LIFE OF BRIAN: Yankees GM Brian Cashman, with Col. Mike Rado at his side, lays in his hospital bed (above) after breaking his right leg while skydiving with the Army’s Golden Knights. (Charles Wenzelberg/New York Post)
LIFE OF BRIAN: Yankees GM Brian Cashman, with Col. Mike Rado at his side, lays in his hospital bed (above) after breaking his right leg while skydiving (inset) with the Army’s Golden Knights. (Charles Wenzelberg/New York Post; US Army (inset))
HOMESTEAD, Fla. — It had gone just as Brian Cashman hoped — an exhilarating ride, followed by a smooth landing. His skydiving mission with the Golden Knights, enacted to raise attention for the Wounded Warrior Project, was a success.
“It was insane!” the Yankees’ general manager shouted.
But moments later yesterday morning, an enthusiastic staff sergeant here at the Homestead Air Reserve Base asked what seemed like an innocent question: “Ready to go again?”
And that’s when the day turned considerably more insane than Cashman desired. When Cashman became the latest snake-bit Yankees veteran.
Cashman, thinking the sergeant meant something more like, “Would you ever do this again?” responded, “Sure!” The sergeant meant, “Right now,” and Cashman looking wary, told The Post’s Charles Wenzelberg he wished he hadn’t opened his mouth.
Sure enough, a nasty landing on jump number two left Cashman with a broken right fibula and dislocated right ankle, and he underwent an initial surgery at Homestead Hospital and headed to Broward Health Medical Center for a second procedure. Both jumps were done in tandem with U.S. Army Sergeant First Class Noah Watts.
“I’ve become a wounded warrior, I guess,” Cashman said jokingly from his Homestead Hospital room.
He was in terrific spirits, even after the day turned south for him. He didn’t regret his second jump, he said, explaining: “Stuff happens. It’s an honor and a privilege to be trained by the best, jump with the best. I’m sorry I let the best down.”
We know Cashman has become noticeably more adventurous in recent years. His rappelling down a building in Stamford, Conn., has become a holiday tradition. This skydiving gig came from the mind of Fox 5 anchor Duke Castiglione, who joined Cashman yesterday.
They arrived at the base at 8:30 and Cashman, holding a plastic cup, announced, “I’m on my second Starbucks.” He admitted to being nervous, although that anxiety presented itself in a stream of jokes during the Golden Knights’ orientation.
When Watts, while conducting the orientation, spoke of a man who chickened out on the plane after his girlfriend jumped, Cashman quipped: “How come I never heard about that story about [Red Sox GM] Ben Cherington before?”
For the first jump, during which I sat in the DHC-6 Twin Otter and shot video, we reached an altitude of 13,600 feet, and Cashman looked pretty calm as he and Watts deplaned. He went as fast as 129 miles per hour, Cashman said afterward.
On Cashman’s second jump, I waited on the ground, and at first, Cashman appeared simply dehydrated as a military official brought him water. It turned out that looking at his leg had made him nauseous.
A medic came to tend to Cashman, who eventually hopped onto a van that took him to the hospital. He offered a thumbs-up as he left, and as I drove to the hospital, it shocked me to receive a text message from Cashman: “Thanks for coming. It was awesome.”
“It was a great opportunity,” he repeated in the hospital, with Army Colonel Mark A. Rado — a die-hard Yankees fan — standing bedside. “And I’m excited that I was able to do it with my team here. The Army may not want me, but I’m married to the Army.”
“We want you,” Rado said, smiling.
The Army folks all were shaken by the experience. The pre-jump talk featured much gallows humor, and at one point, Watts said that, rather than being scared of the heights, “you should be more afraid of the sudden stop on the ground.”
Uh, yeah.
Don’t count on Cashman to halt his wanderlust, at least once his leg heals. After his first jump, he said: “I really am into doing things I never did before. I always say it’s called living. I don’t want to wake up when I’m older and say, you know, I really wish I did X, Y, Z, P, D, Q.
“In this position as general manager, you get access or opportunities that come your way. You’re not volunteering or asking for it.”
Well, when things end as they did yesterday, he’s asking for jokes directed at his expense. Maybe next time, he’ll go to two coffees and stop at one adventure.