by Jim Dandy

Now, I’m not often one to read too much into things (I got so mad at the people trying to read Randian subtext into the Incredibles), but Vic Ziegel’s column from the April 21st New York Daily News seems pretty ominous. It’s about the 1965 Yankees and their demise. After 9 pennants in 10 years, the 65 Yankees went right into the tank, finishing 77-85 and in 6th place in the AL East. Of course, that team was packed with stars— Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Whitey Ford, and Jim Bouton. So in Ziegel’s column, he pins the blame firmly on their manager, Johnny Keane. He spends the last half of the column lamenting Keane’s managerial style, and why it led to the demise of the last great Yankees dynasty, and draws a comparison to the 2005 Yankees with his last paragraph. And you couldn’t have seen it coming any better if Ziegel actually spelled it out for you.

Joe Torre, I will most certainly miss you. Someone’s got to take the fall for Yankee ineptitude in the last five years (oh, how I and every other non-Yankees fan in the WORLD would adore having a matching record of “failure”). The Boss is getting old, you see. He wants one last title before he dies. Kenny Lofton, with his forty something years and .275 batting average, is your leadoff hitter? Do you know how much the Yankees paid for him? Jason Giambi has a mysterious ailment on his pituitary gland? They had no way of knowing he was a raging juicer. Tom Gordon doesn’t have the mental makeup to pitch big innings for New York? Have you SEEN what he did with other teams? Alex Rodriguez is a clubhouse cancer that pads his numbers against crappy teams? Look at his numbers!

Torre’s going down because of the nonsensical signings of the past five years, five years of wasteful spending, crappy drafts, and terrible, terrible free agent acquisitions. The fact that they managed to make it as far as they did in the playoffs every year is a testament to his skill as a manager and to the quality of the core players they had left after people started retiring or leaving.

The Yankees won 4 World Series in 5 years, and have made the playoffs every year since 1995. Their run as world champs was made with home grown players, guys who came up through the Yankees farm system and bled pinstripes, along with a couple of quality character free agent signings. When you look at the 2005 Yankees lineup, do you see a character guy like Scott Brosius? Do you see a guy who hustles his ass off like Paul O’Neil? Do you see a guy with a mind for the game like Joe Girardi? No. You see a guy like Jason Giambi, so pumped full of steroids he’s going to pop. You see a prima donna like Alex Rodriguez, too busy making sure his purple lipstick is evenly applied to actually, you know, hit. At least when it counts. You see a guy like Jaret Wright with more shoulder problems than wins, but who they overpaid because they freaked out, had no one left to trade, and didn’t have any kids to bring up who could do anything.

It might seem like I’m laying the blame for their failure to win it all at the feet of Brian Cashman, the Yankees general manager. It couldn’t be further from the truth. Cashman was the architect of those World Series champions, guiding Yankees fans out of the desert of the 80s with smart drafts and quality free agent signings. He’s a great executive who has unfortunately (for the Yankees, certainly not for any other baseball fans, though) been gently nudged out of any significant decision making capacity by Randy “Pigvomit” Levine, Yankees President and Minister of Propaganda and National Enlightenment, and by Steinbrenner’s impatience.

Let’s talk about Pigvomit for a second. Here’s a guy who, when he sneezes, little chunks of Steinbrennerturd fly out of his nose. He’s the official mouthpiece (HA!) of the Yankees, the guy you saw (for those of you who don’t like the Sawx or the Yankees) on ESPN decrying the security situation at Fenway after the Pedro-Zimmer throwdown like it was a damn prison riot. He’s the genius who, last year, when the Devil Rays were stuck in Florida because of a hurricane, demanded a forfeit, knowing the Sawx were creeping up on them. He’s also primarily a businessman, and coincidentally, he became team president the same year the Yanks won their last World Series.

He’s Iago to Steinbrenner’s Othello, if Othello was a loudmouthed, self-important ass who was banned from baseball for illegal campaign contributions to Nixon’s reelection.

"Really, we're an entertainment company - and a baseball team,” sayeth Pigvomit in a Daily News article this past February 12. Says a lot. They’re an entertainment company first. You know what that means? Beltran Carlos Beltran won’t sell as many jerseys as Randy Johnson. So even though Carlos Beltran would have helped the team more, even though Cashman’s telling Steinbrenner that they need Beltran more, they went and got Randy Johnson. Jason Giambi will bring in more endorsement money than Tino Martinez, so they have to deal with Giambi popping and splattering blood and artificial testosterone all over the clubhouse. Alex Rodriguez will be a hit on Madison Avenue! Nevermind that he won’t fly on 161st Street, or the adoration he will garner in Staten Island.

The Yankees suck now, and will suck for a long time, because Pigvomit’s not letting them be run as a baseball team. He’s in for a nice treat after 2 or 3 years of losing.

The fact of the matter is Joe Torre’s a fantastic manager. He’s got a great mind for the game, great instincts, and is one of the classiest men to ever put on a Yankees uniform. He manages with dignity and respect for the game, and it tells you something that in his first game back from prostate cancer treatment, he got a standing ovation from the Boston crowd. He deserves to go into the Hall of Fame for what he’s done with this team, and for putting up with the Boss’ crap for 10 years. And fortunately for him, he’s not going to have to put up with it for much longer. He’ll get to leave Pigvomit to wallow in the filth he’s created.