JOE Torre did not take the money and Alex Rodriguez refused to even discuss it with the Yankees.
The items that made the Yankees the Yankees – swelling payroll and the stockpiling of fame – are vanishing. The Yankees can’t give their money away right now, and they are bleeding legends.
They are no longer the Yankees, at least not in the fashion we have known them under George Steinbrenner. They have been ebbing toward a different model recently as Steinbrenner faded and GM Brian Cashman’s power rose. But this will be marked as the most distinct moment in time when the organization changed irrevocably.
The moment when all pretense was stripped away to reveal that Steinbrenner no longer runs this club. The moment when Torre, A-Rod, and probably Don Mattingly and Ron Guidry, too, left the organization, maybe forever. The moment when Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera, at least, contemplated the same leap. The moment when Steinbrenner’s sons, especially the eldest, Hank, emerged as front men. The moment when the Red Sox clearly became the team to beat in The Rivalry. The moment when the game’s most famous stadium was beginning a farewell campaign and a new palace was nearing its debut.
How is the last Old-Timer’s Day at the old Stadium going to look without Mattingly and Guidry? How is the All-Star Game in The Bronx going to look with Boston skipper Terry Francona managing the AL team?
How do the Yanks stay winners in the leap from one facility to another if so many key veterans flee? Rodriguez already is gone, taking nearly irreplaceable righty power with him.
A-Rod‘s divorce decree was messy and ill-timed. But underneath the ridiculous hunger for attention – which meant stepping on the World Series – Rodriguez’s concerns about the Yankee future are hard to dismiss simply because you may not like the man and/or his tactics.
“We wanted to know the composition of the team before making a decision,” agent Scott Boras said yesterday in explaining why his client opted out Sunday on the final three years of his contract. Rodriguez had only until 10 days after the World Series to accept or decline, and Boras reasoned that was not enough time to know what potential free agents Pettitte, Posada and Rivera were going to do.
In addition, Rodriguez fretted about the handoff from Torre to Joe Girardi. A-Rod didn’t adore his Yankee manager, but he grew to respect Torre’s ability to neutralize firestorms and preserve clubhouse calm. Rodriguez hated playing for Buck Showalter in Texas, which was a key reason he forced his way out, ultimately to the Yanks. He had heard enough comparisons of Girardi’s Type-A persona to that of Showalter to fret about playing for Girardi.
And there also was no way to read how ownership by Steinbrenner’s sons, Hal and Hank, was going to impact the team. Already, we have seen a willingness of the sons to stay unified behind the baseball department’s decisions.
But that is before the first boos, the first loss. In addition, we have seen Hank has some of the old man’s feistiness, but also a tendency to say some dubious stuff.
Suddenly the Yanks have a lot of neophytes in key positions – the Steinbrenner boys and Girardi, specifically – at this dynamic moment. Can they survive?
Well, it is important to remember that after the 1992 season, Greg Maddux, also repped by Boras, spurned a greater financial offer from the Yanks to play with the Braves, in part, because he was worried if the Yanks were capable of winning.
David Cone thought the Yanks were too disorganized to sign as a free agent. The Yanks actually went to their ninth choice – behind pitchers such as Greg Swindell and John Smiley – and it was Jimmy Key, who was instrumental in the turnaround that led to dynasty.
Scott Brosius was a financial counterweight for the Yanks to rid themselves of a failed Boras client, Kenny Rogers, and Brosius was the third baseman for three straight championships.
So there is always hope. Yet it is obvious now – as Yankee money is spurned and they even toy with the idea of rebuilding – that these are not Hank Steinbrenner’s father’s Yankees.