George burns

King Steinbrenner will stop at nothing to get his crown back

Even if you don't live near one of the Steinbrenner strongholds of the Bronx, N.Y., or Tampa, Fla., you've undoubtedly caught wind of King George's latest gyrations. "This has developed into a national story," said Derek Jeter last week of the Boss' assertions that his star shortstop was spending too much time on non-baseball activities. "People were asking me about this at the Super Bowl."

Steinbrenner had gone after Jeter in December, saying his team's de-facto captain "wasn't totally focused last year." A season during which the overloaded Yankees ran away with the American League East but were out-classed by the Angels in the playoffs was in the mind of General Steingruber a real disappointment, and a clear indication that Jeter was letting him down. Never mind that Jeter batted a team-high .500 against the Angels; King George typically goes after his richest players. And the king -- due to no one's madness but his own -- is paying Jeter a ploughman's take less than $19 million a year.

A new baseball season is upon us and Steinbrenner is now two years and four months removed from his last World Series title. He is a rich man who feels entitled, so his querulous cries have become part of the chirps and trills of spring. He is a man of delusions who believes that Reggie Jackson's three home runs, on three pitches, in Game 6 of the 1977 World Series against the Dodgers were all his own doing. He believed that he personally helped Graig Nettles snag those would-be doubles off the foul line in the '81 Series. That he inspired Mattingly to play like Gehrig in the mid-'80s. That he is the reason Jim Leyritz drove a Mark Wohlers pitch over the wall in '96 to get this modern Yankees dynasty under way.

But the crushing that Yankees pitchers endured at the hands of the Angels in the first round of last year's playoffs? Or Mariano Rivera's final-inning failure in 2001? Those were someone else's doing entirely. Those were evidence of people letting General Steingruber down.

Steinbrenner's belief that he has played a huge role in the Yankees success has merit. The Yankees have never been far from greatness because they've always been among the sport's "haves," and for the past 30 years the guy footing the bill has been Steinbrenner. Sure, the Yanks win because they spend wisely (and not all wealthy teams do) but the bottom line is that they win because they spend, spend, spend. It was true when they bought Babe Ruth from the Red Sox. It was true when Steinbrenner signed Jackson in the early years of free agency, and it is true now. Steinbrenner's Yanks are so pitching-rich that some multi-millionaire starter will be relegated to middle relief. He imported the costliest players from Japan (Hideki Matsui, $21 million) and from Cuba (Jose Contreras, $32 million). The Yankees' biggest spring training concern is what to do with overpaid and under-performing outfielder Raul Mondesi.

When you're spending that kind of scratch and your name is Steinbrenner, you want your oompa-loompa, and you want it now. His Jeter comments -- inspired, Steinbrenner says, by some news he read in the gossip pages -- came during an offseason in which The Boss also chastised Joe Torre's coaching staff, had a tiff with vice president Mark Newman that led Newman to step down, and, most recently, banished Jason Giambi's personal trainer from the clubhouse. I suppose this is what King George meant when, not long after the Yankees were stripped clean by the Angels last October, he cited a Scottish proverb and vowed: "I am wounded but I am not slain ... I shall rise and fight again."

In the aftermath of the Steinbrenner-Jeter flap the Yankees players gathered around Jeter in solidarity. Jackson and David Wells stood up for their teammate. Jorge Posada said, "He is our captain, Derek Jeter." Longtime Yankee Willie Randolph called Jeter one of the most focused young players in the game. And Torre, who by regularly winning the World Series and then weeping about it, has thus far escaped the Steinbrenner treatment inflicted upon previous Yankees managers managers such as Dick Howser, Yogi Berra, and Buck Showalter, allowed that the Yankees are "used to mayhem." In the end everyone at Yankees camp, and everywhere else the latest Steinbrennerisms resonated, agreed that George was just being George.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Kostya Kennedy takes sides each week at CNNSI.com.

 

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