Showing posts with label yankees. Show all posts
Showing posts with label yankees. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Farewell, George Steinbrenner

I'm not going to pretend to have ever really liked the New York Yankees. However, it's hard not to respect them.

This has been an iconic franchise in pro sports for nearly 100 years. They win championships, they house legendary players, and they respect the history of their team and the game more than virtually any other organization in pro sports.

For more than a quarter-century (37 years, to be exact), the center of the Yankees has not been a player or manager.

It's been The Boss.

George Steinbrenner died Tuesday morning, just nine days after he reached the age of 80.

He owned the Yankees, buying players (and championships, according to many critics, myself included), firing managers when he felt like it, and going about his business in a very unorthodox manner.

Of course, he was also an innovator. He built the Yankees into a global brand, taking advantage of their popularity to rake in money that was used to sign free agents when his organization couldn't develop top-level talent fast enough. He also built his own sports network, YES, one dedicated to carrying his team's games and helping increase their reach.

(YES also carries New Jersey Nets games, and they have dabbled in college football on fall Saturdays, too.)

Many of his ideas have been copied by other franchises, in hopes of achieving even a small fraction of the Yankees' success.

Beyond that, Steinbrenner's bombastic personality was famous. Check out this piece from 60 Minutes back in 1987.



Oh, and his name also made an appearance on Seinfeld back in the day. We'll never forget that, either.

In the end, Steinbrenner was a truly iconic figure in baseball. He did it while owning the sport's signature franchise, and he never was satisfied. Part of what made Steinbrenner great was also what drove everyone else crazy. He never stopped trying to make the Yankees better, whether it be on or off the field.

This is truly a sad day for baseball. It doesn't matter if you're a Yankee fan or not. It's hard not to look at what George accomplished in this sport and be quite impressed.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Yankees Still Rule Roost: 2010 American League East Preview

Baseball season starts in a week. Wish me luck getting through these with the kid off school all week and other things on my plate, but I'm going to try.

The start of baseball is always a fun part of the year. You have the Final Four happening at the same time, and the Frozen Four is coming in the same week. Not only that, but it's the month for the EXCITING release of the NFL schedule, and the NFL Draft is getting closer.

With that, let's try to plow through previews of all the divisions. These will be quick reads, unlike the monsters I wrote back in 2006. So let's rock and roll.

AMERICAN LEAGUE EAST
1. N.Y. Yankees
2. Tampa Bay
3. Boston
4. Baltimore
5. Toronto

Best bet: The Yankees are the best team in this division, by any metric. They have some serious pitching, with C.C. Sabathia still leading the rotation. Bottom line is that you can hate them all you want -- and I don't have any love lost for them -- but they're the top dog. The one move that could blow up on them is letting Hideki Matsui and Johnny Damon go from the outfield, while they were only able to bring in slightly overrated Curtis Granderson. While it's reasonable to expect Granderson will hit for some power, given Yankee Stadium's love for left-handed hitters, it's also not a ridiculous argument that he will end up not playing every day for the Yanks. In the end, A.J. Burnett, Andy Pettitte, Javier Vasquez, and Phil Hughes are the big keys for New York. You know what you're getting out of Sabathia, but Vasquez is overrated (great numbers in a National League pitcher's park) and Burnett is up-and-down. Mariano Rivera will add more to his Hall of Fame credentials, as if he needs to. So will Jeter and ARod, but you expected that.

Toughest call: Honestly, picking Tampa over Boston was the hardest decision. Both teams have a good case for second place and the position of favorite in the American League Wild Card race. Tampa has a little more urgency, though, because they have some contracts coming due after the 2010 season, most notably outfielder Carl Crawford. They still are rich with prospects, but the window of opportunity -- for now -- could be on the verge of closing. The talent is there, thanks to Crawford, Evan Longoria, Carlos Pena (walk year), and B.J. Upton. Pitching should be strong, too, thanks to James Shields, Matt Garza, and new closer Rafael Soriano. Boston is strong, too, but their offense isn't nearly as good as it looks. An aging David Ortiz could be an albatross in the middle of the order again, and Adrian Beltre was a risky signing for them. Mike Cameron won't play center field, so that could work out for Boston, but Cameron struggled to hit for average in the National League last year. Is he going to magically start doing that now that he's a year older?

The others: Toronto is likely to be brutal. The Roy Halladay trade didn't turn out very well for them, and while they should be able to hit a little, it's going to be nearly impossible for them to replace Halladay with what they have right now. Long-term, there is a future, because they have some talent in the system, but they're a couple years away from being a year or two away, and that's if things go well. Baltimore is a contender in a lesser division. Emerging youngsters on offense -- especially Adam Jones, Luke Scott, Matt Wieters, and Nolan Reimold -- are bolstered by a decent pitching staff. The addition of veteran Kevin Millwood should help them immensely in that area, as he'll anchor the rotation. Mike Gonzalez comes in from Atlanta, and the lefty should serve as the Orioles' closer.

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Since It Didn't End ...


... it might as well go seven games and end with a colossal Yankee choke.

Right?

I've been torn throughout the World Series. My mom is a huge Yankee fan, and she would thoroughly enjoy if they won their 947th title. She's about the only one I know who would.

Even fervent "pro-American League" people I know won't root for the Yankees, because they're the Yankees. When they have a hole (mound, first base, third base, center field, left field, etc.), they go buy the highest-priced free agent on the market.

If it just stopped there, we'd probably have no issues. The Red Sox, Dodgers, Cubs, Mets, and others all do this, and none get nearly the scorn of the Yankees.

But the Yankees don't just stop at winning the bidding. They set unreasonable market values for the players while they're at it. A good example of this is C.C. Sabathia. The big lefty is not at all unlikeable, even in pinstripes. The Brewers, who traded for him last summer, got to the playoffs largely on the impact he made in the rotation, and they offered him a huge contract during the offseason.

The Yankees, knowing the Brewers were the only serious bidder, outbid Milwaukee by some $60 million.

(Let's not kid ourselves. The total value of the deal is all that matters, as baseball contracts are guaranteed. This isn't the NFL, where the best deal might not be the one that is longest or comes with the most total value.)

Pressured by the players' union and their agents, guys like Sabathia and Mark Teixiera have to take these bloated deals, no matter what they think of playing in that fishbowl.

Hopefully, these guys are careful. Alex Rodriguez was always a bit slimy, but he had a sterling reputation until he got to New York. Now, he's a steroid-using adulterer who chokes in the clutch.

Anyway, Philadelphia isn't a whole lot better. The organization spends reasonably, which is admirable, but the fans there are crazy. Plus, they won last year. Who wants to see the same team win every year, unless it's their own?

I mean, the Yankees haven't won a World Series in a long time. I'm not saying you should root for them, but it is worth noting.

In the end, it's the Yankees, and you can't root for them unless you hate kittens. I like kittens, so I'm reluctantly pulling for a repeat. I'll admit that my enthusiasm is a bit greater now, because the Yankees had a 3-1 lead in the series and they get the last two games at home.

But I still can't get enthused about this World Series.

Like Cubs fans, I guess I'll have to wait 'til next year.

Monday, February 09, 2009

A-FRAUD 'COMES CLEAN' OR WHATEVER

On Saturday, it was reported that Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez was on the list of baseball's cheaters.

To the credit of the cheating, adulterous fraud, Rodriguez responded in a hurry, giving an interview to ESPN's Peter Gammons on Monday. In it, he admits to using performance-enhancing drugs.
"When I arrived in Texas in 2001, I felt an enormous amount of pressure, felt all the weight of the world on top of me to perform, and perform at a high level every day," Rodriguez told ESPN's Peter Gammons in an exclusive interview in Miami Beach, Fla. An extended interview will air on SportsCenter at 6 p.m. ET.

"Back then, [baseball] was a different culture," Rodriguez said. "It was very loose. I was young, I was stupid, I was naïve. I wanted to prove to everyone that I was worth being one of the greatest players of all time.

"I did take a banned substance. For that, I am very sorry and deeply regretful."
Check out the video.



I'm not about to "credit" someone for coming clean about cheating. Rodriguez cheated, and Rodriguez deserves to be thrown under the same bus everyone else was. He was already one of the best players in baseball.

He foolishly took $252 million from the Rangers, even though he had to understand it would destroy the team's budget, making it impossible for them to field a competitive pitching staff. Then, all these years after taking that initial contract, he has the audacity to blame it for his decision to take banned substances.

If Rodriguez was some unintelligible dope, I would understand his inability to comprehend reality past dollar signs. Instead, he always has come across as one of the more articulate and well-spoken players in the game. Clearly, he knew what he was doing, and he did it anyway.

Perhaps, at some point in July, it will hit Rodriguez like a ton of bricks. He'll realize that he's spending another summer being the second most-popular player on the left side of the Yankees' infield. At that point, we can only hope he understands the utter stupidity behind what he did in Texas, and how he ruined what was a great opportunity to be part of the rebuilding of baseball's integrity.

Instead of helping rebuild it, he'll forever be looked at as one of the people who tore it down to begin with.