Daily Archives: April 2, 2007

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The 2007 season couldn’t have gotten off to a worse start for Alex Rodriguez. With Carl Crawford on third and two outs in the top of the first, Ty Wigginton hit a foul pop up to the left side. Battling a grey sky and some swirling winds, Rodriguez had to loop around Crawford and come nearly two thirds of the way toward home plate to catch the ball. Meanwhile, Jorge Posada and Carl Pavano stood in place despite the fact that Rodriguez, though in hot pursuit, was not calling for the ball (after the game, Joe Torre said it was the catcher’s ball to catch). Rodriguez, for all of the misconceptions about his performance, is indeed awful at catching pop ups. While broadcasting the west coast tilt between the Angels and Rangers on ESPN, Orel Hershiser, who was the Rangers’ pitching coach while Rodriguez was in Texas, said pop ups are kryptonite to Rodriguez’s Superman. At the last second, the ball swirled back behind Rodriguez, who at that point had clearly overrun it and could only make a pathetic backwards stab at it as it fell untouched on the opening day logo painted outside the third base foul line. Rodriguez’s momentum carried him past Posada, who gave him an encouraging pat on the backside, and Pavano retired Wigginton two pitches later on a comebacker, but Rodriguez was nonetheless charged with an error.

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The Arizona Diamonbacks and Milwaukee Brewers, two teams that had losing records in 2006, are considered contenders entering the 2007 season. There’s reason to believe that the Colorado Rockies, who finished 2006 with the exact same record as the Diamondbacks, could surprise some people as well. Over in the American League, the two teams that lost 100 or more games last year, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Kansas City Royals, are two of the teams that intrigue me most entering the 2007 season. Not because I think they’ll contend like that NL trio, none of which lost 90 games last year, not even because I think they’ll be particularly good, but because I think they’ll be better, and better for rather compelling reasons.

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By Will Weiss
Bronx Banter Correspondent

“Rupert Murdoch should cut me a check for all the papers I’ve helped him sell.”
— Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestley, in The Devil Wears Prada

Sure, the above quote can be applied to Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, or Brangelina. But since the lead-in to the only display of humanness Meryl Streep shows in the film refers to “another divorce splashed across Page Six,” let’s figure that someone named Steinbrenner was muttering something similar this past week.

The marriage of Steve Swindal and Jennifer (Steinbrenner) Swindal is over, and as a result, Swindal is out as a general partner of the Yankees. The ascent of the top son-in-law is no more. It has ceased to be. Let the race for the New Boss begin.

Just about every angle of this story was examined: reporters and columnists from all the local papers raised the question Swindal’s replacement. Every beat reporter I read rightly mentioned the effect of Swindal’s ouster on Brian Cashman and Joe Torre – it was Swindal who twice convinced Joe Torre to come back, and helped negotiate Cashman’s return and increased the GM’s decision-making power. In his solid Thursday report, Tyler Kepner of the New York Times intuited that Steinbrenner’s other son-in-law, Felix Lopez, could jump to the forefront. Daily News columnist Bill Madden carried this further in his Friday column, writing that Lopez has become more of a fixture on the operations side “to the dismay of the other three siblings.” The Times’ Richard Sandomir wondered which of Steinbrenner’s two sons, Hal or Hank, would take over should the Patriarch look in their direction. Sandomir’s colleague Harvey Araton called for a shift in philosophy and wondered why neither of Steinbrenner’s daughters would be considered to run the team instead of the sons. In addition, Swindal’s DUI arrest and questions of what would become of his shares of the team as a result of the divorce were smartly asked; and notes and quotes from Swindal’s other business associates at Excelsior Racing regarding his group’s bid to buy the thoroughbred franchise completed the coverage.

The Swindal situation provided fodder for the talkies, of course. To be expected, there was a hint of melodrama in their reactions and in their projections regarding the future of the Yankees’ front-office hierarchy. Overall, the mainstreamers did pretty well in keeping things on the level and not going overboard with the tabloid potential of the story.

Reading so many versions of the same story – particularly one like this – is fascinating. Not only is it fun to see the range of sources the writers interview from a competitive standpoint, from a straight writing perspective, it was amazing to see how many different ways the question, “Who will benefit from nepotism as it relates to the Yankees, and when will a decision be made,” was presented.

Per your requests from last week, I turn to the blogosphere for info and insight the mainstream didn’t provide. Derek Jacques, the esteemed proprietor of The Weblog That Derek Built, put it best:

“As someone who was until recently in the marital strife industry, I’m sensitive toward what Steve Swindal and Jennifer Steinbrenner must be going through. The end of a marriage is a real human tragedy, also something truly private and really not the business of anyone outside of the couple and perhaps their immediate family, friends, and business partners.

“But as a Yankee fan, I just gotta look at Swindal and say ‘You jerk! We were counting on you! You had it all in the palm of your hand and you blew it, just completely and totally blew it!'”

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