The Yankee Way?

I came here tonight to bury the Giambino, not to praise him, but a funny thing happened on the way to the digital lynching: I read the lead on the all-wood Giambi story in the Daily News:

Shrunken slugger Jason Giambi was exposed yesterday as a steroid-using liar who betrayed the Yankees and all baseball fans.

If I'm Mort Zuckerman, the two reporters who teamed on this lead (T.J. Quinn and Jose Martinez) are pushing mail carts on Monday morning. Because they're either blind or stupid - or, perhaps, that fanciful breed of baseball fans who believes there's a "Yankee way," some kind of morally upright way of conducting oneself that comports with virtuous human paradigms like Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, and Billy Martin.

Jason Giambi betrayed himself; he sold his body and, quite probably, his life expectancy for homeruns and tens of millions of dollars. He did not betray the New York Yankees, which is the richest franchise in sports, operating under a scandalous Federal anti-trust exemption that has created a class of wealthy franchise owners who answer to no one. He has not betrayed the fans - at least none but those gullible enough to believe their own hopes a dreams ride on the pinstripe-wearing bodies of a bunch of hulking and coddled athletes with emotional developments significantly less advanced than my 6-year-old.

The betrayal here lies in the rotten soul of Major League Baseball, which knowingly supported steroid-ravaged sluggers to move units, sell tickets, and bump ad rates ever higher. It lies with a "commissioner" - and I use the term ever so lightly - who presides over this mess, and with the politicians who give this corrupt association of old men a pass. It lies with the so-called "union" that protects its members rights at the expense of fair competition and the future.

No, Jason Giambi didn't betray anyone but himself. In the same Daily News, Mike Lupica gets it right:

In testimony that wrecks his baseball life and his good name, Jason Giambi comes across as some kind of amiable dope, just looking to take the same home run dope the big boys were taking. In the process, in an obscene version of due process being conducted in that BALCO case out in San Francisco, he gives us official proof that our eyes haven't been lying to us after all. This he does by stopping his own lies finally and telling the truth.

To me, this is the biggest baseball scandal since the Black Sox, another instance of organized crime colluding with look-the-other-way leadership. Baseball needs Olympics-style testing and punishment to regain the respect of real fans. It needs to clean house, and it needs competition and the end of the criminal anti-trust exemption.

Of course, I'm really just a cranky Mets fan. And I'm knocking back a few tonight to celebrate the acquisition of Felix Heredia.

UPDATE: Thanks to Red Sox fan Steve for pointing out that the Post got it just as wrong on the mystique/class issue:

"It's simple: Jason Giambi must go.  Now. He has disgraced the Yankee pinstripes and made a mockery of everything that is wonderful and good and pure about the game of baseball. So now it's up to George Steinbrenner. Say what you will about the man, he has only ever put one thing above winning: class."

Said Steve: "Pinstripe disgrace? Steinbrenner and class? I need a freakin' antacid..."

UPDATE II: Finally, a Yankee fan with some sense. Bleacher bum Filip Bondy recaptures a speck of Daily News honor - thrown away so casually by the "news" department - with a fitting rip job this morning. Bondy, a rapid fan, opines:

While the Yankees cynically scour that fine print in Jason Giambi's contract, hoping to disengage themselves from a steroid pariah, we would do well to consider their moral outrage in the context it deserves. We ought to revile such hypocrisy, such gall.

Looking to assign blame for the bulging pinstriped uniforms? Look no further than Yankee management, from the owner down. The Yanks dumped Tino Martinez and signed Giambi after the 2001 season to a seven-year, $120 million contract, with every reason to believe that Giambi's amazing power numbers were artificially induced. Then, for good measure, the Yanks inked Gary Sheffield two years later, despite all indications Sheffield's body was molded by similar illegal substances.

Comments

[Chuck Welch]

Dead on. Thanks.

Class? Steinbrenner?

I am still snickering at that one.

Sorry about you and the Met's though. You know you could have had Guerrero. But, don't listen to me; I'm a disenfranchised Expos fan. Damn Loria and Selig to hell.

[Tom K]

**He has not betrayed the fans - at least none but those gullible enough to believe their own hopes a dreams ride on the pinstripe-wearing bodies of a bunch of hulking and coddled athletes with emotional developments significantly less advanced than my 6-year-old.**

I'll speak for this group.

Giambi "betrayed" the Yankees and their fans in one key sense, and one only: he didn't win a World Series, and as a very much related point, he didn't produce as expected.

I don't hear the Giants talking about voiding Bonds' contract, because Bonds has produced. (They don't require WS titles in SF). And you wouldn't hear the Yankees talking about it if they weren't hampered by an enormous contract for four or so more years with a guy who, for all we know, will never again approach his production in Oakland.

From what I can tell, what he did wasn't even illegal under the rules then in place. The Post cited a contract clause that he'd stay in good shape as a long-shot hope for avoiding the contract due to steroid use. That seems unlikely: some guys who take 'em do well with it, some don't, and some, like Giambi, do and then don't. You take the risk, especially when you can't exactly say the revelations about his usage come as a shock.

[Tom W.]

Tom, for once we agree entirely. I'd add that you don't hear the Yanks talking about voiding Sheffield's contract either...the guy had an incredible year.

My scientific understanding is limited - as you know very well, having taken the same high school classes - but here's what I glean about these 'roids. They let you work out without limit - your muscles don't break down, so you can bulk up more. And that helps you on the field.

[Jon]

In calling Giambi a hypocrite and waxing poetic about the days of Tino Martinez, I wasn't saying anything about there being a mystical Yankee Way. The fact is that Giambi is a hypocrite and a liar, regardless of whom he actually betrayed. As for Martinez, I miss him and all the other players that comprised the 1996-2001 team. That was a special team, as much for the winning as for the type of individuals on the team. While O'Neill and Brosius retired, Martinez didn't, and the Yankees chose some punk biker over him, forgetting what made that team a success.

[Tom W.]

Jon - nah, I can't agree. What do you really know about those guys, how they treat people, how they are with women, with their children, what they really give to charity, how they vote (see, Tom K. it's all values), what their lives are like. Those teams were special because they won - we needn't ascribe personal values to them.

[Tom K]

I thought the '96+ team seemed like an unusually good bunch of guys, from what little a fan can tell. But the Yanks of the late 70's were largely a bunch of jerks, and I loved them just as much.

[Tom W.]

I think that's right - similarly, the '69 Mets were seemingly loaded with "character" guys whilst the '86 team mirrored the late 70s Yankees in surliness and abusive behavior - but damned if they didn't win and earn "beloved" status.

[chervokas]

The real problem here isn't the NY sports press' "Yankee Way" bullshit. Everyone knows that the NY sports press has long persued a kind of phony populist moralism that has been as hypocritical as anything the players and owners have put out there. Dick Young was really the godfather of the whole thing--castigating the moral failings of the rich fat cats while drinking himself blind at sports dinners and chasing skirts. Bah. When I see headlines or hear attitudes like that I just turn the page. (Michael Kay is the current standard bearer for this odious tradition).

The problem w/ the steroids thing is that in the absence of a real, third-party commissioner, MLB has gotten the game that both the players and the owners wanted---smaller parks, fatter pitches, juiced players, lots of home runs. Both the owners and the players came to the decision that this was where the money was to be made and off they went. There has never been any will on either side to take the steroids and other performance enhancers out of baseball. And there should be.

Of course, since MBL pussied out in the first place and never instituted a real drug policy, the league can't do what it might have done to send a real message--ban Bonds, Giambi, Sheffield. The baseball writers, tho', can send a message and not vote for McGwire or Bonds for the HOF. That also will not happen.

MLB needs to institute a zero-tolerance, universal testing policy. I fear that won't happen either.

[Tom K]

"MLB needs to institute a zero-tolerance, universal testing policy."

This off Drudge, on possible federal legislation championed by McCain:

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1546&u=/afp/20041205/sp_wl_afp/us_baseball_doping_balco_041205162128&printer=1

I agree with Jason that baseball should do this, but does anyone else question, as I do, whether it's something for the government to step in on if they don't?

[chervokas]

I question the role of the federal government in MLB, definitely.

[Steve]

Ahhh, the one thing that unites Red Sox and Mets fans: a hatred of all things Yankee.

[Tom W.]

...and Yankee fans true to their own minds: a distaste for hypocrisy....

[Babe Ruth Baseball Cards]

Did you know that the first Babe Ruth baseball card was printed in 1914 by the Baltimore Sun Newspaper, back when The Babe was a minor league ballplayer for the Baltimore Orioles. That particular baseball card, being the first card ever produced of the young pitching prospect, has been sold for as high as $517,000 in recent years!