BORAS v. YES : THE LOST CRUSADE

"No battle is ever won. They're not even fought. The Battlefield only reveals to man his own folly and despair and Victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools." --William Faulkner

No one likes lawyers very much; less so, agents.

Scott Boras, however, arouses in fans, reporters, critics, and of course, baseball's owners and GMs, an animosity usually reserved for tyrants, subversives, and crooks. His less than scrupulous tactics explains some of it. His arrogance, presumption, and cynicism certainly doesn't help. However, sheer envy accounts for much of it as well. The resentment testifies to the skill. After all, Boras doesn't disguise his ambition to be the best at what he does. And his adversaries' (and rivals') hostility largely proves that Boras has succeeded. Indeed, the man who dominates his field, as A-Rod does his, should take pride in having earned the unalterable hatred of some of the most competitive, rapacious, and frugal business tycoons in the country-- men who since the days of Charlie Comiskey have lied, stonewalled, and colluded to preserve their stranglehold on the profits Boras has managed to re-distribute among the people most responsible for generating them, his clients.

It's no accident, then, that the sports media has crowned Boras baseball's most influential and notorious agent. However, as he recently revealed in a less than flattering New Yorker profile ("The Extortionist" October 29, 2007), Boras actually considers himself a lawyer, first and foremost. To his mind, the lawyer's mantle fits more aptly with his conception of himself as a learned professional driven, above all, by high-minded purpose.

The media, in contrast, prefers to see Boras through its own narrow and jaundiced prism. Baseball Columnist, Bill Madden, for example, would reduce the man he calls "the Avenging Agent," to some comic-book crusader exacting revenge for a minor-league baseball career derailed by injuries and thwarted by inadequate talent. First of all, the caricature exaggerates Boras' actual modest expectations for his baseball career. From which he wanted little more than a practical way to finance his education, first through a college scholarship and later, a subsidy for his law school tuition. And by this measure, Boras can count his minor-league career a resounding success. Secondly, by evoking the vindicitve malcontent who wishes to bankrupt his former bossess, Madden's caricature trivializes the baseball's ignoble legacy of exploitation, graft, conspiracy, fraud, wage-fixing and labor scabs against which Boras fights.

Anyway, what ultimately motivates Boras's crusade is far less important than how he envisions it and what he intends it to accomplish. Which in the modern era is to right the injustice that has enabled baseball ownership to veil their books in secrecy, to siphon undeclared revenue streams, to skirt anti-trust laws, to trade on political patronage, to beggar minor-league players, to deny amateur's legal representation, and to amass exorbitant profits they neither account for nor confine to their proportionate contribution to the game.

Nonetheless, the dynamic of the crusade also explains how and why Boras' mission could so easily could founder in overzealousness, hubris and miscalculation, as it did this time. Boras bungled the A-Rod negotiations and cost his client at least $21 million, if not more, because the incandescence of his righteousness blinded him. Zeal ensnared him in the missionary lawyer's trap. Cause eclipsed client. Boras lost sight of his paramount duty--to fulfill Alex Rodriguez' personal wishes and to advance his limited self-interest.

JOHNNY COCHRAN & OJ SIMPSON: CLIENT SERVES CAUSE
You see, the legal advocate often strives to vindicate two interests simultaneously, interests that can converge but often as not conflict-- the interest of his cause and the interest of his client. To illustrate, witness the infamous OJ case. One the one hand, when Johnnie Cochran played the "race card," he did so for the simple reason that appealing to his preponderantly black jury's racial grievance promised his best chance for his client's acquittal. Nonetheless, Cochran's indignation at the LA law enforcement's ignominious record of racism animated him as well. Cochran sought to establish a legal precedent for jury nullification where endemic racism has tainted the criminal investigation. Acquitting OJ, despite the incriminating evidence against him would achieve a farther-reaching objective. It would signal to the City of LA that the racism which pervades their police department, unless eradicated, will forfeit their officer's legal authority, void the legitimacy of the arrests they make, and risk exoneration of the guilty they accuse. Serving OJ served Cochran's cause. Or perhaps, more accurately, Cochran's cause served OJ. In either case, the interests of client and cause intersected.

SCOTT BORAS & A-ROD: CAUSE DISSERVES CLIENT
What does Johnny Cochran have to do with Scott Boras? Well, Boras, a self-styled labor lawyer, confronted a similar dichotomy between client and cause in his representation of A-Rod. Only this time the two goals diverged. And Boras was remiss in not subordinating his larger cause to A-Rod's avowed interest.

We can assume Alex Rodriguez retained Boras for the reason every performer seeks representation from his agent-- to maximize his share of the money others earn from his performance. The actor from the studio. The musician from the record company. The ball player from the owner.

Accordingly, Boras claimed Alex Rodriguez, as the best player in baseball, deserved a 12-year contract in excess of $350 million. The figure wasn't arbitrary. Far from concealing his logic, Boras recounted it to the point of tedium. In 2000, the year the Rangers signed A-Rod to a 10-year, $252 million dollar contract, major league baseball was $3 billion dollar industry. Since then it's nearly doubled, to approximately a $6 billion dollar industry in 2007. From this figure, Boras, as such, extrapolated that Alex Rodriguez was worth almost double his 2000 compensation package or around $400 million. Now there are a number of obvious flaws in Boras' logic. The obvious one being that A-Rod 2000 contract far exceeded what the market could bear, as the Rangers problems in paying it subsequently proved. Moreover, no contract executed over the last seven years even nearing its average annual value, and only Manny Ramirez's breaching the $20 million+ threshold.

Still, distorted math is not what propelled Boras in the end, who probably understood the logical flaws in his economic model anyway. No, what drove Boras to miscalculate was that he allowed his agenda to subsume his client's. Sure, Boras wanted to secure for A-Rod the largest contract and the most money possible, as he does for every player. He counseled A-Rod to void his contract and to declare free-agency because in most instances, the competitive bidding of the marketplace sets value and inflates price. But like Cochran saw in OJ, Boras saw in A-Rod an opportunity to set a precedent. A precedent that would benefit all his clients and consistent, moreover, with Boras' idea of players' just deserts.

That Boras had another agenda was evident to anyone with enough patience to listen to his tedious and pedantic lectures. At every public opportunity to discuss A-Rod's contract, Boras cited, ad nauseam, baseball's continuing exponential revenue growth. Which he traced to all the new revenue streams the owners have tapped over last decade in new stadiums equipped with corporate luxury suites and more recently, through the regional sports networks and alliances with foreign baseball leagues. To say nothing of the tremendous boom in attendance, broadcast revenue, overseas merchandising, and overall profit the owners have reaped as a consequence-- profits, in Boras' estimation, and many others as well, the owners haven't shared with their players.

This explains why Boras devised a term of art to characterize A-Rod's worth: IPN, standing for iconic magnetism, historic performance, and network value. The network value comprising the key of course. Boras persisted in arguing that A-Rod was worth hundreds of millions to one of the 25-odd teams who had not founded regional sports networks to broadcast their games. Presumably, with A-Rod's contract, Boras intended to set the precedent for a player garnering a share of the profit a team's sports' network generates.

(Boras has a valid point here, incidentally. Regional sports' networks founded on broadcasting a local baseball team potentially enable owners to segregate, if not conceal, the revenue they otherwise would have to declare. To illustrate, when MSG paid the Yankees $40 million annually for the right to broadcast Yankee games, the Yankees could not deny that their operating revenues included $40 million above and beyond the gait. Such is not necessarily the case with the YES Network. The Yankees own 36% of YES, but it's a separate legal entity. Who's to say whether YES pays the Yankees a fair-market rate for broadcast rights?)

The problem, of course, is that A-Rod, evidently, didn't want to serve as the self-sactificing martyr in Boras' grand design. He wanted to play for the Yankees, plain and simple, and to extract as much money from them as Boras could. Boras, it seems, persuaded A-Rod that to accomplish as much, he had to opt-out first, enable the bidding process to begin, and then persuade the Yankees to match the offer. Presumably, if some team like the Giants or Angels interested in founding a sports network offered A-Rod some share in its profits, the Yankees would have to respond likewise.

Only it soon became clear the Yankees had other ideas. They weren't bluffing about the consequences A-Rod risked in opting-out. The Front-Office was set to replace him. And once Cashman's pursuit of Miguel Cabrera, Mike Lowell, Miguel Tejada or Scott Rolen accelerated, A-Rod realized his interests and Boras' agenda conflicted. He wasn't going to play somewhere other than the Bronx just so his lawyer could realize his mission to transform baseball's landscape. And who could blame A-Rod for refusing to play the standard-bearer? Who could blame him for refusing the the sacrifice Boras' justice would have exacted? He did that once and he ended up languishing in Texas.

So A-Rod returned to the Yankees and agreed to forfeit the $21 million subsidy his opt-out denied them. While Boras' zeal, perhaps for the first time, cost his client instead of enriching him.

And so this Thanksgiving, we Yankee fans gives thanks that baseball mirrors America, where more often than not, over collective justice, self-interest will prevail.

THE $203 MILLION DOLLAR CANARD

Evidently, the Yankees have resorted to damage control yet again.

Just as King George's Court Reporters tried to discredit Joe Torre in the wake of the public outcry his ouster created, they've spearheaded the movement to depict A-Rod and Boras as greedy, venal mercenaries and to defend the Yankee Front-Office's decision, as such, to shun them.

At first Cashman Inc. wanted Yankees fans to believe that the reason the organization would spurn A-Rod, if he voided his contract, was because the Yankees would lose the $30 million subsidy the Rangers' committed to pay them through the contract's final three years. Lose the best player in baseball over $30 million-- that is, $3-million-a-year over the 10-year contract to which the Yankees planned to extend him?

Well, Cashman's argument, never especially compelling to begin with, became even more untenable once A-Rod actually opted-out. First, a few reporters revealed that the so-called $30 million dollar subsidy was really only $21 million-- because of the $30 million Tom Hicks still owed under A-Rod's former contract, A-Rod himself was entitled to $9 million of it.

What's more, once reporters began to consider the unpalatable alternatives for replacing him, Yankee fans wanted to know why $21 million-- a sum less than Kei Igawa's posting fee and Roger Clemens 2007 salary and commensurate to Giambi's '07 and '08 earnings-- should preclude the Yankees, at the very least, from negotiating with A-Rod notwithstanding.

Wasn't the business of winning more important than the Yankees' wounded pride or the so-called "credibility" with future free-agents the organization claimed it would squander if it reneged on its warning? And in any case, what credibility were they talking about? Wasn't A-Rod's situation sui generis? The Yankees don't have any other players on their payroll with opt-out clauses. And when was the last the Yankees announced before free-agency started that they wouldn't negotiate with one of their own players if he exercised this right? Answer: NEVER.

So as the Yankees' ostracism of A-Rod increasingly seemed more punitive than prudent, King George's Court, through their press agents, began to pander a few more justifications to bolster their case. The first was that by opting-out, A-Rod indicated he no longer wished to play in New York. Which, A-Rod, then, refuted through his press agents and "unnamed sources close to him" and the spuriousness of which Boras, moreover, exposed by adducing Bernie Williams' example. Was Bernie Williams, in 1998, Boras asked, was any less loyal to the Yankees by declaring free-agency and nearly signing with the Boston Red Sox? No, of course, not. Nor is Mariano Rivera for recently reminding everyone that he would consider playing for Joe Torre in LA.

So with the valence of the "Alex doesn't want to be Yankee" dwindling, the King George's Press returned to their favorite bogeyman-- the money.

Why so few baseball writers ever condemn, let alone question, the amount of money the owners earn baffles this writer? Baseball players actually work for their salaries. What contribution does an owner make? It's not as though baseball owners assume some great risk in purchasing a team. They own a closed-market business. Don't players deserve increases commensurate to the astronomical rise in profit the owner have garnered over the last decade from the advent of luxury suites, sold-out ballparks, local television networks, and a rising gate.

Still, reporters' prefer to decry escalating player salaries. So, perhaps, it wasn't surprising when the new reason they offered for the Yankees to shun A-Rod focused on the financial difference between the contract extension A-Rod rebuffed and the cost of signing him as a free-agent. A cost, Jayson Stark observed, wasn't $30 million-- the amount commensurate to the Rangers subsidy-- no, it was actually $203 million. What, $203 million? Where did that come from? Let's see.

MAD MADDEN
Bill Madden, one of King George's favorite leakers when he wishes to replace his manager and unregenerate Boras-hater (Madden calls him "The Avenging Agent"), illuminates.

Madden's premise is that A-Rod now will cost any team he signs with a minimum of $300 million. The reason: the total extension package the Yankees were prepared to offer A-Rod would have netted him at least $300 million. According to Madden, an extension for A-Rod that retained the terms of the old contract would have looked as follows: (See NY Daily News, "Just Shea No," November 11, 2007

'08-'10 Rangers Contract $91 million ($32M for '08, $32M for '09, $27M for '10)
'11-'17 Yankees' Extension $203 million ($29 million per year for 7 years)

TOTAL NET WORTH TO A-ROD = $294 million

STARK NUMBERS
Following Madden's logic one-step further, ESPN's Jayson Stark purports to account for this $203 million premium the Yankees now would have to pay to sign A-Rod. To his credit, Stark's calculations account for an additional variable many other commentators missed. A-Rod, potentially, costs the Yankees more than any other team, apart from the Red Sox, because the Yankees' current payroll exceeds the luxury tax threshold. As such, the Yankees would have to pay a 40% surcharge on A-Rod's annual salary if their pay roll exceeds $155 million for 2008, $162 million for 2009, $170 million for 2010, and $178 million for 2011.

Accordingly, Stark calculates the "$203 million difference" as follows:

A STARK EXTRAPOLATION
Yankees Proposed Extension: 5 years, $145 million
Rangers' Contract: 3 years, $81 million
A-Rod's Take: 8 years, $226 million (28.25M per year)
Yankees' Luxury Tax Premium: $226m + ($226m * 40%) - ($30m TX subsidy)
Total = $287 million

A-Rods' Demand: 12 years, $350m
Luxury Tax: ($350m * 40%)
Yankees' Total Bill: $490 million
Total Difference for Yankees = $203 million

But before we address the two basic fallacies Stark's analysis betrays, let us update his calculation with the figures Madden provides. Remember: Madden reveals, on the one hand, that (1) the Yankees were prepared to offer A-Rod a full 7-year extension, not just five; (2) that the Yankees only receive $21 million of Hicks' $30 million outstanding obligation; and on the other (3) that Boras, despite demanding $350 million, could accept a minimum of $300 million for A-Rod and still claim a victory.

Stark's Numbers with Madden Addendum
Yankees Proposed Contract Extension: 7 years, $203 million
Rangers' Contract: 3 years, $81 million
A-Rod's Take: 10 years, $284 million (28.4M per year)
Yankees' Luxury Tax Premium: $284m + ($284m * 40%) - ($21m TX subsidy)
Total = $377 million

A-Rods' Minimum: 10 years, $300m
Luxury Tax: (300m * 40%) = $120m
Yankees' Total Bill: $420 million
Total Difference for Yankees: $43 million

Now, $43 million is not exactly $203 million. But let's concede for the sake of argument that Boras already has a suitor willing to pay his ransom of $350 million and the Yankees would have to match it to retain A-Rod. (Under such a circumstance the Stark difference would rise from $43 million to $113 million.) The problem is that two assumptions still plague Stark's argument. One of which is spurious, another of which is indeterminate.

STARK FALLACY
Stark's extrapolations assume (i) that the Yankees' payroll will exceed the luxury tax threshold for the entire duration of A-Rod's contract and (ii) that following the expiration of the current labor agreement which runs through 2011, the owner and player will renew the luxury tax. The corollary assumption to which is that the Yankees payroll for the last six years of A-Rod's contract ('12-'17) still will exceed the height to which the new labor agreement raises it.

(This is to say nothing about another flaw in Stark's argument. The Yankees receive some percentage of the luxury tax they pay to defray the cost of the new stadium they're building.)

Stark's first fallacy subsumes its second. Evidently, Stark didn't look beyond the 2008 season in assuming the Yankees would exceed the luxury tax threshold throughout the duration of A-Rod's next contract. Because had he, he would have come to a more equivocal conclusion.
After the 2008 season, the Yankees will discard the following contracts:

1) Giambi $22 million
2) Abreu $16 million
3) Mussina $11 million
4) Pavano $11 million
5) Farnsy $5.5million
6) Pettitte $16 million (provided he doesn't retire this year)

Total Lost after 2008 season = $81.5 million

(I will assume that the loss of other players beyond the players listed above following 2008 will off-set the increases the Yankees will incur from the rise in salaries of arbitration-eligible players like Wang and Cano)

ESPN calculated the Yankees 2007 payroll to be $195 million http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/teams/salaries?team=nyy

So let's estimate their 2008 and 2009 payrolls, should the Yankees change their mind and sign A-Rod. In 2008, with A-Rod, the Yankees payroll would rise as follows:

1) + $1million Posada's Contract
2) + $4.5million Mariano (I assume Rivera re-signs for 3 years at $45 million)
3) +$1 million Abreu
4) +$1 million Pavano

Total Increase w/o A-Rod = app. $8million

A-Rod Increase = $14million ($30 million '08- $16 million)

Aggregate increase for '08 = $8million = $14million = $22 million

• Estimated 2008 Yankee payroll with A-Rod = $215 million
• Estimated 2009 Yankees payroll with A-Rod = $215 - $81 (expiring contracts) = $134 million

Which means, all else being equal, the Yankees would be about $28 million under the luxury tax threshold for 2009. Two implications follow: (i) if the Yankees don't incur the luxury tax after 2008, the cost differential of signing A-Rod on the open market versus extending his contract drops to little more than the $21million Rangers' subsidy and (ii) that even with paying A-Rod $35m-per-year, the Yankees potentially would have about $28 million dollars at their disposal to spend on Johan Santana, before MLB would assess a luxury tax in 2009.

CAN THE YANKEES AFFORD A-ROD?

In fact, should the Yankees change their mind, A-Rod's contract, along with Posada's, Rivera's, and Jeter's, would remain the only long-term contracts the Yankees would have to pay past 2009, when the Yankees' luxury tax threshold would rise to $170 million and in 2011, to $178 million.

So can the Yankees afford A-Rod? It's difficult to evaluate definitively, of course, because the Yankees, like every other major league team, don't have to account publicly for their revenue and indulge in creative book-keeping to minimize the profits they declare. Still, the Yankees enter a new stadium in 2009 with 60 corporate luxury boxes and suites and seats throughout the ballpark whose prices many estimate will rise from 75% to 400% in addition to commanding "a licensing fee" surcharge for season-ticket holders. Whether they maximize this earning potential will depend on whether fans fill the ballpark and spend their money on concessions and souvenirs, which in turn, will hinge, in the long-term, on whether the Yankees win.

So, once again, can the Yankees afford to re-sign A-Rod? To which a Talmudic answer seems most apropos: i.e., Can the Yankees afford not to?

WHY THE YANKEES NEED A-ROD

"Hell hath no fury like a Steinbrenner scorned"

Villify him, if you will. Deplore him, if you must. Renounce the mercenary temptress who stole your affections and trampled your heart.

After all, you embraced him and he rebuffed you. You defended him and he betrayed you. You let him seduce you; and then when you offered him millions to stay, he spurned your calls.

But then, please, let the indignation, recrimination, and malice subside. And then, once you've shed the scorned lover's bravado; once your wounded pride has healed, ask yourself whether your beloved Yankees can prosper without him?

Because if you're honest with yourself, if you eschew the temptation to overconfidence and self-deception; you'll have to confront the stark reality. The Yankees cannot win a championship next year without A-Rod's production. Worse, the remedies readily available for assuaging A-Rod's loss can cripple the Yankees more, in the end, than the loss itself.

Alas, A-Rod and Boras knew exactly what they were doing when the AL MVP voided his contract: the Yankees need A-Rod far more than A-Rod needs the Yankees. And all the threats King George's Men issued over the past three months only reaffirmed where the balance of power rested. For an ultimatum is a sure sign of weakness. More dangerous still, ultimatums invite defiance or reprisal.

Reveal to A-Rod once or twice the consequence of opting-out and the Yankees, perhaps, deter him. Repeat the threat multiple times, as the Yankees' hierarchy did, and you almost certainly provoke him. Because no one can acquiesce to an ultimatum without surrendering his self-respect. A-Rod only demonstrated that he was less desperate to remain a Yankee than the Yankees were to retain him.

As well they should have been, because A-Rod is no less indispensable to the Yankees future than the Yankees other free-agents, Rivera, Pettitte, and Posada and perhaps, more so.

Lose Mariano and the Yankees, at least have Joba Chamberlain to stanch the bleeding. (Not that the body still won't ache.)

Lose Andy Pettitte and the Yankees can turn to their farm system's one surplus commodity-- young pitching. Or they can wait a year; and with the bonanza of elite starters likely available, the Yankees can go shopping and purchase a substitute in the marketplace. (Following the 2008 season, Santana, Sabathia,Sheets will be free-agents. And if their team don't exercise their options and Peavy and Lackey will join them and Burnett, too, if like A-Rod, he exercises his opt-out.)

Lose Posada? Well, the Yankees will suffer and profoundly at that. In fact, of the dynastic threesome, the franchise can afford to lose their catcher least. Nonetheless, a catcher as prolific as Posada is an anomaly, more windfall than necessity, in the long run. All else remaining the same, the Yankees would survive with Jose Molina, Yorvit Torrealba, or Michael Barrett behind the plate for a year or two until either Francisco Cervelli or Jesus Montero, their two top minor-league catchers, displaces him.

But tragically, all else is not equal. Because with the player responsible for 17% of their runs last seaason, the hitter who accounted for 14% of their total bases, the bat that comprised their sole source of right-handed power, the Yankees refuse to negotiate. It's one thing to shun a player because his price exceeds his worth. Quite another, when pride, spite, and stubborness forestall rational decision-making. But this is precisely what the Steinlittles current stance betrays. They've ostracized A-Rod in a fit of pique. Did A-Rod court banishment, by refusing, when he did, to discuss an extension? Of course, he did. But Scott Boras is the Godfather of agents. With him, it's never personal; it's only business. Would that the Steinlittles emulated him. Because in their vindictiveness, the Steinlittles harm themselves above all.

Have the Yankees record-breaking attending records induced complacency or overconfidence? Do the Steinlittles honestly believe they will draw 4,000,000 fans with the Yankees languishing in third place on September 1st? (Sure, 50,000 fans may attend Yankees Stadium's final farewell ceremonies, but ask Larry Lucchino how many fans braved muggy September nights in 2006 after the Red Sox fell out of playoff contention.)

And a forlorn September is precisely what the Yankees now face. Indeed, A-Rod's departure, if irrevocable, threatens to push the Yankees to the precipice of mediocrity, the lesser of all the teams they barely surpassed to make the playoffs this year-- a slightly more expensive, slightly more productive incarnation of the '07 Blue Jays or Twins. Because whether the Yankees' front-office acknowledges it or not, the Yankees, during the last four years, have grown increasingly dependent on A-Rod's production. As such, his loss leaves a void the size of a crater and the most readily available means to fill it would require the Yankees to dig themselves deeper into the hole, by relinquishing the young pitching prospects which hold their future's foundation.

Their Yankees farm system is barren of major league ready offensive talent. Their two best hitting prospects, Tabata and Austin Jackson, are outfielders and still years away from burgeoning. The next two years' class of free-agent 3B is a middling lot: with the 34-yr-old, pull-hitting Mike Lowell leading the '07 class and what will be a 33-year-old, oft-injured and steroid-tainted Troy Glaus leading it in '08. While the one major-league player who could both play 3B and approximate A-Rod's production is Miguel Cabrera, who would cost them Hughes, Kennedy, or Chamberlain, one of the very young pitchers upon whom the Yankees future depends.

PITCHING, BROSIUS AND OTHER FALLACIES

So why can't the Yankees just stick Joe Crede or Wilson Betemit at 3B and rely on their young pitching to carry them? After all, didn't the Yankees contend for six championships in nine years with Charlie Hayes, Scott Brosius, and Aaron Boone at 3B?

Well first of all, Chamberlain, Hughes, Kennedy, and Wang have hardly proven they're the equal of Cone, Clemens, El Duque, and Pettitte just yet. Neither Hughes nor Chamberlain has exceeded 140 innings in a single season . And Ian Kennedy has started a sum total of three major league games, all in September, no less. Sure, the Yankees budding three, with Wang, could burgeon into a modern day incarnation of Cuellar, McNally, Palmer and Dobson, the Orioles Fab Four. Then again, it's possible, if unlikely, Chamberlain-Hughes-Kennedy could no more meet the enormous expectations that now saddle them than could the Mets' notorious triumvirate of Isringhausen, Pulsipher, and Wilson.

The real flaw in the Brosius fallacy however is that it fails to account for how much the current lineup's complexion differs from its championship-laurelled predecessors. From '96 to '03, the Yankees only asked their third-baseman to field his position because they received consistent, and widespread, production from CF (Bernie), 1B (Tino), and DH (Fielder, Justice, Chili/Strawberry). Even the '96 through '00 teams, founded on their pitching had 3 or more players that hit 19 or more home runs. '96 (Bernie, Tino, Fielder/Sierra, O'Neil ) '97 (Bernie, Tino, O'Neil); '98 (Tino, O'Neil, Strawberry, Bernie, Brosius, Jeter ); '99 (Tino, Jeter, Bernie, O'Neil, Chili) '00 (Posada, Bernie, Justice).

Now, the Yankees receive little offensive production from 1B and CF and considerably less from their DH.

Remember: The 2007 Yankees were not the 2004 team when A-Rod's 36 HRs and 106 RBI's complemented Gary Sheffield's 36 HRs and 121 RBI's and Hideki Matsui's 31 HRs and 108 RBIs (and even Bernie William contributed 21 HR and 70 RBIs). Nor were 2007 Yankees were not the 2006 team when A-Rod's 35 HRs and 121RBIs reinforced Jason Giambi 37 HR's and 113 RBI's.

The 2007 Yankees were a collection of left-handed singles and doubles hitters; a 36-year old switch-hitting catcher with a career season; a right-handed SS, if among the best clutch hitters in history, who doesn't hit for power; and the AL MVP and best all around player in baseball, Alexander Emmanuel Rodriguez.

Subtract A-Rod and the Yankees's lineup suddenly looks very ordinary-- bereft of power, right-hand deficient, wanting at the infield corners, regressing at the outfield corners, old and overloaded at DH, and in general, entering the first-stage of decline -- a series of 33+ yr-old veterans whose most productive seasons have passed them by.

Damon, Abreu, Matsui and Giambi all regressed this year, with the latter two's erosion the most disconcerting because they're the only other two hitters who hit for power.

A POST-AROD DYSTOPIA

Refusing to negotiate with AROD because in opting-out, he cost the Yankees $21 million dollars-- an amount less than Kei Igawa's posting fee; a sum less than Roger Clemens '07 salary; a total equivalent to Jason Giambi's '08 income-- means the Yankees face on the following two options.

1) Mortgage the future and relinquish Ian Kennedy, Melky Cabrera, and (Humberto Sanchez or Alan Horne or Ross Ohlendorf) for Miguel Cabrera.

or

2) Concede '08 as a rebuilding year. Take the risk that no team acquires Santana and signs to a long-term deal before the '08 season concludes. And hope that the Yankees can sign him and another Boras' client Mark Teixiera for the money they would save on A-Rod.

Either entails considerable risk. Far more risk, that is, than offering $280 million dollars over 8 years for the best player in baseball.

JOE KNOWS

So the debate rages on: Will the Yankees benefit from Joe Torre's departure or will King George's Court come to regret the rift they either orchestrated or otherwise invited?

Let's leave aside, for a moment, whether the King's Court intended to discharge Joe or not. Let's leave aside how little the Boss and his courtiers, evidently, understand the respect, gratitude, and kudos due a succesful 12-year employee, even if his performance of late, for whatever reason, hasn't matched his earlier triumphs: better yet, how one ensures that when his 12-year tenure ends, he departs gracefully and without carrying a trail of rancor or acrimony in his wake. [1]

Let's leave all aside all the arguments about how the Yankees handled Torre's departure. Alas, it is now a fait accomplis. So the question remaining is whether the change in leadership will benefit them.

Of course, change doesn't occur in a vaccum. The alternatives must be measured against the deposed incumbent.

GENERAL GIRARDI
Girardi is perhaps the only candidate the Yankees could hire who might excel Torre in media savvy. Neither Pena nor Mattingly, in contrast, come close to matching Torre.

Indeed, neither Girardi's intelligence nor his verbal dexterity can be gainsaid. Girardi owns an engineering degree from Northwestern Univerity. A background reflected in the meticulous statistical archive he keeps on players and utlilizes during games and outside the diamond, in the fastidious precision with which he chooses his words. Which, perhaps, explains why his delivery so often lacks the sincere, forthright, and paternal warmness Torre exuded. Girardi's skillful use of evasion, indirection, and platitude rather suggests the lawyer or politican. Coupled with his austere demeanor, Girardi, more accurately, evokes the military man. The crew-cut, the fixation with details, the immaculate grooming bespeak the repressed, controlling martinet. Think Rumsfeld or Wolfowitz: the Pentagon engineer overly awed by the numbers; the smug expert overly impressed with his technical skill; the thin-skinned autocrat utterly intolerant of criticism. One part Buck Showalter, Two parts William C. Westmoreland.

More problematic still, I can't imagine the Yankees current roster of veterans, superstars, icons, and future Hall-of-Famers wouldn't chafe at receiving criticism and instruction from a 41-year-old contemporary-- one Jeter, Posada, Rivera, and Pettitte played with as late 1999. What's more, Bergen Record columnist, Bob Klapisch, has speculated that A-Rod, in particular, may recoil from playing from Girardi because he reminds A-Rod so much of Showalter. Meanwhile, some of Posada's friends intimated to the NJ Star-Ledger (10/26/07), the Yankees catcher harbors similar misgivings about Girardi. Either, if true, in itself, should disqualify Girardi from further consideration.

PAPI PENA
On the diametric opposite end of the personality spectrum sits the man who best could match Torre's role as clubhouse paterfamilias-- Tony Pena. By all accounts, Pena is affable, modest, lighthearted, and inspires affection in all who know him. Pena has developed a close rapport with the team's two young Latino player, Melky and Cano. Further commending him, Pena has transformed Posada from a below-average catcher to an average to above-average one over the last two seasons. Indeed, both Posada and Torre have credited Pena with markedly improving the percentage with which the Yankees' catcher has thrown runners out. And like Girardi Pena not only has managerial experience, he boasts a manager of the year award, besides (2003, with The Royals)

Still, to most Yankee fans, Pena is a cipher. Part of it, I suspect, is that as first-base coach, he has avoided the spotlight; the other part, I supect, is the language barrier. Although Pena speaks English without difficulty, he seems to lack the full command and fluency Latin American players like Bernie and Posada possess. And in a city where the media feeding frenzy leads reporters to parse manager's syntax every day, Pena may not be at his most confident or at his best.

CAPTAIN ICON
Perhaps, the only candidate capable of combining both of Torre's best qualities-- the loyalty and affection he inspired in the clubhouse and the honor he imparted to the manager' chair outside it-- is, of course, Don Mattingly. The salient difference between them, of course, is that Torre had about 15 years of managerial experience before he became the Yankee manager. Mattingly hasn't been a coach for half as long.

Now, like many a Yankee fan, Don Mattingly was about the only reason I watched the team through the late 80's and early 90's. And during Mattingly's prime, few compared in talent, work ethic, consistency, gravitas or stature. Which is precisely what gives me great pause about him managing the Yankees now, at this juncture. The impetus seems driven by sentimentality. The sentimentality of the Yankees' most influential fan-- the Boss. About the aging monarch's recent penchant for the lachrymose, I quote James Baldwin, "Sentimentality is the mark of dishonesty, the inability to feel; the wet eyes of the sentimentalist betray his aversion to expereience, his fear of life, his arid heart."

King George, evidently, wants to see Mattingly manager, he says, before he dies. A reason I can understand but with which I don't necessarily sympathize.

I'd hoped, rather, that the Yankees would renew Torre's contract for two years with the stipulation that he groom his heir-apparent. Because if the organization envisioned Mattingly as their manager one-day, it seemed to me, that the Boss' favorite son needed a little more seasoning. Not only has Mattingly not overseen a pitching staff in a managerial role, but unlike many former catchers like Torre, Girardi, and Pena, who often transition seamlessly into managers, Mattingly hasn't handled a pitching staff as player either.

One can only hope Mattingly is a quick study.

In short, all of the above managerial alternatives suffer from one or more glaring shortcomings. Which, to my mind, had commended Torre as manager-caretaker for another two years, until Mattingly had ripened fully enough to assume the mantle.

CLASSY JOE MUST GO ?
Nonetheless, I wish to do justice to the case that the Yankees needed a managerial change. And in doing so, I will cite no less than the universally respected authority, Newsday's national baseball columnist, Ken Davidoff. Ken, recently, was generous enough to mention this obscure, little blog on his http://blogs.trb.com/sports/baseball/blog/ ("There are still games going on?", October 23, 2007) and I wish to repay the compliment.

Those of who you who already read him know that Ken's commentary is always intelligent, trenchant, and cogent. More rare in a sports columnist, his tone is gracious, his conclusions are judicious, and rarer still, he is often witty and endearing. (See his Blog Post, Trading Places, 10/25/07) However, with Randy Levine's conflict of interest police on full watch, I should disclose that Ken and I went to JP Stevens High School together, which may explain why I not only admire his work but also like him personally. But I doubt it. In fact, considering my, shall I say, ambivalence, about Edison, New Jersey, it's probably an even greater credit to him.

Ken's case appears in "Time Has Come for Classy Joe To Go" http://www.newsday.com/sports/columnists/ny-sptorre095407151oct09,0,5326998.column

As I read it, Ken arguments are as follows,
(1) Torre is a bit of an anachronism, a throw-back to the old-school baseball traditionalists who rely on gut and instinct for their decisions.
(2) Wheras baseball's future belongs to managers who are extensions of front-offices steeped in sabermetrics and who as a consequence, don't command salaries as high as Torre's was.
(3) To this end, Cashman and the rest of the Yankees brass prefer "cheap, young, durable youngsters" whereas Torre demonstrates a marked prejudice toward aging veterans.

Ken cites two vivid examples of this last shortcoming of Torre's in his overuse of Proctor and Vizcaino-- to which we could add, from past years, Karsay, Quantril, Sturtze, and Gordon-- and his neglect of Edward Ramirez. And Torre's similar consignment of Shelly Duncan to a bench player, at most.

All weaknesses of Torre that I can't dispute. (Although the GM's office bears its share of responsibility for neglecting Duncan as well. They didn't even invite him to training camp and instead, used their Rule 5 pick on Josh Phelphs.) Indeed, I'd love to see the new Yankees' manager award Duncan a chance to perfect his skills at 1B and to win a full-time job.

And Lord knows, Torre's management of his middle-reliever leaves something to be desired. However, once again, it's important neither to overlook his personnel nor to forget who Torre, in overusing certain relievers, had as his alternatives. Until Cashman's youthful movement bore fruit this year, it wasn't as though Torre has this reservoir of young hard-throwing relievers he had, but refused to tap. Since the middle relief heyday of Mendoza, Nelson, and Stanton, Torre has been hard-pressed to find a jewel amid the dross of Felix Heredia, Felix Rodriguez, Gabe White, Buddy Groom, Chris Hammond, Juan Acevedo, Antonio Osuna, etc.

NO, JOE KNOWS
There has been considerable speculation that Cashman's support for Torre was tepid, at best, not only because of the shortcomings Ken enumerates above. But also, Cashman, apparently, as designs on placing his own stamp on the organization. SI's Tom Verducci suggests that Cashman imagines himself a baseball intellectual in the mold of Theo Epstein and Billy Beane and has aspired, for some time, to transform the Yankees into some Moneyball epigone. But Torre's traditionalist management-style blocked Cashman's way.

Is this true? God, I hope not. To be sure, Cashman deserves kudos for replenishing the Yankees' farm-system and re-asserting its overall strategic importance to the Yankees future. However, many of Cashman's personnel decisions, in particular, about major league pitchers are responsible for the playoff defeats that cost Torre his job. Here's just a few of Cashman's noteworthy follies.

• Trading Ted Lilly for Jeff Weaver
• Trading Jeff Weaver for Kevin Brown
• Trading Juan Rivera and Nick Johnson for Javier Vasquez
• Trading Javier Vasquez for a 41-yr old Randy Johnson
• Jose Contreras
• Carl Pavano
• Jared Wright (forsaking Derek Lowe, for $1 million more per year)
• Kyle Farnsworth
• Kei Igawa
• Andy Pettitte? (George was more responsible ignoring Pettite in '03 however)

And since Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS, Yankee starters, in their last 17 post-season games, have gone 2-8 with a 6.36 ERA. In elimination games, they're 0-4 with 12.22 ERA, averaging 2.8 innings per start.

I quote an astute observation of a loyal contributor to Ken's blog, Peter Ciccone,

"In the Yankees last 15 postseason games--going back to Game 6 of the '04 ALCS--Yankees hitters have reached their first at bat in the 4th inning down 3 runs or more 9 times. 9 TIMES!!! Including three times this month against Cleveland. In those same 15 games, the Yankees took their first at bat in the 7th inning trailing 10 times, with starters providing a quality start in only 2 of those 10 games (Chacon Game 4 '05 ALDS, Mussina Game 2 '06 ALDS)."

Is this because Cashman relied too heavily on sabermetrics in acquiring these starters? Or does this reliance, in turn, discredit Cashman's sabermetrical model? No, not necessarily

However, it does suggest that there's no substitute for that quality that Torre had in abundance-- baseball instinct. We often forget how often Torre would make a decision, contrary to what the numbers would imply, and turn out right in the end. I can recall countless occasions over the last 12 years, where I would wring my hands and shout at the heavens over Torre's decision to play Minky or Cairo or Enrique Wilson or Charlie Hayes, or to pitch Graeme Lloyd or Jim Mecir or Holmes or Grimsley or Vizcaino in some situation, during a period in which his players were strugging, and the player nonetheless responded. And Torre's faith in him would reward him and the team.

It's because Torre often relied on that primal level of human knowledge-- intuiton-- part innate, part experiential-- that no sabermetrician can duplicate and for which rational intelligence cannot substitute.

I only hope that the Yankees don't soon regret their decision to minimize the simple importance of "JOE KNOWS". He marshalled, an often inconsistent level of talent, to 12 straight post-seasons for a reason. His critics ignore that accomplishment at their peril.

[1] According to YES Network's Michael Kay, Torre professes insult because he just loves acting the martyr. I wonder whether Kay ever paused to ask why almost every Yankees manager to leave King George's employ in the last 30 years, then, harbors lingering bitterness and shuns the organization for years afterward.

THE SMALLNESS OF PRINCE HENRY

See Post-Script below to "The Little Men of the Bronx"http://theyankeesrepublic.blogspot.com/2007/10/little-men-of-bronx.html

THE LITTLE MEN OF THE BRONX

"The more things change, the more they stay the same" --- French proverb

The nausea has returned. Oh yes, after twelve years, it has reasserted itself, and with a vengeance.

The pettiness and the effrontery. The insolence and the vindictiveness. The cowardice and the malice. The insanity and the embarassment. Yankeeland has resurrected the age-old revulsion.


The organization that repelled you by hiring and firing Billy Martin 5 times in 13 years. The brass that outraged you by dismissing Dick Hower after he won the AL East. The Boss that disgusted you when he canned Yogi Berra 16 games into a season, and with his son, no less, in the locker room. The leadership that appalled you by dispatching Buck Showalter and Gene Michael after they'd led the Yankees through a fourteen year wildnerness into the post-season. The front-office that disgusted you when it wasted its time courting Gary Sheffield and in the meantime, drove Andy Pettitte away.

Well, yesterday revived the legacy of nausea to connect the Yankees' shameful present with their ignominous past.

Sure, the years may pass. The names and faces may change. The Steinbrenner serfs may supplant the Steinbrenner Lord; and The Boss' courtiers may inherit his Kingdom. But the self-destructive arrogance, the irrational scapegoating, the contempt for their fans' intelligence and the defiance of common sense-- that never ceases. It only goes into remission.

The Yankees never deserved Joe Torre. The last two weeks only proved it.

First came the ingratitude of the Boss' ALDS Ulitmatum after a season in which their manager had resurrected his team from the brink of extinction, despite a pitching staff featuring the likes of Kei Igawa, Chase Wright, Matt DeSalvo, Tyler Clippard, Darryl Rasner, Carl Pavano and a 10-week DL stint for Jason Giambi, the hitter who led them last year in Home Runs.

Then followed the high-handed callousness in which the organization who let a man, who had toiled for them for 12-years and won throughout, a man of of consummate tact, grace and integrity; a man who following his team's elimination shed tears of anguish and devastation; a man they let wallow in misery and dangle in anticipation for ten full days before deciding his fate.

In the meantime, they staged a cyncial and contemptible charade, with all the pomp and circumstance Little Men crave to make themselves feel important. For two days, they convened behind closed doors and locked gates in their Tampa Manse. For two days, they pretended to deliberate, to weigh and to consider. When actually, for two days, they schemed and contrived; they plotted and maneuvered. How do we rid ourselves of this beloved man, these Little Men pondered? How do we dispose of this Mensch who has robbed us of the credit and the praise, the affection and the respect, to which our money entitles us. How do we dispatch him and yet preempt the outrage from our fans and our players that we know ourselves too cowardly to face by simply firing him? So the Little Men combined their collective smallness and this is what they wrought: an offer so insulting they calculated he would refuse. An offer that in ostensibly saving their faces, slapped his harder than if they'd had the decency just to fire him in the first place.

So on the third day, they invited the manager who had led them for twelve years who had won them four championships and reflected upon them only glory and grandeur in the process -- they invited this man to Tampa to dictate to him irrevocable terms for surrender. And with all the duplicity and unctuous innocence that Little Men can contrive this is what they had the gall and the indecency to offer--

• "For reaching the post-season for an unprecedented twelve consecutive years, for attaining 10 AL East division titles, for earning 6 AL pennants, for winning in 6 years as many World Championships as we had in the previous 35, we offer you one lame duck year at a 30% decrease in salary.

• "And because the mission statement of this franchise is to win a World Series every year and while we all share responsibility for our failure to do so the past seven years, we wish to hold you, Joe Torre, to a standard we would never impose on ourselves. No, because you, Joe Torre, alone haven't made it past the ALDS in 3 years; because you lost 4 straight games to the Red Sox in the '04 ALCS; because you haven't won a World Championship with the legions of great starting pitchers we've furished you-- from Jeff Weaver, Javier Vasquez, Kevin Brown, Jose Contreras, Carl Pavano, Jared Wright, Hideki Irabu to Kei Igawa: because of all this failure you, alone, Joe Torre have caused the Yankees franchise the past seven years, you, alone, must accept what we like to call a 'performance-based model.' Never mind the effect it may have on your players. No, to reinforce that you, alone, Joe Torre, cost us the Division Series the past three years and to motivate you for the future, you must accept a $1 million incentive for each playoff round you win-- performance-based stipulations, to which we, of course, don't consider ourselves beholden.

• And finally to reaffirm, that we only welcome managers who win World Series here-- albeit from our President and our GM we, evidently, accept far less- we will only guarantee you, Joe Torre, a second-year only if you reach the World Series. (Note how generous we are because we don't even demand that you win it.)"

And of course, what ensued was the ending the Little Men had spent ten days scripting.

The Manager who loved his job and in turn, inspired the love and loyalty of his players and his fans, demonstrated in vivid fashion why the ungrateful and devious Little Men and the organization they lead never really deserved him.

And in doing so, he exposed the Little Men for who they are.

Joe Torre forsook the job he coveted because he has too much pride and self-respect to accept the humiliating and degrading terms in which the Little Men couched it. Joe Torre declined the offer because he would not play their scapegoat. Joe Torre spurned the opportunity because he would not accept sole responsibility for the success the Little Men portray as failure. Joe Torre rejected them because he could not abide the abject insult their incentive clauses implied.

No, predictably, Joe Torre would not debase himself for $5 million; not for the prestige of his title; not for the roar of the crowd; not for proximity to dignitaries and celebrities; not to prolong his moment in the limelight. Joe Torre would not grovel and scrape and dive for the Blood Money the Little Men threw on the floor.

No, Joe Torre thanked them and he walked away without protest or rancor. And never more did his class, his dignity, his magnanimity throw the pettiness, the baseness, the cowardice of the Yankees' Little Men into lower relief.

One marvels at the smugness and the self-delusion of these Little Men. So worried were they of enraging and alienating their customer, they compounded their insolence and their dishonesty by professing surprise-- Renaultian shock, even-- that Joe Torre would decline their degrading offer-- and in staging their charade did nothing but insult our intelligence. Do they really think so little of their fans that they think we would buy the transparent chicanery they purveyed?

More worrisome, do these Little Men so devoid of courage and honesty really believe that the free agents players they were loath to antagonize by firing their manager outright will not see right through their duplicity?

Four years after the tepid, disingenuous, eleventh-hour offer to Andy Pettitte that drove him to Houston; one year after refusing to extend the contract of their indispensable catcher, after declining to renew the contract of their immortal closer, after waiting until Spring Training to vouchsafe their still productive 16-year center-fielder a demeaning, non-guaranteed minor-league contract: Do these Little Men, after their affront to the manager Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, and Andy Pettitte consider a father figure, really believe their free agents will re-sign after the way they treated him-- will re-sign simply because the Little Men are prepared to offer them prodigious sums of money. No, even after Andy Pettitte himself fled to Houston in 2003 for much less because the Yankees' disrespected him, the Little Men upstairs, evidently, still haven't learned their lesson.

They don't understand why the $300 million they spend annually has bought neither the players' loyalty nor the fans' love only their manager could inspire. How stubbornly obtuse, how self-satsified these Little Men reveal themselves to be. Such is the entitlement of sons who inherit money and think they earned it. Such is the vice of opportunists who usurp power and think they merited it.

So, for now, the Little Men have gotten what they for long contrived. They can have their ordinary and pliable manager whose celebrity and stature will not overshadow them. They can obtain all the credit and plaudits Joe Torre's prestige denied them. They can have their opportunity to demonstrate that anyone can manage a team with a $230 million payroll and deliver it to the post-season. They can prove their cyncial belief in the power of the all-mighty dollar. And they can show their fans that their free agents who threatened to follow their beloved father-confessor out the door, unlike their manager, possess a loyalty that extends no farther than money.

So concludes the Golden Torre interregnum in the sordid, everlasting reign of the Bronx's Little Men.

Let them know however, if they prove wrong and all their money can't save them from their pettiness and insolence, their self-destructive malice and unreason, and Posada and Rivera and Pettite, for the second time, leave and A-Rod, seeing only adversity ahead, follows, and the Yankees return to a third-rate, mediocrity behind Toronto and Boston: let them know their prodigious attendance records, their prolific network revenues, the reservoir of affection and respect and loyalty Joe Torre's class brought and the well of rancor, and duplicity and effrontery his nobility shielded -- all will desert them.

And then, may the Little Men see themselves for who they are.

And may they suffer the Peoples' Wrath.

POST-SCRIPT: THE PETTINESS OF PRINCE HENRY

"Oh, how wretched is the poor man that hangs on prince's favor"-- Henry VIII

If their squalid purge of Joe Torre hadn't already revealed King George's Court for all its imperial condescension, its abject pettiness, and consummate obtuseness (See above), then Prince Hank's comments on Sunday flaunted it for us all to see.

The vindictive little Prince poked his head out of the royal bunker to kick his fallen manager once more. http://www.nypost.com/seven/10212007/news/nationalnews/boss_jr__fires_a_spitball_at_i.htm
Joe Torre is an ingrate, Prince Henry declared, "Where was Joe's career in '95 when my dad... [gave] him that opportunity-- and the great team he was handed."

"Handed?" What a mordant irony! The entitled Prince rebukes the man who rose from a violent, working-class home through talent, intelligence, and self-deprecating charm for not genuflecting in appreciation for the status and success allegedly "handed" him on a silver platter.

"Handed"! Handed, as though the Yankees managerial job were some sinecure, an act of patronage King George, in his infinite generosity, vouchsafes on some select, undeserving peon. Is their any more piquant illustration of how little regard the Steinbrenner clan has for their managers' work, in general, and Joe Torre's contribution, in particular?

Yes, in 1996, they “handed” Joe Torre a closer John Wetteland whose confidence his predecessor had decimated. They “handed” Joe Torre a middle-reliever, Mariano Rivera, whose talent and promise no one else in the organization seemed to have noticed. They “handed” Joe Torre a pitching staff devoid of an ace because a 146-pitch game in the '05 ALDS sidelined David Cone all-season with an aneurysm. They “handed” Joe Torre a first-baseman whose slow start incited a jeering crowd. They “handed” Joe Torre a hole at second-base that he plugged with a utility man who responded with a career best season. They “handed” Joe Torre a Texan pitcher the pressure of New York so unnerved he would vomit before his starts. They “handed” Joe Torre the first World Series the franchise had won in 18 years. Yes, they handed it all to him, says the King's entitled heir. Joe Torre, in his own right, evidently, made no contribution worth mentioning.

What's remarkable, however, is that in the same breath Prince Hal cannot fathom why Torre would construe the Prince's patronage-- a one-year irrevocable offer at 30% pay-cut, with "motivation"-based performance incentives besides-- as a reproach, an insult, a symbolic expression of just how expendable they viewed their manager. A perceived dispensability that Prince Hank's own comments, now, explicitly affirm.

Perhaps, then, we should take Prince Hank at his word, then, when expresses shock at the universal opprobrium the King's Court has since received. Perhaps, we should believe him too when he says, "[he] sincerely wanted Joe to accept that offer." Perhaps, the offer he and the rest of King George's Court devised was not the ruthless, Machiavellian ploy with which their critics have credited them. No, the King's Court, evidently, is too arrogant to resort to low cunning. And what's more, their too obtuse to comprehend why a 12-year employee tendered an irrevocable, non-negotiable pay cut and “bonuses” that would task him alone with recent failures would signal to him disapproval of his work and contempt for his record.

No, the King's Court subjected Joe Torre to far worse than a ploy. They proffered him a mea culpa to sign, an offer tantamount to terms of surrender. For to accept them, Joe Torre would have had to admit to their implication that he alone is to blame for the Yankees’ last three ALDS defeats; that he alone bear responsibility for an entire organization’s failures and to forces beyond his control. And more odious still, the King’s Court is so smug and arrogant they profess incomprehension that Joe Torre was neither so contrite nor so desperate as to submit to their terms.

Alas, here in all its unabashed sordidness stands the smallness of All King George's Men.

Pity them their blind insolence. And pity us Yankee fans for loving the Kingdom they rule.

THE GOLDEN AGE OF JOE

"The past is never dead. It's not even past." --William Faulkner

Twelve years of stability, prosperity, and concord. Twelve years of optimism, pride and grandeur. Twelve years of regular season excellence and post-season drama. Twelve years in which excitement reigned on the field and normalcy prevailed in the clubhouse. Twelve years in which Yankee fans could delude themselves that the insanity, the meddling, the bluster and the farce that characterized the Dark Ages had faded forever into oblivion.

How easily we deceive ourselves! A few inopportune and gratuitous threats in the newspaper. Unrealistic expectations. Misdirected blame. Ingratitude, pettiness, and churlishness abounding. A dangling, scapegoated manager. Lust for, and flirtation with, the latest glamorous name......

And in a blink of the eye, memories of the dark, ignoble past come flooding back: the 13 years without a playoff birth; the six consecutive seasons of 4th place or worse finishes; the annual clubhouse turmoil and the revolving managerial door.

In case you didn't live through, or conveniently have forgotten, the decade B.T.E (Before the Torre Era), let me refresh your recollection. The Before Torre Era was the worst of times.

It was the epoch of dugout altercations and barroom brawls and front-office vendettas. It was the age of the three-ring media circus. Managers criticized players in the press, players publicly villified the front-office, the front-office decried ownership, and ownership reviled just about everyone. (One time, even going so far as to hire felons to besmirch a player's reputation and to sully his name.)

It was the period when ownership drove away Reggie Jackson, Graig Nettles, Goose Gossage, Mickey Rivers and countless other players responsible for World Series championships. It was the span when baseball GM's could exploit the Madness of King George to bilk the Yankees of Al Leiter for Jesse Barfield, Jay Buhner for Ken Phelps, Doug Drabek for Rick Rhoden, and an entire farm-system for Rickie Henderson. It was the years when The Boss would banish a callow shortstop to AAA for an untimely error. It was the Springs of Andy Hawkins, Dennis Rasmussen, and Ed Whiston. It was the Summers of Dallas Green, Bucky Dent, and Stump Merrill. It was the Winters, cold, bleak, and stove-less when incumbent players fled, Yankee Greats were estranged, and free-agents shunned New York.

The dark tyrannous pall over Yankeeland only began to lift when in 6 B.T.E., Commisioner Fay Vincent exiled King George.

For in the ensuing three years Gene Michael managed to re-build the Yankees foundation by drafting Derek Jeter, signing Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte, acquiring Paul O'Neil, and refusing to trade Bernie Williams.

Alas, the reprieve wasn't to last. Vincent allowed King George to resume the throne. And soon enough tyrrany, madness, and fiat reigned yet again as King George, in spite of the Yankees' first playoff birth in fourteen years, dismissed the two architects responsible.

Only this time just when King George appeared poised to cast the Yankees yet again into perdition, the Baseball Gods, working in their ever mysterious and unfathomable ways, decided to favor the Bronx with an unexpected and unearned gift. Out of Hannibal Mo (or St. Louis, anyway), they brought the Damned Yankees "Clueless Joe"-- the ominous New York Post headline that fate would charge with a rich, mordant irony which only years later would Yankees fans fully appreciate.

Because just as the mythic "Shoeless Joe" would damn the Yankees, the real-life "Clueless Joe" would redeem them and usher in The Yankees Renaissance. A Golden Era dawned, reminiscent of the 1950's when Pinstripes ruled. And over the succeding twelve years, the Dark Ages indeed receded into oblivion. Or so we thought.

No, of course, Joe wasn't alone, or perhaps even preponderantly, responsible for it. After all, he inherited the foundation Gene Michael built, Bob Watson refurbished, and Brian Cashman solidified.

However, it was through Joe's stewardship, the Yankees won with those players, and won and won and won: four World Series rings in six years, six AL pennants in nine years, and ten AL East division titles in twelve, and finally, an unprecedented twelve consecutive post-season births.

But more importantly, Joe stamped the franchise with his personality. He imparted his patience, his maganimity, his sang-froid. He restored to the Yankees the class, the nobility, the dignity Joe DiMaggio once symbolized and King George, long ago, had squandered. Even its fiercest rivals begrudgingly respected and admired the team in the Bronx.

How could they not? Their stars no longer publicly feuded, brawled in bars, or taunted each other in the press. Manager and GM no longer blamed each other for losses. Tampa and New York's antagonistic factions maintained an uneasy but workable detente. In the clubhouse, an esprit de corps reigned that enabled the team to absorb malcontents, misfits, and libertines and still manage to harness their talent. Indeed, Torre inspired such loyalty and affection in his players that free-agents not only wanted to play in New York again but specifically for its manager himself, with Joe often sealing the deal with a well-placed recruiting call.

And then of course the team won and won and won. Which really is the only reason why Torre remained long enough to carve out the first and only autonomous fiefdom in the history of King George's reign. Winning had granted the vassal power, prestige, influence-- the unbridled love and adulation of the people-- that the King couldn't deny. Albeit, througout, he resented it.

You see, a tyrrant can compel the people's respect. He can purchase their allegiance. He can even, through success occasionally, earn their admiration. But he never can win their love. And he fears and loathes anyone who can.

Thus the reason why Steinbrenner, for years, has yearned for the occasion to sack Torre. Torre's popularity threatens King George's unbridled hold on power. Were it not for the people's outcry and for the public backlash every tyrrant most fears, King George would have dispatched his imagined rival long ago.

Alas, now with Torre's contract expiring and the Yankees having lost three straight divisional series, it appears King George has seen his best opportunity. And so, the King has retired to his Tampa castle to convene with his advisors and evidently, to name a new vassal to manage the Empire.

Meanwhile, the King basks in the reclaimed limelight. He feeds the speculation; he prolongs the agonizing Limbo. The Sword of Damocles hangs over Joe's head and King George cherishes the moment. The vassal's anguishing wait to learn of his fate and the people's clamor to hear it confirms for the King that he still wears the Crown.

True, only time will tell if the King casts Yankeeland back into the Dark Ages. But the omens of the past-- the public ultimatums, the leaked reports, the tacit and unwarranted blame of his manager, the seeming indifference to public opinion or player sentiment, the intimations of wholesale dismissals -- thus far bode ill.

Torre's presence might not have been able to advance the Yankees past the last three divisional series because his management couldn't overcome wretched starting pitching that over the last seventeen post-season games has plagued the team. A period during which Yankee starters have gone 2-8 with a 6.36 ERA, and in elimination games since Game 7 of the '04 ALCS, are 0-4 with 12.22 ERA, averaging 2.8 innings per start. (See also "How to Fix the Yankees", Pitching, Pitching, Pitching: Why the Yankees Lost, August Archive)

No, Torre's presence might not secure for the Yankees a championship over the next few years. His absence, however, could very well prevent them from contending for one anytime soon.

And lest you think progress is inevitable and a return to the Dark Ages impossible, consider that how King George treats Joe and who he selects to manage will weigh heavily in whether four cornerstone players, Posada, Rivera, Pettitte, and A-Rod, return. Cornerstones the Empire cannot and will not rise again without. For however much promise a rotation of Joba, Hughes, Wang and IPK holds for advancing in October, lose any one of the Four Pillars and the Yankees risk not even qualifying for the tournament. Lose two or more and the Empire's foundation might not simply teeter, it might very well crumble. And in the ensuing chaos, another Dark Age could loom.

So you Yankee fans clamoring for a new manager, heed the past or one day you may awaken to a new Dark Age that you yourself have invited and discover yourself lamenting your ingratitude and yearning for the Golden Age of Joe.