Say it ain't Joe

While four teams remain in the Major League Baseball playoffs — and with them a handful of intriguing storylines — the focus of the baseball world is unfortunately still focused on the team that hogs the headlines virtually every other day of the baseball year.

As the Detroit Tigers, Oakland Athletics, St. Louis Cardinals and N.Y. Mets continued on in a quest for the World Series, it was the New York Yankees who continued to fill newspapers, web sites and sports radio programs. Less was made of the Yankees meltdown in the American League Division Series against Detroit mostly because mere moments after being bounced by the Tigers all the focus in the baseball world was on George Steinbrenner, manager Joe Torre and the latter's reported impending firing. A New York Times report early Tuesday morning said Torre was staying on board.

To me, the Yankees are a complete joke. They are the over-compensating "cool guy" from high school who came from privilege, drove a Mustang, occasionally got the good-looking girls but in reality was the biggest putz you'd ever wanna meet. Devoid of personality, dumb as cotton and, for all intents and purposes, wholly unlikeable.

But what makes the Yankees a joke to me is the man running the show, Steinbrenner. With all the money in the world the Yankees couldn't get the prize much of the sports world had practically already granted them before the playoffs had started. Rightfully so, the Yankees were the odds-on favourites to win the World Series but falling short of that — specifically at the hands of a Tigers team that won just three games less than NYY in the regular season — is not some sort of cataclysmic disaster or abject failure.

However, Steinbrenner's delusions about his team, mistaken often for passion, leaves no scenario other than a championship every single year a possibility. And perhaps when you can afford to shell out $200 million in salaries every year, when your payroll is $56 million more than two of the remaining teams combined (Twins and Athletics) and your jerseys have pinstripes with an interlocking NY on them then you have the right to expect more. But as teams throughout sports prove year in and year out, the highest salary expenditures don't always translate into championships.

As Steinbrenner reprises his role from the 1980s as the evil owner who shuffles managers like hockey teams shifting on the fly, the routine has become more than a bit tired. Torre was said to be on the hot seat despite the fact the Yankee players — whose ineptitude in clutch situations is truly to blame for the early exit — are to a man in support of him. But Steinbrenner has never been particularly concerned with the needs, likes or interests of his players.

What's utterly irritating about The Boss' routine, year in and year out, is it comes with the same rhetoric, the same words only rearranged and the same blame placed everywhere but on himself. A self-effacing monologue every once and awhile would be appreciated as would a realization that there are times the one to accept some of the blame is the one staring back at you in the mirror.

Putting the blame on Torre is not only misplaced it's borderline idiotic when you consider how the series played out. Torre put the pieces on the board, he wasn't responsible for moving them around while they were out there. And when you field a roster like the Yankees did, the expectations of a championship are accompanied by the expectations that those assembled will do something resembling what their responsibilities are.

But Joe Torre didn't coach Alex Rodriguez into hitting .080 for the series. He didn't coach Jaret Wright into lasting only 2 2-3 innings in the biggest game of the season and he didn't coach Randy Johnson's sub-par, injury-hampered performance in Game 3 either.

Fox's Kevin Kennedy said the only mistake he felt Torre made was starting Wright in Game 4 instead of their ace Chien-Ming Wang, who was waiting in the wings for a shot at a deciding Game 5. With the season on the line, Kennedy argued, he didn't want to put the ball in Wright's hands. I disagree to the extent that you're a team — like the San Diego Padres who went to Woody Williams instead of Jake Peavy in their must-win Game 4 — needing to win two games and if you get Game 4, then Game 5 is the most important game of the season.

But Kennedy's point is valid. With the season on the line he said, I don't put the ball in Jaret Wright's hands. Therein lies the truth. For all the dollars and no sense, the Yankees season, ironically, came down to not having enough. You can spend $200 million dollars any way you want but when the guy you throw out there when you absolutely, positively need a win simply isn't good enough, it doesn't matter if you paid him $7 million or $7,000.

Steinbrenner could switch managers in the off-season and the Yankees won't even blink — they'll still be atop the AL East and they'll still be a favourite. Rip Taylor could coach this team to 90 wins for crying out loud.

Perhaps more accurately, Larry David as George Steinbrenner — with George Costanza as the assistant to the travelling secretary (cotton uniforms and all) — could still get this team to the playoffs.

With only slightly varying conclusions, the plot line will be the same every year until Steinbrenner no longer owns the New York Yankees, which is to say when George Steinbrenner dies. In the meantime, all those being subjected to watching his tired old routine have little in the way of choice.

The best bet is to laugh it off for the joke that it is.