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Tuesday, October 10, 2000

Damn Yankees

Written By: Jim Caple
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER BASEBALL COLUMNIST


Now the Mariners season enters Yankee Stadium, the 77-year-old home to the most famous and successful team in American professional sports.

The Yankees are the team of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Reggie Jackson and Derek Jeter. They've won one of every four world championships, three of past four and swept the past two. They've won so often and produced so many great players that the very thought of actually beating them for the American League pennant was the source of a Broadway musical.

Their uniforms have remained virtually unchanged for eight decades, their stylish pinstrips a model of the team's stability, pride and tradition, their interlocking NY logo an international icon of baseball and America. God, don't you hate them?

The worst thing is not that the Yankees win all the time, greedily hoarding all the October glory the way Darryl Strawberry collects court dates, but that they insist on letting everyone know they win all the time.

Is there any team quite so full of itself as the Yankees? Consider Monument Park, the area beyond left field that is a tribute to all things Yankees. Now, it's one thing to take pride in the past, but have some discretion, for crying out loud. Ed McMahon and the Publishers Clearing House are more selective than the Yankees. They've retired the uniform numbers of 15 players, including Billy Martin, who was once fired for conduct unbecoming a Yankee. Which is a bit like having Death Row Records turn down your rap song because its lyrics were too crude.

Then there's Bucky Dent, whose career essentially boiled down to one home run -- and, boy, did he make sure Boston fans remember it. When he opened a baseball school, he built a replica of Fenway's Green Monster in left field. Give it a rest, Bucky. Do Boston fans keep reminding you of your performance in "Flying High"?

Even the man so renowned for his grace and quiet dignity was as arrogant as they come. Joe DiMaggio insisted that he always be introduced as the Greatest Living Ballplayer at old-timers' games -- what, did Willie Mays stop breathing? -- and his lawyer carried on that legacy after his death when he sued the city of San Francisco for naming a children's playground after its native son. Hey, if you don't nip that sort of thing in the bud, next thing you know the city would have tried naming a children's cancer research center after him.

The Yankees are so smug, they were somehow insulted Sunday when Oakland's Eric Chavez answered a question about possibly ending New York's dyansty by saying, "They've won enough times, it's time for some other people to have some glory here. But no, they've had a great run; they've done a phenomenal job." Oooh, them's fightin' words.

Meanwhile, manager Joe Torre was asked during a news conference yesterday whether he was looking forward to a possible subway series against the Mets, as if the Mariners and Cardinals were mere warmup acts.

Yankees arrogance, which dates back so far that it must be passed on from generation to generation like a recessive gene, has reached its peak during the reign of George Steinbrenner, the biggest, loudest, most offensive boor in sports. At least until someone else hires Bobby Knight.

Steinbrenner was convicted for illegal campaign donations to Richard Nixon, got in a fight with two fans in an elevator at the 1981 World Series and was banned from baseball for hiring a known thug to spy on his own player, Dave Winfield. He is a key figure for the U.S. Olympic Committee, yet dragged his feet when it came to providing his top prospects for the Olympic team.

No wonder Yankees third baseman Graig Nettles once said of Steinbrenner and the benefits of a losing streak: "The more we lose, the more Steinbrenner will fly in. And the more he flies, the better the chance there will be for a plane crash."

What Steinbrenner does best -- other than meddle -- is spend money. The Yankees have baseball's largest payroll and largest local TV contract. At $112 million, New York's payroll not only is the largest in baseball, it is nearly $100 million more than Minnesota's. It is almost $50 million more than Seattle's. The Yankees are so rich, they picked up Jose Canseco and his $3 million contract in August just so no other team could have him.

Where's the sense of accomplishment in that? Spending that type of money, they ought to win. It's like arming Bill Gates with nuclear weapons.

And still Yankees fans crow. Convinced that no baseball is played beyond a tape-measure home run of the Bronx, Yankees fans are the rudest and loudest in sports, capable of making WTO protests look like a PBS pledge break. Their idea of treating an opponent with respect is yelling, "Heads up!" before tossing a car battery from the upper deck.

As former pitcher Mike Flanagan said, in New York, "They told me to lock the door on the bullpen cart."

But really. Would you want the Mariners facing anyone else? Would the 1995 Division Series have felt quite so good had it not been against the Yankees? When a team plays for a championship, doesn't it want to knock off the best? Is there anything that matches the satisfaction of knocking out the neighborhood bully?

Hate them as we might (and anyone who will ever contribute anything meaningful to society does), the Yankees and their stadium are as much a part of October baseball as shameless network promos for a very special episode of "Malcolm in the Middle." Walking into the stadium, you can almost smell the history ... along with the odor of eight decades of molding hot dogs.

When Mike Cameron takes center field, it is with the knowledge that he is covering the same ground Mantle and DiMaggio did before him. When Freddy Garcia takes the mound, he will be standing atop the same perch from which Don Larsen pitched a perfect game in the World Series. Should Edgar or Alex or Jay homer, they may clear the same fence Reggie did three times in a World Series game.

And should any Seattle fan score a ticket behind the first-base dugout, they will sit with the fear that their seat was the final destination of Chuck Knoblauch's throwing errors.

So get ready. This series is Jeter versus A-Rod, Torre versus Lou and Rivera versus Sasaki. It's Rickey versus the fans, Knoblauch versus Keith Olbermann's mother and Don Zimmer versus the Moose.

This is Wall Street versus tech stocks, the Yankees' 25 world championships to the Mariners' none, the New York experience and mystique against Seattle's SoDo Mojo. This is history and tradition and arrogance against hope and pluck and pride.

This is October baseball. Enjoy it. And if the Mariners win, call up everyone you know in New York to crow.

(If they lose, you might just want to leave the phone unplugged for a couple of days.)

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