And why Hank and Hal won’t either

It’s always entertaining when New York Magazine, the tabloid of the city’s vibrant magazine world, pushes itself into the sports scene. Their pieces are so full of broad generalizations, sweeping proclamations and incorrect facts as to obscure any larger point the magazine might be trying to make.

This week, with the Yanks’ season nearing an end and the team sitting uncomfortably in fourth place, Chris Smith examines the current state of Yankee ownership and wonders if the Yankees are fading without George Steinbrenner around to right the ship. “As the tyrant fades away and his team fades with him,” the magazine’s headline writers say, “it has now become all too apparent that the Boss was really the straw that stirred the drink.”

The only problem with this argument is that it’s just not true, and we’re once again stuck with a tired media trope that, if repeated often enough, becomes accepted fact.

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When in the Course of baseball events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the hyperlinked bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of The Game and of Baseball’s Gods entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold this truth to be self-evident, that all fans are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are truth, logic, and the pursuit of further knowledge.

That to secure these rights, publications are distributed among men and women, deriving their just powers from the consent of the readers, That whenever any publication becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new publications, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Knowledge and Sanity. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that publications long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that readers are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such publications, and to provide new Guards for their future enjoyment.

Such has been the patient sufferance of these readers; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former publications. The histories of the New York Post and Daily News are histories of repeated irrational thoughts and fallacies, all having in direct object the dumbing down of fanbases. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

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Let it be known that from this day forward, with the few exceptions to be noted, RAB will no longer acknowledge the bodies of work created by New York tabloids. We take this stand in the name of sanity for all Yankees fans, and further for all who enjoy the game of baseball.

Every day, these publications assail our better senses and bring us little in the way of opinion and insight. We are constantly bombarded with fabricated rumors, flimsy analysis, and half-baked opinions that do not pass muster to the educated fan.

So, in the interest of saving our readers time and anguish, we will forego even making mention of these publications. However, in the further interest of providing our readers with the most comprehensive view of the New York Yankees, we include the following exclusions:

1. Blog posts from Daily News beat writer Mark Feinsand, which contain factual statements which may be of interest to RAB readers.
2. Updates on the new stadium which happen to be exclusive to a tabloid publication.

As the nature of scoops has changed, so has our dependence on traditional outlets. What appears one place may appear in many within minutes. This gives us a greater body of source work on which to base our stories. So we can, from this point forward, simply ignore the works which we consider insulting to our and our readers’ intelligences.

Update: For clarity, this applies to the NY Post and the non-Feinsand portion of the Daily News. Pete Abraham does not write for a tabloid, and is under no fire here.

Isn’t amazing how Daily News writers go from moral outrage on the one hand to a different brand of outrage on the other all in the space of 800 words? Yesterday, Filip Bondy, writing about the Red Sox jersey fiasco at the new Yankee Stadium, did just that.

He starts:

The city of New York is investing hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructural costs and is too generously ceding precious parkland to the Yankees, just to ensure that the new Bronx stadium will become a showcase profit maker for the extended corporate Steinbrenner family.

In return, the city probably should not be asking too much that the Yankees demonstrate a modicum of common sense befitting such fortunate business partners, when it comes to this expensive co-enterprise.

But on Sunday, we witnessed an inane spectacle that should wholly frighten any taxpayer or serious baseball fan. At the cost of about $30,000 and the wasted sweat of 5-1/2 hours’ toil, the Yankees directed construction workers at the site to drill for a tattered David Ortiz baseball jersey a Red Sox fan/construction worker had buried beneath considerable cement.

Got that outrage? The city is investing way too much money in the stadium, and the Yankees should show some common sense. That $30,000 of their own money they spent to dig up the jersey, that’s not common sense in Bondy’s word.

So what if the Yankees try to recapture those lost funds. Well, Filip Bondy, the construction expert and lawyer, thinks that deserves its own outrage:

Yankee officials are turning what might have been a dumb lark into something much darker. They are threatening to throw legal fees into the growing pot, by suing Gino Castignoli for his jersey burial.

“There are criminal issues and maybe civil,” said the ultra-serious Lonn Trost, chief operating officer for the club.

The Yankees will lose this case, I can promise you. No judge or jury, even in the Bronx, will find that a buried jersey, out of sight and structurally harmless, demands punitive damages. Castignoli did nothing that demanded $30,000 worth of repairs. If the Yanks pursue this civil case against the worker, then they will only look nastier, forfeit more money and (hard to believe) make greater fools of themselves.

I would believe that the Yanks could easily win this case. In what contract does it allow for workers to bury clothing in the Yankee Stadium foundation? In which employment agreement are construction workers allowed to act like total goof-offs? I’m not really going out on a limb when I say none.

While Bondy thinks the Yanks wasted their time and money, Buster Olney, among others, hit the nail upon the head this morning. The Yanks had to remove the jersey once they found out about it because otherwise, for as long as they played in the new stadium, the team struggles would be blamed on a Red Sox jersey buried in the stadium. As dumb as that sounds, it would just be another in a long line of absurd baseball superstitions. The jersey’s gone; the guy deserves to be sued; and we can all share in that special brand of outrage.

As we all know, Fox dropped the ball on Saturday night. With the Yankees-Red Sox game rapidly nearing a conclusion, Fox bounced baseball to FX, its cable entertainment network, so that a NASCAR race could start.

The transition was far from seamless, and fans were none too thrilled with the News Corp. network. From the AP:

The teams didn’t begin playing again until 8:30 after a delay of more than two hours. Announcer Joe Buck repeated several times that the game was being simulcast on cable channel FX and Fox would have to switch to the race at 8:53.

It appeared the network might be able to show both events in their entirety, but with two outs and two strikes in the top of the ninth, the Yankees’ Robinson Cano fouled off several pitches. At 8:55, Fox switched to the race in the middle of Cano’s at-bat.

The final two pitches of the 4-3 Red Sox win were shown only on FX, which is available in about three-quarters of the nation’s homes with televisions.

Bell said Fox hoped to show all of Cano’s at-bat instead of switching to the race earlier so the change would occur between hitters. “It wasn’t the smoothest transition, but our intentions were to try to finish on the network,” Bell said.

For Fox, this move was a simple business decision. NASCAR races receives ratings well above those for mid-afternoon baseball games. But that doesn’t excuse the fact that the network cut away from a one-run game with one out remaining. Fox apologized, but it rings a little false.