Steinbrenner, the Last Lion Of Baseball (2010)

by Madden, Bill

But in spite of these acquisitions, the ’95 Yankees struggled to regain their mojo of the year before, falling as far back as 10½ games behind the first-place Red Sox in mid-June. They lost Jimmy Key (who’d been 17-4 in ’94) to shoulder surgery on July 5, sidelining him for two months, and Danny Tartabull, their $25 million middle-of-the-order big-time power hitter, disintegrated. These failures also led to more friction between Steinbrenner and Michael.

  Steinbrenner had been on Tartabull’s case since spring training, noting that the slugger had missed 40 games the year before with minor injuries, and in mid-June he lowered the boom on him for managing only two home runs to that point. “Tartabull’s been a major disappointment,” Steinbrenner told reporters. “He’s supposed to be a cleanup hitter—that’s what we’re paying him that kind of money for—and his batting average with runners in scoring position is under .200.”

  What bothered Steinbrenner was that Michael and Showalter were just as disgusted with Tartabull but chose not to blast him in the newspapers. Michael’s reasoning was that Tartabull’s market value was low enough; it would serve no useful purpose to further tear the guy apart. Showalter, on the other hand, was concerned about upsetting the clubhouse chemistry he’d built by publicly ripping one of his players, even though he knew Tartabull had few friends on the team.

  “I’m a stand-up guy with Tartabull,” Steinbrenner told Jack Curry of the New York Times in a July 21 interview. “He knows I think he’s been a major disappointment, but I’m getting a little fed up with the whole situation of Stick and Buck saying things in meetings and then being Mr. Nice Guys to the press about him.”

  A few days earlier, Steinbrenner, accompanied by Bill Fugazy, had been in the Yankee clubhouse discussing Key with reporters when he appeared to take a swipe at Michael. “Well, Jimmy Key’s been a great competitor and we need him back,” he said. “I give all the credit to Joe Molloy for signing him.”

  Michael was having dinner in the Yankee Stadium pressroom when I joined him a few minutes later and made the mistake of offhandedly repeating what Steinbrenner had said about Molloy signing Key.

  “He said what?” Michael screamed, getting up from his seat.

  “I don’t think he meant anything by it, Stick,” I said.

  “Bull shit!” Michael said before marching out the door and into the corridor, where, coincidentally, Steinbrenner and Fugazy were making their way back to the elevator. Confronting them, Michael raged, “I heard what you told the press behind my back about Joe Molloy signing Key, George. How could you say that? What kind of an owner does that? That’s bullshit and you know it!”

  “Hey, hey, Stick,” interjected Fugazy. “Take it easy. You and George need to talk about this privately upstairs.”

  “Yeah, Stick,” said Steinbrenner. “I see what you’re doing here. I don’t appreciate having these sorts of conversations in public like this. I’ll see you later upstairs.”

  “Fine,” said Michael. “Let’s go upstairs and have this out.” Then, looking at me, he added: “You come with us, Billy. I want you as a witness.”

  The four of us took the elevator upstairs to Steinbrenner’s office, where Michael resumed his tirade.

  “Look, George,” he said, his voice still raised, “I know you don’t believe this, but I’ve never sought any credit for putting this team back together, and I don’t want any credit. But I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let you go around giving credit to Joe Molloy for signing Key. Joe Molloy wouldn’t even know if Key was left-handed!”

  Steinbrenner, who had taken a seat at his desk as Michael stood over him, looked at him coldly.

  “You know, Stick, I can’t be having these kinds of things anymore with you. I think I’m just gonna have to make a change here.”

  “Fine,” screamed Michael. “You want to fire me? Well then, just do it. Right here in front of Billy! Don’t threaten. Just do it! Be a man, George!”

  “I’m gonna have to think about this, Stick,” Steinbrenner muttered. “This is just not working out.”

  “You do that, George,” Michael said, before leading me out the door into the press box.

  Despite being challenged in front of a reporter, Steinbrenner did not fire Michael that day, though it was clear that the two were not going to be able to work together much longer. For the time being, there were the playoffs to think about; and, for all the problems with the pitching, the loss of Key and the demise of Tartabull, Showalter had managed to rally the Yankees back into contention for the American League wild card as the July 31 trading deadline approached. And when the Toronto Blue Jays (who, like the Expos, had been especially hard-hit by the ’94 strike) announced they were putting their right-handed ace, David Cone, on the trading block because of his impending free agency, Steinbrenner and Michael put their differences aside and combined efforts to fill the Yankees’ most pressing need.

  Steinbrenner began the negotiations by calling his friend Paul Beeston, the Blue Jays’ president and chief executive officer. What would the Blue Jays need to get in exchange for Cone? he asked. Beeston said they were looking for young, inexpensive pitching, at least three players, one of them ready to step into their rotation. He mentioned Andy Pettitte, a rookie left-hander who had stepped up to fill one of the spots of the injured starters in the Yankee rotation in ’95, and Marty Janzen, a right-hander who had just been promoted to Double-A ball in the Yankees system after dominating hitters in the Class A Florida State League. Steinbrenner and Beeston then agreed to let their GMs, Michael and Pat Gillick, conduct the rest of the negotiations.

  Michael would later remember July 28, 1995, as being one of the most exasperating but ultimately satisfying days of his career as Yankees general manager. It began with him successfully getting Gillick to focus on the 22-year-old Janzen as the centerpiece of the Cone deal, leaving Pettitte off the table. At the same time, however, Steinbrenner was calling him every 15 minutes imploring him to find a way to off-load the seemingly untradable Tartabull (who had another year and a half and nearly $8 million left on his contract), while relaying the minor league department’s objections to including Janzen in the Cone deal.

  “They’re telling me here that Janzen’s a keeper,” Steinbrenner said by phone from Tampa. “You need to figure out a way to do this deal without him in it.”

  By this time, Michael had already gotten Gillick’s tentative agreement on a deal for Cone in which the Jays would get Janzen and two other low-level minor league pitching prospects, and he was eager to quickly close it out.

  “We’re the Yankees, George,” Michael said. “We need to win now. Cone gives us that opportunity, and we can afford to sign him. I don’t know if we’re going to make the playoffs, but we sure as hell won’t if we don’t have Cone. We can’t worry about what Janzen might do down the road.”

  “All right,” said Steinbrenner. “Make the deal. But I know Gillick. He’s too smart. These young pitchers we’re giving him, they better not turn out to be anything.”

  At the time of the Cone deal, the Yankees were in Minnesota for a series against the Twins, having just won eight of their last nine games to move into third place in the AL East, 5½ games behind the Red Sox, but only 1 behind three other teams for the wild card.

  A few days earlier, Michael had been talking to Showalter in the manager’s office at Yankee Stadium about the possibilities for trading Tartabull.

  “You can’t trade that contract to anyone,” Showalter sighed.

  “That’s not true,” said Michael. “I can trade anyone, as long as you don’t care what I get back.”

  “Not Tartabull,” said Showalter. “Nobody’ll take him.”

  “Well,” said Michael, smiling thinly, “what would you do for me if I did trade him?”

  “I’ll kiss your ass at home plate when I bring out the lineup cards the next day.”

  “Tell you what,” Michael said, unbuckling his belt as Showalter looked at him in astonishment. “I’m gonna save you a lot of embarrassment by letting
you do that right here!”

  The only way Michael was able to trade Tartabull (who, by July 28, was hitting just .224 with six home runs) was to find a team that had a similarly underperforming, overpaid player. In the Oakland A’s, who had grown equally disenchanted with outfielder Ruben Sierra, who was hitting .265 with 12 homers, with two years remaining at $5.5 million each, Michael found just such a willing trade partner. So, on the heels of the Cone deal, Michael succeeded in shedding the albatross that was Tartabull, albeit for another, potentially more expensive one in Sierra.

  Steinbrenner was uncharacteristically quiet after the Cone and Tartabull deals were announced. The next day, he showed up in Minneapolis and met with Showalter, not to discuss the new players but rather to talk about Darryl Strawberry, the drug-troubled former star slugger for the Mets who was seeking to rehabilitate his career. Six weeks earlier, without consulting Michael or anyone else, Steinbrenner had signed Strawberry to a minor league contract right after the faded 33-year-old outfielder completed a suspension from February until June ’95 for violating baseball’s drug policy while playing for the San Francisco Giants. Much to Showalter’s dismay, on July 4, 1995, Steinbrenner ordered Strawberry’s recall from the Yankees’ Triple-A farm team in Columbus, thus creating a designated hitter logjam with the just-acquired Sierra.

  Sierra and Strawberry delivered a combined 10 homers and 57 RBI over the last two months, but it was Cone, going 9-2 in 13 starts, who proved to be the most significant factor in the Yankees beating out the California Angels by one game for the AL wild card. Waiting for them in the best-of-five Division Series was none other than Lou Piniella, who was now managing the AL West champion Seattle Mariners.

  The Yankees won the first two games, in New York. During game two, which was won in the 12th inning on a home run by Jim Leyritz, Steinbrenner entered the press box and launched into an umpire-bashing tirade the likes of which the amused writer corps had not seen since 1983. The targets of his outrage were home-plate umpire Dale Scott, who, replays showed, had called Yankees outfielder Dion James out on a pitch that appeared to be inside, and first-base umpire Jim McKean, who appeared to have missed two base-running calls against the Yankees.

  “The pitch was a good three inches inside,” Steinbrenner fumed. “The guy just blew it! All I know is the home-plate umpire is from Oregon, and I learned long ago from my geography teacher that Oregon is next to Washington. This is awful. And the first-base umpire blew both of those calls. I asked for [supervisor of umpires] Marty Springstead to come up and look at the videotapes, but he said that was inappropriate. Well, I think getting the best officiating is appropriate.”

  These comments would lead American League president Gene Budig to impose a $50,000 fine on Steinbrenner, who once again enlisted the services of New York attorney Bob Costello. Costello successfully got the fine rescinded on the grounds that, under baseball’s constitution, the league president did not have the authority to fine an owner. “It cost George more in legal fees to me than the fine,” Costello said years later with a chuckle, “but with him it was all about the winning.”

  The Mariners took the next two games in Seattle. Then, in the decisive game five, the Yankees blew a 4–2 eighth-inning lead and lost 6–5 to the Mariners in 11. Showalter was roundly criticized by the media for leaving an exhausted Cone in for 147 pitches, the last being a bases-loaded ball four to journeyman pinch hitter Doug Strange that tied the game in the eighth. Showalter’s issue was that he had inexplicably lost faith in his closer, Wetteland, who had given up a towering 12th-inning home run to Ken Griffey Jr. in game two during his 31⁄3 innings of relief. Instead of using his closer in game five, Showalter brought back his starter from game three, Jack McDowell, for the first relief appearance of his career. With Wetteland waving his arms in disbelief in the bullpen, McDowell gave up the tying and winning runs in the 11th inning.

  After the game, a furious Steinbrenner heaped praise on Piniella while leaving no doubt as to whom he blamed for the Yankees’ defeat.

  “I feel sorry for my team,” Steinbrenner told reporters. “But we had our chances to win this thing and didn’t take advantage. Give Piniella credit. We’re up 5-0 [in game four]. We have to win that game. And Cone was magnificent tonight. But 147 pitches?”

  When asked what changes he planned for the off-season, Steinbrenner snapped, “You’ll see,” before walking past the manager’s office without bothering to go in.

  The “rising star” (as Steinbrenner had referred to Showalter on his return to baseball back in March 1993) was now a fallen star. But before Steinbrenner dealt with Showalter, whose contract was to expire the day after the completion of the World Series, he first had to settle affairs with Michael, who had an option year on his contract. A couple of days after the Yankees’ elimination by the Mariners, Steinbrenner summoned Michael to Tampa. Their meeting began with Steinbrenner informing Michael that he wanted to change the terms of the option by cutting the general manager’s salary from $600,000 to $400,000.

  “That’s unacceptable, George,” Michael said. “This job is hard enough, and I don’t deserve to have my salary cut.”

  “So maybe we just need to figure something else out,” Steinbrenner said. “I want you with me, but I’m tired of the constant fighting.”

  “I’ll go back to scouting then,” Michael said. “I don’t like being confined so much in the office as you have to be as GM.”

  They agreed that Michael would become director of major league scouting—a position that paid $150,000. When Michael told me he was stepping down as GM, mindful of that ugly confrontation I’d witnessed in the owner’s office a couple of months earlier, I was curious as to whether it was as much of a mutual decision as he was letting on. But when I called Steinbrenner, he assured me that Michael was still going to have heavy input in all of the Yankees’ player personnel decisions.

  “It got so I was paying him $600,000 just to argue with him,” Steinbrenner said. “I’m still going to argue with him all the time, but at least now it won’t cost me as much!”

  Before the transition took place, Steinbrenner asked Michael to find his successor, a task that proved more challenging than either of them imagined. Michael was turned down by a number of former general managers now working as assistants or scouting directors elsewhere, as well as one former manager, Joe Torre, who had been fired by the St. Louis Cardinals the previous June 16. The Yankees? Steinbrenner? Not interested. At one point, Michael told his assistant, Brian Cashman, in exasperation: “George doesn’t believe that nobody wants this job. Right now, the first guy to say yes has got it.”

  That person turned out to be 49-year-old Bob Watson, the former Yankee first baseman who was then general manager of the Houston Astros. The only African American GM in baseball, Watson had become disenchanted with the constant interference he was getting from Astros owner Drayton McLane. On October 23, the Yankees announced that he’d signed a two-year, $800,000 contract—the same money Michael had turned down.

  With Watson onboard, Steinbrenner was now able to turn his attention to Showalter, who had said he didn’t want to begin negotiations on his contract until he knew who the general manager was going to be. It turned out that didn’t matter, as Showalter quickly realized that Steinbrenner was intent on punishing him as well for the Yankees’ playoff failure. Taking a familiar page out of his “how to fire a manager” textbook, Steinbrenner began the negotiations by telling Showalter that he wanted to replace all of his coaches, the reason being that none of them, like Showalter himself, had ever played in the major leagues.

  “This is one of the problems, Buck,” he said. “You need to have guys around you who are experienced.”

  “I don’t accept that, Mr. Steinbrenner,” Showalter said. “If I’m going to manage, I need to have my own coaches. I think these guys do a good job for me.”

  A week later, on October 26, Steinbrenner offered Showalter a two-year contract worth $1.05 million, with the condition that, at
the very least, hitting coach Rick Down had to go. Showalter, who was looking for a three-year contract, mulled it over before turning it down. He was under the impression that negotiations were still open, but Steinbrenner interpreted this as Showalter’s resignation and immediately called his public relations director, Rob Butcher, instructing him to announce that the manager had decided to leave. Steinbrenner was once again skewered in the newspapers and on talk radio for parting with yet another manager—indeed, a manager who had brought the Yankees back to the postseason after a 14-year drought. In an attempt to deflect the criticism, Steinbrenner issued this statement: “We tried but were unable to dissuade Buck. I have nothing but praise for Buck and the job he did for us. I am very upset by his leaving. I wish Buck and his fine little family nothing but the best.”

  Unlike all the previous times he’d gotten rid of a manager, however, Steinbrenner had no candidates-in-waiting already working for him in the organization. Michael made it clear he didn’t want the job, but agreed to help Steinbrenner find a suitable replacement for Showalter. It was Michael’s belief that, despite the disappointing Seattle playoff series, the team he had put together was ready to win with perhaps a little more tweaking, and that it was important to hire an experienced manager who would not be intimidated by Steinbrenner. As Michael began the process of narrowing down the list of viable candidates, Yankees senior VP Arthur Richman took it upon himself to submit his own list of managerial candidates to Steinbrenner, including Tony La Russa, who had resigned as Oakland A’s manager at the end of the year; Davey Johnson, who’d just been fired as manager of the Cincinnati Reds; John McNamara, who had previously managed five different teams in the majors; and Joe Torre. After a very brief evaluation and interview process, Michael concluded that the Brooklyn-born Torre, who’d previously managed the Mets and had also won a division championship as manager of the Atlanta Braves in 1982, was the best fit for the job, in spite of his underwhelming 894-1,003 career record. On November 2, the Yankees announced that the 55-year-old Torre had agreed to a two-year contract worth $500,000 for the first year and $550,000 for the second, which ranked in the lower echelon among major league managers.