How the Yankees Explain New York by Chris Donnelly

Author:Chris Donnelly
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Triumph Books
Published: 2014-02-20T00:00:00+00:00

8. The 1990s

In the early 1990s, New York City and the Yankees were both at a crossroads. The city was a haven for drugs, crime, filth, and racial strife. The Yankees were suffering from bad personnel decisions, player discontent, and poor public relations. Both institutions needed substantial changes or they would be condemned to years, maybe decades of irrelevance. A series of events, however, was about to unfold, some through careful planning and some through dumb luck that would bring both the city and the Yankees back from the dead.

One of the most fortuitous moments in the history of the New York Yankees came in July of 1990 when George Steinbrenner was banned from having any involvement with the team. For years The Boss had been behind a series of disastrous moves and managerial firings that wreaked havoc on the club. Baseball’s most illustrious franchise had become a laughingstock. But Steinbrenner’s banishment was the blessing the team desperately needed. In his place Gene Michael took over as general manager and as architect of the team’s future. Some thought Michael would be a mere figurehead, a yes man who would do Steinbrenner’s bidding from behind-the-scenes. But Michael was a serious baseball man with a keen eye for talent.

A below average player known for his phobia of just about anything that moved, Michael had been a shortstop with the team and then manager twice. As manager he had had his share of run-ins with Steinbrenner. When the team struggled late in the ’81 season, Steinbrenner began pestering him with phone calls. It didn’t matter that because of the midseason strike the Yankees had already clinched a postseason spot. Steinbrenner actually thought that was causing the Yankees to take it too easy and that Michael couldn’t motivate them. One day, while the two were talking on the phone in Chicago, Michael had had enough. “I’m sick and tired of your threats, George,” Michael told him, according to Bill Madden’s book Steinbrenner. “I can’t take this anymore. If you want to fire me, then get your fat ass out here to Chicago and just do it!” That alone wasn’t enough to cost Michael his job, but when he later told the press about the conversation, that clinched it. Steinbrenner, using a tactic he would repeat in the years to come, let Michael hang by a thread for a while and then axed him. It gave Michael the distinction of having been fired after the Yankees had clinched a postseason berth.

In 1982 Michael was hired back to replace Bob Lemon just 14 games into the season. During the second game of a home doubleheader that summer, the Yankees were getting crushed 14–2 by the Chicago White Sox. Bob Sheppard announced that all fans in attendance would receive free tickets to a future game. Michael heard the announcement and figured he wouldn’t last much longer. (He was right; he was fired that night.) But when he wasn’t the manager, Michael was a trusted Steinbrenner confidant who was one of the few people who could tell off The Boss.

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