A Letter to Yankee Owner George Steinbrenner

Dear George:

Well, I’m sitting here on October 10, 2005, watching your Yankees choke in another postseason contest. They trail the Angels 5-2 in the sixth, and there’s no hope for the boys now because the Angels bullpen is tougher than a foot thick cement wall. Your guys had their chance in the top of the fifth, but took a powder with two on and nobody out. What is the team hitting with runners in scoring position? .220? .190? I don’t know and looking the stat up now would be a waste of energy.

It’s the same tired story with the Yanks – a dearth of clutch hitting from some of the highest paid players in the game. This garbage happened in 2003 when the Marlins took the Yanks down in six games, and it happened last year in games four through seven of the ALCS. Remember that, George? Of course you do because it was the most complete collapse in MLB history, a smudge on the ledger of the greatest franchise in professional sports.

And while we’re speaking of Yankee futility, let’s not forget that in the 2001 World Series the Yanks scored a total of fourteen runs. In seven games.

But I could live with that defeat because Clemens pitched a strong seventh game and Mariano Rivera had the ball in the ninth with the lead. You can’t whine when you lose with your best guy.

That was the last high water mark. Ever since 2001 the boys have stumbled around like blind badgers on a frozen lake. A-Rod is hitting a dazzling .143 this series. Mike Mussina lasted a whopping 2 2/3 innings after his much ballyhooed West Coast stay. Face it, George, Mussina is a pampered wimp, an embarrassment to professional athletes everywhere. My four-year-old daughter has more guts.

And as if more proof was required, how about Hideki Matsui, who through seven innings has stranded six base runners. The Yanks have had chance after chance after chance to score runs and put the Angels away, but can they manage a squib single, a bloop double, or even a lazy pop-up that drops between fielders when it really counts?

Hell no. Do you ever sit back in your luxury box and think that a lot of these boys are vastly overpaid? Like by $8-10 million a year? Jesus, it must just get your goat to pay all that cash for such dismal results. Maybe you should ask A-Rod and Matsui and Bernie Williams for a sub-par performance refund.

If nothing else, at least Randy Johnson pitched some strong innings tonight, partially redeeming his horrible outing in Game 3

K-Rod is about to punch out Ruben Sierra…no, ol’ Ruben actually tapped out to short. Inning over, Yanks on the sad end of a 5-3 score. They’re toast, George, blackened, inedible, wasted. This must be killing you. Watching the boys lose these big games is excruciating. So many Yankee fans nearly passed out last year watching the Red Sox roll to four straight victories.

Damn. The nimrod announcers on Fox, Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, just asked this rhetorical question: Who in our listening audience didn’t give the Yankees a huge advantage when Bartolo Colon had to exit the game in the second inning? Ah, I didn’t. I know better. For the past four or five seasons the Angels have had New York’s number, beating the Bombers like a gong at home and in the Bronx. In fact, before this series began I predicted that the Angels would prevail in five.

I hate being right all the time, but it didn’t take a baseball genius to figure the outcome. The Angels have more ways to beat the Yankees than the Yankees have to beat the Angels. Take note, George, it’s not just about big money and home runs – it’s about speed, defense, and timely hitting; it’s about moving runners into scoring position by laying down a bunt or hitting behind a runner; it's about moving from first to third on a single.

For the record: Matsui stranded eight base runners tonight. A-Rod killed a potential ninth inning rally by hitting into a double play. A-Rod had a marvelous regular season, but when it comes to these pivotal do or die contests, he never comes through. In this series, A-Rod, Sheffield and Matsui were a combined 13 for 57, a .228 average. Three RBI’s between them.

Game, series and season over. Start rebuilding, George.