Yankees Suck!

by Jim Gerard

  COULD SAINT JOE BE A HACK, AFTER ALL?

  In 1996, almost overnight, Joe Torre went from “Clueless Joe” to omniscient seer, a leader whose wise counsel and quiet strength led a squadron of “warriors” to a World Championship. Yet, in 15 years of prior managerial experience, for the Mets, Braves, and Cardinals, he’d won only one division title and was a cumulative 109 games under .500. And given an All-Star team virtually every year since 2001, he has failed to win a World Series. Moreover, his once-sure touch seems to have deserted him. In the twelfth inning of Game 4 of the 2003 Series against the Florida Marlins, with Mariano Rivera sitting in the bullpen and to the incredulity of Yankee fans, he brought Jeff Weaver into a game tied 3-3. The sullen Weaver promptly served up the game-winning home run to punchless shortstop Alex Gonzalez, and it turned the Series around. In the 2004 league-championship series, his team blew a 3-0 lead to the Red Sox as Torre managed as if George had a .45 to his head, treating almost everybody in his bullpen except Rivera and (bizarrely) Tanyon Sturtze as if they might try to pick his pocket during a pitching change. He made Kenny Lofton more invisible than if he’d been a guest host on the Chevy Chase Show, when Lofton’s pinch-running speed may have led to a Yankee victory in Game 5. Every year, Torre’s gone out of his way to assemble a Bench of the Living Dead, which means the Yankees go into the post-season with a four- to-five-man handicap. More and more, it’s looking as if the dynasty was more a case of Torre being handed a team of exceptional players and staying out of their way.

  No, Saint Joe isn’t the genius he’s cracked up to be. After all, what does it say about your intelligence when your “brain” is Don Zimmer?

  CONEY

  When he arrived in the Bronx and became enshrined for his admittedly gutsy performances and his perfect game, “hired gun” David Cone (so labeled for his mercenary club-jumping) brought with him enough baggage to have his own carousel. As a New York Met, he was linked to a rape scandal involving teammates Daryl Boston, Vince Coleman, and Dwight Gooden. Although he was never under investigation, the incident was the second time in five months that a rape charge had surfaced with his name attached. In September 1991, a woman accused Cone of raping her in a Philadelphia hotel room the night before his 19-strikeout game, but police found no basis for the charge.

  Also around that time, three women filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against the right-hander, claiming that he exposed himself to them while he was in the bullpen during a 1989 game at Shea Stadium. After becoming a Yankee, Coney seemed to reform, but his reputation as a man of “character” in the clubhouse was built on many years of massaging the New York beat writers with colorful quotes that reeked of manufactured sincerity.

  TIM RAINES

  During his prime years starring for the Montreal Expos in the 198os, Raines admitted he was a cocaine junkie who would keep a vial of blow in his pocket and slide headfirst to protect the vial’s contents. They didn’t call him “Rock” for nothing.

  WADE BOGGS

  What will appear on his Hall of Fame plaque:◆ 5-time batting champion

  ◆ 2-time All-Star

  ◆ 3,010 career hits

  What should appear on his Hall of Fame plaque:◆ Sued by a flight attendant for threatening to “kick [her] fat lips in” after she allegedly refused to serve him a final beer before landing.

  ◆ Sued for $12 million by former mistress Margo Adams for breach of oral contract (palimony). Settled out of court.

  ◆ Admitted to being a sex addict on national TV.

  ◆ Was run over by his wife. When authorities arrived, Boggs claimed that he fell out of the car and she rolled over him without noticing.

  JOSÉ CANSECO

  Yes, he, too, was a Yankee—at least for 111 at-bats in 2000. His rap sheet goes like this: ◆ Arrested in March of 1984 for reasons still unclear.

  ◆ Charged with aggravated assault in 1992 for purposely ramming into his first wife’s car.

  ◆ Arrested in 1997 for beating his second wife.

  ◆ Admitted to taking steroids during his career and estimated that 50 percent of all ballplayers use them.

  ◆ Arrested with brother Ozzie in 2001 after a nightclub brawl that left him with 20 stitches and a broken nose.

  ◆ Blew off subsequent court date, for which an arrest warrant was issued. (He may still be at large. If you see someone who resembles José, a sure-fire way to identify him is to hit him a fly ball. If the ball hits the guy in the head, that’s Canseco!).

  THE HEADHUNTER

  In 1986, long before he tossed a chunk of splintered bat at Mike Piazza in the 2000 Series and developed a well-deserved reputation for headhunting, Roger Clemens had established his MO: substitute intimidation for dialogue. After Clemens won that year’s MVP award, Henry Aaron told the press that he didn’t think pitchers should be eligible for it. “I wish he were still playing,” said Clemens. “I’d probably crack his head open to show him how valuable I was.”

  In addition to his homicidal inclinations, the Rocket also double-talked his way out of New York, telling the Yankees he had retired, then un-retiring less than two months later to play with his hometown Houston Astros.

  THE BOOMER

  1975: The sister of young David Wells scrapes his sunburned back with her fingernails, so he punches her and breaks her jaw.

  1997: Wells, now pitching for the Yankees, threatens to punch out George Steinbrenner while arguing with him about the porous Stadium security that had allowed a fan to turn a catchable ball hit off Wells into a home run.

  2002: Wells gets belted by a drunken heckler in a Manhattan diner.

  This is all you need to know about Boomer, beloved by Yankee fans, who identify with his boorish, vulgar immaturity, traits all too obvious to major league executives. According to Buster Olney, who covered the Yankees for the New York Times: “No fewer than seven teams released, traded, or allowed Wells to depart as a free agent, mainly because of conditioning problems, self-centeredness, and his knack for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.”

  Boomer’s such a free spirit that he apparently didn’t read his own autobiography, Perfect, I’m Not, and disputed numerous passages, such as his contention that he pitched his perfect game while half drunk.

  Finally, just one day after Wells bragged to reporters about his lack of conditioning, he suffered a pre-game “freak” back injury that forced him to leave Game 5 of the World Series after just one inning. (The Marlins battered his replacement, José Contreras, and won the game.)

  The Dynasty Reunion

  What the members of the Yankee Dynasty will be doing 10 years from now:◆ Paul O’Neill: Leading corporate anger-management seminars.

  ◆ Don Zimmer: Bench coach for Tampa Bay Devil Rays, who are now playing in the International League.

  ◆ Chuck Knoblauch: Demanding to be permitted entrance to Manhattan nightclub Veruka, not realizing that it closed 15 years earlier.

  ◆ Joe Torre: Managing Vatican softball team, which finishes last, behind even the Scientologists.

  ◆ Darryl Strawberry: Selling his autographed kidneys on eBay.

  ◆ Andy Pettitte: Raptured.

  ◆ Roger Clemens: Left behind—for throwing inside at God.

  ◆ Luis Sojo: Host of Sábado Gigante.

  ◆ Tino Martinez: Missing “bunt” sign during Old-Timers Game and put on “senior waivers” by ...

  ◆ George Steinbrenner: Cryogenically frozen; thawed out once a year to fire manager.

  Chapter Eleven

  YANKEES SUCK ACROSS AMERICA1

  The great thing about knowing that the Yankees suck is that it’s a universal sentiment—the Esperanto of sports fandom that unites people of all races, creeds, colors, and gender preferences in a bubbling cauldron of hatred. For those of you new to Yankee Hating, and for you veterans who never tire of rubbing salt in your own wounds, here’s your guide to how the Yanks suck across America.

  BOSTON

  Here are 13 reasons why Red Sox Nation is at war
with the Yanks: 1938, 1939, 1941, 1942, 1949, 1977, 1978, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2003. Those are the years the Sox were runners-up to New York for the American League pennant.

  Even before the Curse of the Bambino, Bucky “F***ing” Dent and Aaron “F***ing II” Boone, Boston fans had a casus belli toward the Yankees. In the years before and after they bought Babe Ruth from the Sox, the Yanks also fleeced Boston out of star pitchers Carl Mays, Herb Pennock, and Waite Hoyt. When commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis nullified the sale of Mays as being not in the best interests of baseball, Yanks’ owner Jacob Ruppert and the Yankees sued him and won. This pattern of betrayal by Sox stars continued in the 1990s, when Wade Boggs and Roger Clemens each jumped ship to the Yanks just in time to cruise home with a ring.

  For those of you who have arrived in the Northeast from Alpha Centauri, 1978 is still a bitter memory to Sox fans, thanks to Dent’s implausible seventh-inning home run that helped the Yanks knock off Boston in a one-game playoff for the American League East crown at Fenway Park. This remained the franchise’s primal tragedy, their version of Sherman’s March—until Aaron Boone assumed Dent’s mantle in the 2003 ALCS, when he launched a Tim Wakefield knuckler into the left-field stands and stabbed millions of Sox fans in the heart with his walk-off series-winner.

  The open warfare that ensues in the stands at a Yanks-Red Sox tussle is often mirrored on the field. In a 1976 regular-season game at Yankee Stadium, New York’s Lou Piniella collided with Boston catcher Carlton Fisk at home plate and came up swinging. In the ensuing fight, Red Sox pitcher Bill Lee was body-slammed and wound up with an injury that he claimed destroyed his career. In the 2003 ALCS, Yanks’ outfielder Karim Garcia—after he’d been hit by Pedro Martinez—knocked down Sox second baseman Todd Walker and started a bench-clearing brawl that ended with Martinez matadorially pushing a charging, nostril-flaming Don Zimmer onto the Fenway Park infield. Last year, Alex Rodriguez was baited by Jason Varitek into taking a punch at him, an incident that woke up the slumbering Sox and fueled their late-season surge.

  So for 85 years, Sox fans have raged at the marauders from the Bronx, a hostility that blankets the entire franchise all the way to the online merchandising outlets, which offer “Boston Red Sox Boy and Girl Pee on N.Y. Yankees” decals and magnets—when biting the bobblehead off Derek Jeter dolls isn’t enough.

  Boston’s stunning ALCS win in 2004 may yet prove a mixed blessing. Yes, it lifted one curse, but all those years of obsessing about the Yankees has turned many Red Sox fans into mini-Steinbrenners, for whom anything but a world championship is unacceptable. Be careful who you hate, Red Sox Nation, lest you become them.

  BALTIMORE

  Oriole fans have many valid reasons for the bile, odium, and white-hot rage they harbor toward the Yankees:1. The Yanks started out as the original Baltimore Orioles, and their move to New York in 1903 left Baltimore without a major league team for a half century. As one Birds fan put it, “It should have been the O’s winning all those championships.”

  2. Mike “Judas” Mussina (as he was called by one fan), the All-Star pitcher who bailed out for the Bronx after spending his entire career with Baltimore.

  3. The guy who launched the Yankees Dynasty never played an inning for the team—Jeffrey Maier, the 12-year-old who stole a run from Tony Tarasco and the Orioles in Game 1 of the 1996 ALCS. Here’s what some Baltimore fans had to say about little Jeffrey:“I want to pistol-whip him.”

  “Maier is Spawn of Satan!”

  “Maier symbolizes the arrogant, stereotypical, ‘I can get away with anything’ Yankee fan, the Yankee-loving media, and the win-at-all-costs mentality of Steinbrenner.... I still wish personal harm on Jeffrey.”

  TORONTO

  Although Canadians are by nature less vituperative than their American counterparts, Blue Jays fans can compile enough reasons to summon up an anti-Yankee snit. For one thing, they’ve spent most of the last 30 years finishing behind the Yanks, including six straight third-place finishes from 1998 to 2003. (They finished fifth last year, 33½ games behind the Yankees.) Then of course there’s the Winfield Seagull incident. (See Chapter 5: The Dark Side of the Yankees.) And the exchange rate, which is one reason that the Jays are limited to a payroll of $50 million or so, less than one-third that of the Yanks.

  TAMPA BAY

  Fans of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays must endure so much: In addition to being intra-divisional patsies, they’re a virtual colony of the Yankees. In their own home town, the Rays are second-class citizens to the Yanks’ spring-training complex and Single A ball team, the Tampa Yankees. And Tampa is the home of George Steinbrenner.

  MINNESOTA

  Three reasons why Twins fans hate the Yankees:1. They’re a small-market team that can’t possibly compete with the plutocratic Bombers.

  2. Inconveniently, they’re owned by a tightwad billionaire owner, one of the richest men in America, which causes them moral uneasiness only resolved by blaming pinstriped scapegoats.

  3. They suffered playoff losses to the Yanks in 2003 and 2004, with a big meltdown in Game 4 of the latter. The Twins and their All-World starter Johan Santana were cruising 5-0 after five innings when manager Ron Gardenhire was suddenly visited by those succubi, Mystique and Aura. He promptly and inexplicably pulled Santana, and the Yanks came back to win in extra innings.

  CHICAGO

  Chicagoans have a long historical memory of Yankee aggression. Octogenarian fans still remember the Yanks’ Murderers’ Row trouncing of the Cubs in 1932, a triumph punctuated by Babe Ruth’s famous “called shot” home run off Charlie Root. (When asked if the current generation of Cubs’ fans hated the Yankees, Baseball Prospectus columnist and Cubs fan Will Carroll replied, “I don’t think Cubs fans hate anyone. They’re too drunk and stupid.”2)

  White Sox fans of a certain vintage undoubtedly recall a famous 1950s brawl between the Yanks and Pale Hose triggered when Art Ditmar threw at Larry Doby, a beanball many at the time thought was racially motivated.

  CLEVELAND

  The Indians were an arch-rival of the Yanks, especially in the post-WWII generation. Cleveland fans still smart over the way in which the Yankees pried Roger Maris away from them. The Indians front office wouldn’t trade the slugging outfielder to New York, and instead sent him to Kansas City, who held Maris for a year, then practically gave him away to the Yanks. (See below.)

  The Yanks delivered a fresher wound to the city’s civic pride when they won the 1998 ALCS from Cleveland, four games to two.

  KANSAS CITY

  If any fans have a right to despise the New York Yankees, it’s those of the Kansas City Athletics, who know just how the Chinese felt toward imperial Japan. Even the team’s birth was tainted by Yankee corruption. In 1954, business-man Arnold Johnson, who had already bought Yankee Stadium and a minor league team in K.C. in 1952, bid for the Philadelphia A’s. Yankees owner Dan Topping helped Johnson—whose bid was suspected not to be the highest—win the team. In exchange, Johnson willingly allowed New York to treat the K.C. Athletics as a combination farm club and private fief. In six years of trades—and in one of the most shameful and relatively unexplored episodes in baseball history—the Yankees stole the A’s best players in exchange for mediocrities.

  K.C. gave the Yanks Enos Slaughter, Bobby Shantz, Art Ditmar, Clete Boyer, Ralph Terry, Hector Lopez, and Roger Maris (in one of the most lopsided trades in history, Maris, Kent Hadley, and Joe DeMaestri went to New York for Norm Siebern, Hank Bauer, Marv Throneberry, and Don Larsen.) The Yankees, in fact, rarely even traded players with any other team during this period, in which they won four more pennants in a row beginning in 1955, while the new Kansas City team struggled to stay out of the cellar. Ten members of the 1961 Yankees, considered by many the greatest team of all time, came from the Athletics.

  Kansas City’s latter-day major-league representative, the Royals, lost playoff series to New York in 1976,1977, and 1978, before finally beating them in 1981.

  DETROIT

&
nbsp; As noted baseball scribe Richard Lally put it when asked what Tigers fans hold against the Yankees, he replied, “Detroit won over one hundred games with one of its greatest teams ever. In 1961. ’Nuff said.”

  ANAHEIM

  It was 2003, the Chinese year of the Rally Monkey, the team totem whose appearance on the Angels’ scoreboard cast a spell over the hated Yankees in the ALCS. The Halos clubbed the Yanks’ pitchers like baby seals en route to a 4-1 series win.

  OAKLAND

  Anti-Yank sentiment followed the Athletics franchise to its third and current destination, fed by two main currents: (1) In the 1970s, the Yanks signed Catfish Hunter and Reggie Jackson, mainstays of the powerhouse A’s of the early 1970s; (2) Painful losses to the Yanks in both the 2001 and 2002 AL Division Series. The former featured Derek Jeter’s football-option pass relay to Jorge Posada, which nailed a lumbering, upright Jeremy Giambi at home in the. Yanks’ 1-0 Game 3 win that kept the Bombers alive and turned the Series around in a New York minute.

  TEXAS (ARLINGTON)

  It was bad enough that the Yankees beat the Rangers in three straight Division Series (1996,1998,1999) by a combined nine games to one. But then Ranger fans saw Alex Rodriguez connive his way out of town in early 2004, in return for whom they got Alfonso Soriano, who: (1) was two years older than his listed age, as Texas found out; (2) had a mediocre year; and (3) will still make too much money in arbitration for the Rangers’ modest payroll and will force them to trade him.