Dear Mr. Steinbrenner,
I am a Yankee fan living in enemy territory. My heart is in New York, but my body is in a suburb of Boston where the people live and die for their "Red Sawks." After the amazing seven-game American League Championship Series last year ended with Aaron Boone's clasic home run, coupled with this off-season's escapades, the anti-Yankee fever in New England is at an all-time high.
Every day I hear reasons why the Yankees are going to fail and why the Red Sox have greatly improved. Am I scared? Am I going to jump ship and become a Red Sox fan? No. Because the Yankees are going all the way this year, and Yankee fans owe a great deal of gratitude to you, Mr. Steinbrenner.
In this past off-season the Yankees lost their starting third baseman, second baseman and four out of the five starters from last season. In total, only 14 players remain from last year's team. Only three regular position players will actually keep their position from the previous season (Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, and Hideki Matsui.) Only Mike Mussina remains from last year's starting pitching staff. The Yankees also have a different bench coach, first base coach, third base coach and hitting coach.
So how does a pennant-winning team retool? First, replace the coaches whom they lost with former Yankees. Willie Randolph, Roy White, Luis Sojo and Don Mattingly take over for the coaches who have left the Bronx.
But more importantly than the coaching changes George, you proved again that you are really the Boss by retooling your whole team. Tom Gordon, Paul Quantrill and Steve Karsay fill out a bullpen that had some trouble getting through the late innings last year.
The starting pitching has also been overhauled as Javier Vazquez and Kevin Brown have taken over the front of the rotation vacated by Andy Pettitte and Roger Clemens' exodus to Houston.
Although the Yankee teams of the Torre era have been defined by pitching, this team may set records with its offense. The offense last year was explosive, but it seemed to have lost its pop in the playoffs, especially in the World Series, where the Marlins pitchers silenced the Yankee bats.
So you went out and got Kenny Lofton to bat leadoff. Then you went out and got Atlanta's best hitter last year and one of the best right fielder's in baseball, Gary Sheffield .
Then came the Aaron Boone injury. Although Boone was horrible for your Yankees (save that little home run in game seven), New York was looking forward to him improving in a full season in the Bronx. But then Boone got hurt. So rumors flew of different third basemen manning the position for the Yankees and you even signed Tyler Houston and Mike Lamb to fill in for the meantime. But as all baseball fans knew, and as Yankee fans have learned to love from you, there was still someone out there that you had your eye on. I still laugh thinking about how naive we all were as to who that player would be.
But before we talk about "him" I think we should recollect the story of how he became available, since this story is surely one of my favorites.
See, there is this guy named Alex Rodriguez. And he happens to be the best player in baseball. And he happened to have signed the biggest contract in sports history in 2001, totaling $252 million. And Tom Hicks, who owns the team and negotiated the contract that signed Rodriguez, wanted to get out from under the great burden of this contract. So the scenario was set for a big trade to happen.
See, there were two teams: the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. The Red Sox realized that they had the second biggest contract in baseball in Manny Ramirez and a shortstop who was a year away from free agency in Nomar Garciaparra. Could a deal be struck with Texas?
Boston and Texas came to terms on a deal to exchange Ramirez for A-Rod. Boston even got A-Rod to restrcutre his contract and got kickback money from the Rangers. Everything was set. Ramirez and Nomar were as good as gone.
Then the player's union, one of the strongest unions anywhere, "shocked" the Red Sox by not allowing A-Rod to minimize the contract. It came down to spending another $14-$16 million and Boston management were unable to stomach cutting that check.
Instead, they have a leftfielder in Ramirez who wants to play for their archrivals and they have a shortstop in Nomar that they've alienated in his lame duck year before free agency. So things were going poorly for the Red Sox.
But George, you have never been squeamish about paying a couple of extra dollars. The negotiations safely and quiety went on behind closed doors and as a result Alex Rodriguez will be playing third base for the New York Yankees.
And what do the Red Sox do after the Yankees get A-Rod? They lash out against the system which allows the Yankees to get A-Rod. This is a system that the Red Sox had no problem with when they were going to get A-Rod. This is a system that they don't criticize when they have the second largest team salary in baseball.
So who will be laughing in October when the Yankees are in the World Series again? I will be and I'm sure you will be also. They say it's unfair, but they're just jealous. sore losers. Everyone outside of New York claims to hate the Yankees because of their spending and their dominance. But you have simply built a winner within the rules of the system.
Mr. Steinbrenner, you have the whole world of sports thinking one question: Why do they call it the World Series if it's always played in the Bronx?
Sincerely,
Andrew Katz