empire-building—the desire to construct the greatest of the greatest of the greatest, which (let's face it) our greedy Yankees-fan hearts would pound to see. 

Nope. Nothin'.

Hey, we get it. Your grotesque excuse of a pater familias so twisted and distorted you that you can't be a normal person. We get to see how that works everyday in the White House. 

But then...sell the team already.

The New York Yankees are a public trust. I could say that this is because they bring joy and entertainment to millions of people. But I won't.

Let's go to the receipts, as the kids say today. The Yankees are a public trust because we the bloody public have forked over millions to Hal and his family over the many years, and what he owes us in return is a greater vision than falling short the same way, year after year. 

To come into this world with so much, and have so little idea of what to with it, is both sad and contemptible.