AFTER THE REVOLUTION

With the passing of Torre to Los Angeles (Scott Proctor felt a sudden stabbing pain in his pitching arm) and of AROD to supposedly "greener" pastures (though I'm betting with the Yankees out of the mix, he won't get that 30m a year they were offering him), with the entry of Joe Girardi, a pitching rotation of 20 somethings (Chamberlain, Wang, Hughes, Kennedy and Rasner--especially if Pettite leaves), possible starting roles for Phillips (at third) and Duncan (at first) , all sorts of money suddenly available for signings in the next few years--Clemens, AROD, probably Pettite gone, maybe MO and PO as well, Farnsworth and Moose in their last year--it promises to be a Yankees Extreme Makeover, and I for one am really jazzed about it. The name of this post will be the name of the new blog beginning sometime in Spring Training and continuing through the season. All of this contingent upon me figuring out how to create a new blog, but I have several months.

I thought all along that Girardi was the best pick, had some doubts late about staying within this increasingly sentimental organization, but now that slow Joe is taking his act, his bench coach and who knows what else to LA, where the bloom will come entirley off the rose for all to see--I think Girardi is safe in his role as the anti-establishment choice. And once he starts kicking (and sitting) veteran butt, it will be clear that there is a new spirit blowing through the Bronx, one that knows the only victories that matter are the ones to come.

See you all, hear from you all, I sincerely hope, next season at Aftertherevolution.blogspot.com

TAKING IT PERSONAL

Watching Slow Joe's news conference today (what manager holds a nationally covered news conference on the occasion of his firing?), I realized that I came to my present place of employment the same year Torre took over the Yankees and what is more the professional arc of my department uncannily mapped onto the arc of the Yankees fortunes. Perhaps that is why I have in recent years felt so keenly tied to them. For both organizations there was in the early to mid nineties an influx of new blood, the rush of a sense of shared purpose, and a corresponding rise to excellence. We were never able to live the Steinbrenner doctrine; we were never the world champs in our particular line of intellectual endeavor. But we became pretty good as a group; I venture to say very good. And then just about the time the Yankees started their long slow slide into underachievement, we experienced something of the same lapse into intellectual complacency, self satisfaction, and a sense of grievance against the very expectations we had helped to create for ourselves. We were still good, just like the Yankees; we may have evne become better on paper, just like the Yankees. But we had lost our edge, on a collective basis, in the professional field itself. We started to make decisions that violated the very principles of our own improvement. We catered to the Giambi's and the AROD's of the world, to the aura at the expense of the substance of excellence. And from this dual narrative skein, I derived one lesson about professional organizations:



1. Nothing corrodes guiding principles

2. Nothing imperils standards

3 Nothing produces the stench of hypocrisy



quite like the fetishism of personality.



Watching Joe field the questions of those fawning reporters, watching GM loser Steve Phillips and blowhard extraordinaire John Kruk trip all over their own tongues in describing the Yankees offer to Torre as an "insult," a 5 million dollar, elevator claused insult, a contract paying him 40% more per annum than any other manager in the game, but an insult, I realized as if for the first time that Torre has come to stand at the very center of the Yankee cult of personality. He manages the media so well they all say. Yes, indeed, much better than he manages the ballclub, and it is after all the media that can elevate your personality beyond the bounds of the office you hold or the part you play. As Torre himself said, self-described baseball haters were coming up to him in the streert and telling him they hoped he stayed, indicating that his purchase on the job now had startlingly little to do with the actual requirements of the job. Pundits were praising a quiet dignity that is but the other side of the comotose passivity that helped grease the skids since 2001, indicating that the excellence of Joe Torre in the public mind was less and less about the excellence of the team he piloted on the ballfield. Torre has in some sense, and temporarily to be sure, come to be bigger than the Yankees themselves, more important than the fortunes of the team, not least because he himself played a part in shrinking those fortunes over the last few years. And as I have blogged before, it is not just him, it is The Dynastics (Jeter, Rivera, Posada, Pettite, Clemens), though he of course fronts the group. As one by one this group whined about the possibility of Torre being fired, the media worried about whether they were being served, whether they would be happy with the outcome, whether they were being respected. It was as if the Yankees were no longer about the organization, their self-styled mission, the Bronx, New York City, or their nationwide fan base, it was about the psychic well-being of a small handful of mega-millionaires who were but a small part of the dynasty fashioned almost a decade ago. Is it any wonder that that same small group of players and the man who leads them should have lost, as the last 3 years clearly demonstrate, their competitive edge? Why do they so love Torre if not because he no longer pushes them out of their comfort zone? What is his repeated definition of the ALDS as a crapshoot about if not to allow his players to be comfortable with getting themselves bounced every year, usually by margins which evince that luck had nothing to do with it? I'm sure the late Johnny Oates used to tell his Rangers the same thing while the Yankees were beating their brains in every year. Once may be a crapshoot (98, 2005), twice may be a coincidence (99, 2006) but thrice begins to look like the law (2000, 2007).



Which brings us at last to the stench of hypocrisy. Because we like to assume the viability of meritocratic principles, the fetishism of personality--valuing people in distinction from rather than conformity with their accomplishments--necessarily breeds a virulent strain of hypocrisy. One never likes to see the object of glamorizing affection devalued, particularly since it incriminates one's own taste and judgment. So in the wake of the Detroit debacle last year, which unquestionably set this year's bar higher than the team wound up jumping, it was inevitable that people would take personally Joe's being held to the account they knew was coming. What you saw, as a result, was a series of defense strategies, as threadbare as they were predictable: asserting Joe wasn't responsible for the losses while conveniently forgetting the credit he got for the championships; emphasizing less tangibly baseball skills like managing the media and conveniently omitting to mention his massive tactical deficiencies (sports journalists ought to just say we like him, we really like him--it's the truth and it destroys their credibility as journalists, a twofer); insisting he got superstars to play team ball (actually they never played team defense; they couldn't hit situationally, which is the definition of team offense; I'll concede the bullpen operated as a team unit to blow games, but that's about it); he took the pressure off his players (yes, and as a result they became the posterboys for overpaid fat cat ballplayers).

Because the fetish of Torre draws upon the nostalgic fetish of the dynasty era, its toxic effects are likely to go on well past the now concluded tenure of torre himself. Already idiot columnists like Bob Klap-isch and Tom Ver-douche-i are insisting the Yankees must pay, and overpay, to ensure the services of Rivera and Posada, among the last of the Old Guard. But it is perhaps well to remember that when Torre was hired he had no previous connection to the Yankees. My point is not to do away with fetishism--sports fanaticism is in fact nothing else--rather to shift the fetish back where it belongs, onto the franchise or, as Seinfeld correctly puts it, onto the uniforms (there is no more proper fetish object than clothihg--ask Victoria's Secret). The front office must shift fan investment back to the pinstripes and to the players only insofar as they are wearing the pinstripes. When the last dynasty began, the players were thrilled to be Yankees. Now the Old Guard seems to believe the Yankees should be thrilled to have them, however they might perform when it counts.

It is for this reason that I have come to question my earlier recommendation that Girardi be made the new manager. Maybe we need to cut the ties to the dynasty altogether, as George did when he hired Torre. Maybe it should be La Russa or Valentine or somebody else, somebody who will manage the kids to measure their accomplishments in terms of the future of the greatest franchise in the world, rather than a past identified with a few increasingly obsolescent individuals.

I don't know if, as Michael comments, "the goal is attained and our work is done." The goal, as always, is to witness another championship. But certainly the avowed purpose of this blog is exhausted. I want to thank George and his boys for making Torre an offer that he couldn't accept, I want to thank slow joe himself for being crazy enough to turn it down. I want to thank you all for reading and responding. I've had just the best time doing this.

Farewell, farewell
To you who did,
You Lonely travellers all
The cold north wind
Will blow again
The winding road does call
Farewell, farewell

AN OPEN LETTER TO GEORGE STEINBRENNER

Dear George (if I may),

On behalf of sensible Yankee fans everywhere, let me first say, You promised! You promised if our beloved team flamed out once again in round one, you'd fire the man who has presided over what can only be called an historic run of Yankee post-season futility. When was the last time the Yankees reached the postseason 7 years in a row and failed to win a ring? The answer, never. Six times? Never. Five times, Never. Four times, never. Three times, then? Actually, never. Twice in a row is the longest streak of postseason failure before this one. If October is what counts, as Yankees folk like to say, then AROD is a piker compared to this guy when it comes to postseason foundering. Geez, George, remember when you almost fired Billy Martin for getting swept in his first World Series against the Big Red Machine? How could you not fire Torre for getting swept by the red Sox after being up 3-0?

The one thing at which Torre still excels is cultivating the national press, and in case you haven't heard, they have already started wringing their hands over his fate, wondering if you would really fire Joda, assuring fans you probably won't, making arguments in Torre's defense, even explaining why you really can't. Peter Gammons has recently emerged from his day job--Hall of Fame bathroom attendant to Theo Epstein--to forcefully defend Torre as only a Red Sox operative could. According to Gammons, striking a theme that is becoming quite the rage among the empty-headed blowhards known as sports pundits (I swear they make Rush Limbaugh sound like Albert Einstein by comparison), you can't fire Torre because of the players. The players revere him, the players love him, the players play for him. But if the players don't win for him, and they haven't done that for quite awhile, who cares how they feel? They play, presumably, for their obscene paychecks; if they don't win to ensure his obscene paycheck, they have no right and should entertain no expectation that they will call the tune. If the players claim he is blameless for this very expensive losing streak, that they and they alone are responsible for the embarrassment we have just witnessed, why in the world would anyone credit their input. Once they improve their mediocre defense, their poor situational hitting, their egregious bullpen work, they can take on the added responsibilty of determining mangerial policy and personnel. Until then, I think you should tell Jeter, Posada, Rivera et all to shut up and play! (and while they are at it play better).

Gammons goes on to warn darkly of a free agent revolt. If Torre is fired, Posada will be a Met within a week, Rivera will make you miserable in negotiations, AROD will opt out etc. Here is where you must approach the matter rationally and seize your opportunity. Remember, you brought Torre back this year in part so you could coax Clemens into accepting a 28M dollar prorated contract for 6 wins. How did that work out? Let Posada become a Met; he'll have Minyana crying in no time. You shouldn't be giving expensive new contracts to 36 year old catchers under any circumstances. Yes Jorge had a great offensive season this year, a miraculous one. But that's just the point. At 37, and without divine intervention, his offense is likely to drop off the shelf. His passed balls were way up this year, his runners thrown out were down and he swooned at the plate in the postseason, just like last year, and for the same reason. HE'S OLD AND HE WEARS DOWN. Even if he can still play next year, you'll have to go for at least two years and at 38, the chances that he'll stink far outweigh those that he'll still be an All-Star. Look at Jason Varitek. Posada was never the defensive catcher he was, and do you really want to pay through the nose for that offensive capability? Mo will make negotiations miserable? The best thing you and Cashman did was refuse to offer an extension until after the season. With an ERA of 3.15, a number of blown saves, a rising WHIP, an inability to come in with men on base, Rivera cannot lose much more ground and still be an elite closer. How many years do you want to offer him and how burned are you likely to be on the back end? If Mo wants to go, let him go. NOW IS THE TIME TO TURN THE PAGE. (As forAROD, if he wants to opt out, count your blessings and repeat after me, never has anyone done so much with so few men on base and so little with so many.)

The temptation to cling to dynastic glory spells the death of a franchise. Ask the Boston Celtics, ask the Chicago Bulls. For that matter, ask the New York Yankees of the 1960's. They hung onto Mantle and Tresh and Richardson and Ford and Kubek and Elston Howard, and having won 14 pennants in 16 years and 9 world championships during that span, they missed the postseason for 12 consecutive years before you yourself brought the franchise back to respectability. If you can't learn from the mistakes of those you proved wrong, what can you learn from? Of course there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth in certain quarters if you showed the Old Guard the door. But that is the beauty part of firing Torre. The Old Guard will leave you and you can rebuild the empire without being seen to have violated any sentimental bond with the players. The future of the Yankees is named Hughes, Kennedy, Chamberlain, Wang, Ohlendorf, Sanchez, Cano, Duncan, Cabrera, Tabatha and others you have yet to acquire. Their loyalty to Torre is minimal, as minimal as his abilty to cultivate their talents. We already know what Joe Girardi can do with young players. He had the equivalent of a futures team over there in Florida and he almost got them to the playoffs. But the key word here is future. In every great enterprise, from the Roman Empire to the American space program, there is always a moment or a series of moments when its past is so compelling, so substantial, so impressive, its present so distressed, and its future so uncertain that it threatens to turn into an exercise in nostalgia, an undead organism constituted by its own fading memories. Now is such a moment for the Yankees. That dynasty, those championships that you are being asked to revivify by keeping a Rivera or a Posada or a Torre or even a Pettite, they happened not just yesterday, but last century, last millenium. They are now as dead as your chances of adding to their number with the last players who won them.

George, one of the great things about your ownership these last 35 years has been your understanding of what the Yankees are in a psychic sense. They are not merely a baseball team, not merely a business enterprise, not merely a metropolitan attraction. They are, and you know this, an ever renewed promise of triumph. It is precisely to renew that promise that you vowed to relieve Torre of his job if he failed yet again to deliver on its terms. If you are not to be responsible for breaking the pact that holds the empire together, you must be true to your word in this case. Nothing less than the future of the Yankees, as the promise of triumph, depends on your willingness to consign Torre and, if need be, his player acolytes, to the past they so dominated.

Reaching the postseason repeatedly since the last championship has made it harder to let go of that dynastic period, I understand. Every year it seems just within reach, rather like the American dream at the end of The Great Gatsby: next year "we will run faster, stretch out our arms further..." But if we too do not want to be "borne ceaselessly into the past," however magnificent that past was, we need to recognize when its over. Torre's inability to manage this team effectively is the living presentness of the dynasty's irrevocable pastness. He has to go, not just in spite of the Old Guard's wishes, but so that they will go as well. It's past time for a new Yankees order.

I ONLY HAVE MY WIFE

to testify to this, but she will. Last night, between bites of the most delicious veal, I was screaming at the Yankee hitters through the first four innings: "Why do you idiots keep trying to pull this guys sinker; you can't fucking pull a sinker! Then Kevin Long, Yankees hitting coach was interviewed in the fourth and he indicated his belief that the Yankke hitters looked good despite the meager results and I'm screaming, what are you talking about, their approach is exactly wrong! Come the fifth inning, with each hit, Matsui, Cano, Cabreara, I'd say to Joanne, which way did that hit go, to which she'd respond, with the patient good humor for which she is known, "the other way."

Come this morning, I find out on the internet that the Yankees are congratulating themselves for changing their approach in the fifth. Congratulating themselves! Excuse me, isn't hitting the sinkerball where it is pitched Spalding Guide baseball 101? And if I know that as a fucking literature professor, and know it well enough to proclaim it in real time, why the hell doesn't Kevin Long know it, or Joe Torre, for that matter, who was a helluva batsman in his day?

People make alot of Steinbrenner insisting on victories out of his managerial staff, but I wonder if he isn't simply insisting on, and not getting, competence. As a native of Cleveland, he undoubtedly knew the midges were a temporary phenomenon and that Torre should have asked for a delay or, failing to receive one, created a delay through argumentation. And if I know you don't pull the sinker, I bet George, in his more lucid moments, does as well. George is undoubtedly eager to fire Torre, as they say, but not because Torre is "too popular," rather because he is unjustifiably popular, and because most people know baseball too little to grasp that (and the players themselves don't want to grasp it), George has to wait like some ghoul for the truly unacceptable outcome to make his move.

For me, its a win-win, either the Yankees triumph, my ultimate baseball desire, or Torre gets the ax, a close second.

Last thing--Jeter is looking like the new AROD. After a dreadful first couple of games, he makes that horrible throw which cost the Yankees a run (how was that not an error) and then hits into two consecutive rally killing double plays, befiore striking out klater in the game. ARODIAN indeed!

PATIENCE, PATIENCE, PATIENCE?

Before the series, I said the Yankees could conceivably lose the first 2 and come back to win it. Of course, I didn't count on their offense looking quite this anemic. Was my patience misplaced?
Probably. But the anomaly remains that the Tribe is going with their 2 weak pitchers, and Byrd has been particularly bad, in games 3 and 4 at the stadium. The notion that the Yankees could do the one thing they do well, hit mediocre pitching, and win these 2 games, is not that far-fetched. Returning to Cleveland against Sabathia is of course very tough, but they would have Pettite on full rest and he did show what a warrior he is last night.

If our patience is to be rewarded, the Yankees are going to have to start showing some patience at the plate. Carmona entered the ninth having only thrown 89 pitches. The Yankees, particularly Damon, Jeter, AROD and MAtsui were not grinding at all, they were waving. And to my mind that means they were pressing or, if you like, gagging. They have to get back to making the pitchers throw strikes. Carmona got K after K on pitches oout of the zone.

You know who always shows good plate patience, Jason Giambi, and it is probably no coincedence that he is hitting over 500 against Cleveland this year, including doing well against Carmona and getting a hit in his only appearance this series. It makes perfect sense that he could hit Carmona--he's a low ball hitter. Then why, you m ight ask didn't Torre DH him instead of the hapless Matsui, particularly after the first game when it became clear that for whatever reason, Hideki doesn't have a clue at the plate right now. Well, that brings me to my last riff on patience. I showed too much with slow Joe last night when I indicated he didn't contribute to the loss. I didn't think you could quibble too much with his in-game moves, bur he clearly did hurt them by not playing Giambi, who would have set a different tone at the plate. He now says he'll "think about it" for game 3, but as we all know, thinking isn't slow Joe's strong suit, closing the barn door after a loss is. Carmona was really the guy you wanted Giambi to face, the guy for which the rest of the team really needed the help.

Note: Although this series recall's last year's debacle, these Indians are not last year's Tigers. I thought Pettite exposed them last night as a free-swinging team that doesn't hit situationally. If you pitch then reasonably tough, you can beat them regularly. That the Yankees lost, and lost by giving up the tying run without a single hit, only exposes themselves. I think last year's team would have won that game. Which is to say we should be running out of patience not just with this team but with a franchise unable to right itself.

DISGRACE!

Cleveland cound't do anything and still the Yankees managed to lose this game. Amazing! Base on balls, wild pitch,bunt , two outs and a wild pitch. Please! Posada has yet another passed ball, this time on a strikeout. Vizcaino gets too fine and has to groove one to Hafner. And that's not even mentioning the utter futility at the plate: Damon looked pathetic, Matsui looked worse than pathetic, Cano was impatient, Mankiewitcz was in April form, Jeter was pretty bad and AROD, well AROD was OCTOBERROD, 3 strikeouts and a pop out, extending his streak of RBI-less at bats in the post-season over 60 and his hitless streak to 17. But the truth is he didn't even stick out in his chokishness: the Yankees have indeed become his team.

The criminal thing is they got the performance they needed out of Pettite and the performance they needed out of Rivera, but just like the regular season, they just stopped even putting men on base once the game was tied. This loss was decidedly not on slow Joe; the players lost it for themselves. Remember in September when Torre and Damon and Jeter kept saying, in explanation of their hot streak, "Well we know we're a good team." Eh, not so much. This series is now looking exactly like the Detroit series of last year, only worse, just as Detroit looked the the Angels series of the year before, only worse. The Yankees are a still a team in decline, by inches, increasingly painful inches.

GAME ONE

Well BGW got his wish, as the Yanks were not only beaten but humiliated. Let's see if it concentrates their collective mind as it has in the past. The scary thing is, this looked like deja Detroit all over again.

Actually the game was, if not closer, than at least more in doubt than the score indicates. In the fiftth inning three classic blunders by slow Joe contributed to the Yankees failing to score more than one run and thus failing to tie the game and secure the momentum. First, with 2 on and nobody out, he fails to have Jeter lay down a bunt. This was small ball phobia so obvious and so costly that even the announcers at TBS wondered about it, and did so in advance. They wanted a sacrifice, which would have put men on second and third for Abreu (who did happen to double). I would have let Jeter swing away once and when he fouled the ball off, have him drag bunt the next pitch for an attempted hit. After Jeter made out and Wedge intentionally walked AROD, Sabathia ran a 3-0 count to Posada with the bases loaded. Under such circumstances I believe in allowing the pitcher to help you out. Green light the 3-0 if you like, as the Yankees did, but put a take sign on 3-1. Pitchers never groove that pitch, are often out of the strike zone with it (as Sabathia was) and hitters are almost always over-anxious on that count. Finally, after Posada whiffed, Matsui came up. I don't even know what he was doing in the game. He has an unbroken history of futility against Sabathia, and in his first 2 at-bats he had already shown why. I mean he looked feeble up there. I would have rather seen Giambi at that point. With the bases loaded, his refusal to go out of the strike zone could have proved helpful and his familiarity with Sabathia has resulted in a far less hopeless record than Matsui. That inning waws the turning point, and Joe simply did nothing to improve their prospects.

By the way, did you see that Kenny Lofton? Four years later and he can still play! I still say he is the best evidence there is for Sheffield's Torre as white man's manager thesis.

Pettite tomorrow. If we get to a game four, I say let Hughes or Wang pitch it and then come back with Pettite in Game 5. I don't want to see Wang pitch at the Jake again.

FEARLESS PREDICTIONS

The only series I have no real sense of an outcome is the Yanks-Indians. I feel strongly that the Phillies will beat the Rockies in 4, the Cubs will take the D-Backs in 5 (on the strength of the Lou factor) and the Angels will dispose of Boston in 4 (the Angels are banged up, but Escobar seems recovered and Boston has no starting pitching after Beckett.)


Boy, looking back on these, I wished I had picked the Indians! I'm so consistently wrong, it would have augured well.

THANKS FOR THE ERROR

I think the Sox just made a huge tactical mistake. They took the 8 day series, despite the fact that the Angels have 2 aces they can now pitch twice, on full rest, and the Sox have Beckett and a group of starters equal in their adequacy.

At the same time, they have done the Yankees a huge favor. If Cleveland is going to send its pitchers out on full rest, they will need to throwboth Byrd and Westbrook, along with Carmona once and Sabathia twice. I'm not saying the Yankees will win this series, but they can win it, and I'm not sure that would be the case facing both Sabathia and Carmona twice with only Byrd or Westbrook between them.