Start spreading the news

At the New York Yankees’ stadium in the Bronx, tradition has it that at the end of every game the old Sinatra standby “New York, New York” is played over the public address: Frank’s version if they win, Liza Minelli’s if they lose. Well, start spreading the news: this year Yankees fans have been hearing rather more Liza than they’re accustomed to. Evidence is mounting that – incredible to relate – the Yankees suck.

The Yankees are the dominating giants of baseball, winners of a record 26 World Series including four in the last nine years. But almost halfway through the current season, the team lies a mediocre third in its division, five games (as of Thursday) behind surprise leaders the Baltimore Orioles, with dwindling prospects even of making the end-of-season play-offs. For the Yankees, this is not merely to suck, but to be a hopeless failure – and an embarrassment to their success-engorged fans.

The embarrassment is compounded by the fact that the team is made up of some of the game’s biggest stars earning some of the highest salaries in sport. At the end of the 2001 season, when the Yankees narrowly failed to secure a fourth consecutive World Series, George Steinbrenner, the club’s owner, began a spectacular shopping spree, acquiring, among others, superstar slugger Jason Giambi; outfielderHideki Matsui, Japan’s most renowned player; Alex Rodriguez, the Rolls-Royce of shortstops; and the universally dreaded left-handed pitcher Randy Johnson. The headline in the satirical newspaper The Onion, “Yankees ensure 2003 pennant by signing every player in baseball”, seemed to catch the spirit of it.

Yet this season the Yankees, despite astratospheric $200m payroll, have contrived to lose all four games of a series seven of their ten games against the $30m Tampa Bay Devil Rays and were beaten 3-0 by the $37m Kansas City Royals, one of the weakest teams in the majors.

These debacles were followed by an error-strewn loss to the St Louis Cardinals, after which the manager, Joe Torre, for the first time anyone could remember, publicly castigated his team for lack of effort. With what has become characteristic inconsistency, a stirring comeback victory against Tampa Bay last week was followed by two lacklustre defeats.

The first growls of discontent have emanated from the famously impatient Steinbrenner, who demands to know why his expensive assembled team of veterans are playing like Little Leaguers.

“The Yankees have a high payroll with public superstars. But that buys a lot of other things: ageing players, inflexible budgets and sky-high expectations. It can become a toxic mix,” says Peter Handrinos of the online magazine UnitedStatesOfBaseball.com.

Most commentators agree the team is seeing the effects of a “success now” policy of acquiring proven but ageing superstars, either by paying heavily for free agents or by trading away its own young prospects. “When you sign 30-plus-year-olds, you stand a good chance that they’ve done all the things they’re going to do,” says Steve Goldman, author of Forging Genius, a biography of the former Yankees manager Casey Stengel.

Signed this year, not at 30-plus but 40-plus, Randy Johnson has been something less than the relentless destroyer of batters the Yankees thought they had paid for. He is earning $17m a year, with two more seasons on his contract. Another veteran pitcher, the 40-year-old Kevin Brown, has spent two seasons, at $15m a year, either injured or giving up runs in torrents.

Two younger free-agent pitchers signed to big contracts this year, Carl Pavano and Jaret Wright, have been, respectively, ineffective and on the disabled list.

The biggest white elephant, however, , however, is Jason Giambi. In the past two years the former batting champion has suffered physical breakdown and become the focus of baseball’s drugs scandal, having reportedly confessed to taking steroids. Now rarely able to hit the ball out of the infield, Giambi is in the middle of
a $115m contract lasting until 2008.

To Goldman, the acquisition of Johnson typified a tendency to ignore more fundamental problems, such as the decline of long-time Yankees centre-fielder Bernie Williams. Last year, the 28-year-old Carlos Beltran of the Houston Astros, considered the game’s most talented outfielder, became available. Yet Steinbrenner, showing that even his purse is not limitless, called off the pursuit after buying Johnson. “This could go down as the year they didn’t sign Beltran,” says Goldman.

In May, the Yankees overcame their traditional distrust of young players within their own system and brought up pitcher Chien-Ming Wang and second baseman Robinson Cano, who have both performed promisingly. But there may not be much more to be had from that source since, as Goldman notes, the Yankees have been negligent in building up their stock of young players. “Their hands have been tied by an egregious series of drafts. They seem to consistently miss the good guys,” he says.

And the fear remains that, if the team fails to climb in the standings, Steinbrenner will revert to type and use Wang and Cano as bait to hire a big name to save the season – 42-year-old former Yankees pitcher Roger Clemens being an obvious candidate. “If they get antsy enough, you never know what they might do,” says Goldman. “But like alcoholics, the first step is admitting you have a problem.”