Hardball Hyperbole: Chapter 2

In today’s edition, still feeling the sting of having their streak of four consecutive AL pennants snapped by the Angels in 2002, the Yankees started their roster construction for 2003 by out-bidding the Red Sox for Cuban defector Jose Contreras, leading Boston president Larry Lucchino to call Steinbrenner’s Yankees the “Evil Empire.”

On Christmas morning 2002, probably after the presents had been opened and the holiday breakfast had been consumed, countless Red Sox fans made their way down their driveways to retrieve their copy of the Boston Globe or the Boston Herald because hey, in 2002, you didn’t get your news from your iPhone, you got it in your newspaper.

And when they flipped to the respective sports sections of the city’s competing dailies, they were greeted with the jarring news that Cuban defector Jose Contreras, a right-handed pitcher who was coveted by the Red Sox and was, at least reportedly, close to signing with Boston, would not be doing so.

Very likely, the joy of Christmas morning in many, many New England households was interrupted by something along the lines of, “Those Gawd Damn Yankees!!!”

Those gawd damn Yankees indeed. Once again, the Red Sox forever tormentors had gotten over on them by cutting the line on the recruitment of Contreras - which included other teams such as the Dodgers - and landed him with a four-year contract worth $32 million.

This led to one of the great quotes of all-time, spewed by Red Sox president Larry Lucchino. “The evil empire extends its tentacles even into Latin America.” Newspaper gold is what that was, and that comment has remained a touchstone for Red Sox Nation ever since.

Even though there have been years in the past two decades where the Red Sox actually had a higher payroll than the Yankees, not to mention the fact that Boston has won four World Series, more than any other team, while New York has just one, any Red Sox fan worth his salt still says that the Yankees are, and always will be, the Evil Empire.

If that’s what Red Sox fans need to believe, that’s fine. However, there was nothing really “evil” about what the Yankees were doing at that time in baseball. Yes, they always had the highest revenue and most resources available to help them compile a star-studded team which typically resulted in the largest payroll in baseball.

But here’s what often gets overlooked: Just because you have the most money to spend, if ownership is more interested in pocketing the profits rather than pouring them back into the team, what good does it do the franchise? George Steinbrenner was already rich beyond rich. He didn’t need the money his Yankees made. What he needed - no, what he demanded - was championships and so he spent more money than anyone else in pursuit of that goal. That’s not evil, that’s just good, albeit cutthroat business.

Winning was always Steinbrenner’s priority, whatever the cost, so when the Yankees’ streak of four consecutive American League pennants ended in 2002 with a divisional round playoff loss to the eventual World Series champion Anaheim Angels, Steinbrenner was pissed.

It didn’t matter to the Boss that the Yankees won 103 games in the regular season and had the best record in Major League Baseball, or that they won their fifth straight AL East crown, lapping the Red Sox by 10.5 games. Losing to the Angels? In the divisional round? Unacceptable, Steinbrenner decreed. He told his people - general manager Brian Cashman and everyone below him on the org chart - to “fix the problem” and he did so with a blank check.

“Mr. Steinbrenner loves to win and loves to motivate, and it had been a long time since the Yankees were out in the first round,” said first baseman Jason Giambi, who’s Oakland A’s had been the Yankees’ first-round victim in both 2000 and 2001, leading him to conclude that if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, so he signed a massive $120 million contract with New York before 2002.

“They don’t rebuild around here, they reload. They go out and get who they want. The Angels are a great model and so are the A’s, but it’s a different and more demanding atmosphere here. The Yankees can’t afford those down years, playing in New York. They can’t afford all those years when the Angels weren’t as good as they are now, and they can’t afford to lose 98 games like we did with the A’s for a couple years before winning the division.”

Giambi had only been with the team one year, but he completely understood the mindset of the owner. He knew Steinbrenner - who had been less voluble and intrusive in recent years because of all the success the team enjoyed - would be turning up the heat in 2003, and the bombastic 72-year-old didn’t even wait until the start of spring training.

His first target was manager Joe Torre’s coaching staff. “I want them to have a little more pressure,” Steinbrenner told the New York Daily News. “Everybody is going to work harder than they’ve worked before. I want the coaches to know that just being a friend of Joe Torre’s is not enough. They have got to produce for him. Joe Torre and his staff have heard the bugle.”

He then questioned Derek Jeter’s commitment to the team and wondered whether Jeter - who by now was a matinee idol who had become well-versed in the night life of New York City - should tone it down, even though he had never gotten himself into trouble or embarrassed the franchise in any way. It was the first hint of controversy Jeter had encountered as a Yankee which prompted him to quip, “My eighth year. Not bad.”

Not that Jeter was laughing about it, though. “I went out to the Super Bowl and I got people on the street asking me the same thing: ‘What’s the deal with the Boss and the Boss’ comments?’” Jeter said when he spoke to reporters at the start of spring training. “This story is not just New York. This story has developed into a national story. Now everywhere I go, people will ask you, ‘Are you partying too much?’ That’s the number one question that I get. But in my mind, it’s over.”

And as if Steinbrenner being on the warpath wasn’t enough, there was the hullabaloo over the autobiography David Wells had published in the offseason entitled Perfect I’m Not: Boomer on Beer, Brawls, Backaches and Baseball.

In it he claimed that between 25 to 40 percent of major leaguers were doing steroids (which, as we would come to find out, was probably true). He also made some unflattering comments about teammates Roger Clemens and Mike Mussina, and he admitted that he was “half-drunk, with bloodshot eyes, monster breath and a raging, skull-rattling hangover” when he pitched his perfect game against the Twins in 1998.

Meanwhile, with all that going on, no one had more pressure than Cashman, tasked as he was to “fix” a team that had averaged 97 victories per season since 1996 when the Yankees latest dynasty began to take shape, one that had yielded five AL pennants and four world championships in seven years.

The first order of business was to win the sweepstakes for free agent Japanese superstar outfielder Hideki Matsui who was being allowed to leave the Yomiuri Giants where he had played since he was 19 and had hit 332 home runs in his 10 professional seasons.

The Yankees did that with a three-year, $21 million contract, unfazed by the terrible investment they had made in 1997 on another Japanese star, pitcher Hideki Irabu, who had failed rather miserably across three seasons in the Bronx. Clearly, the Evil Empire’s tentacles also extended to Asia.

With Matsui in place as the full-time left fielder replacing the duo of Shane Spencer and Rondell White, and third baseman Robin Ventura re-signed to a one-year free agent deal, there really wasn’t much else to do with the lineup. On the pitching side, though, Cashman really had to buckle down, especially in light of what had happened against the Angels when the Yankees staff gave up 31 earned runs for an 8.21 ERA in the four-game playoff series loss.

New York had pitched well enough in 2002 ranking eighth in MLB in team ERA at 3.87, and that was with not-so-great years from Mussina and Clemens, and closer Mariano Rivera going on the injured list three separate times. But against the Angels things unraveled. Clemens wasn’t sharp in Game 1 and the Yankees were down 5-4 in the bottom of the eighth before they erupted for four runs capped by Bernie Williams’ dramatic game-winning three-run homer.

The next night at Yankee Stadium Andy Pettitte gave up four runs in three innings and then Orlando Hernandez - who had been so clutch in the postseason - came on in relief and blew a 5-4 eighth-inning lead by giving up back-to-back tying and go-ahead homers to Garrett Anderson and Troy Glaus and the Angels pulled even with an 8-5 victory.

The action switched coasts and in Anaheim, it was just a flat out shit show. Mussina was rocked in Game 3 yet the Yankees still led 6-5 after four innings. However, the offense went silent thereafter while Jeff Weaver, Mike Stanton and Steve Karsay coughed up the lead in what became a 9-6 loss. And then in Game 4, Wells was awful as he gave up eight runs in the fifth inning and the Yankees season ended with a 9-5 loss.

Heading into 2003, Mussina, Wells and Weaver were locked into three rotation spots, and eventually they were joined by Clemens and Pettitte. Despite a rough season when he posted the second-worst ERA of his career at 4.35, Clemens was re-signed to a one-year free agent contract worth $10.1 million. And while Cashman shopped Pettitte in the offseason, there wasn’t a deal that he was happy with so the Yankees exercised a one-year team option to keep him.

On the surface, signing Contreras wasn’t really something the Yankees had to do, but as much as anything, they did it to make sure he didn’t go to Boston. Not a great reason, but that’s how the rivalry sometimes dictated decisions. Of course, there was also the fact that Clemens and Wells would both be 40 years old in 2003, so if nothing else Contreras gave the Yankees some rotation insurance which was necessary because Cashman was moving on from Hernandez.

El Duque had been such a tremendous addition in 1998, going 53-38 with a 4.04 ERA in 121 regular-season starts before saving his best for the postseason when he went 9-3 with a 2.55 ERA in 12 games. But he would be 37 years old and had battled nagging injuries that limited him to 41 appearances over the previous two years, so Cashman sent him to the White Sox in a deal that brought back reliever Antonio Osuna. Contreras wasn’t exactly a kid, but 31 was younger than 37 so it just made sense to make the switch.

Getting Osuna was part of the transformation of the bullpen. Gone were longtime stalwarts Stanton and Ramiro Mendoza who were proven winners and key members of multiple World Series winners, three for Stanton, four for Mendoza. In their place would be the threesome of Osuna, Chris Hammond, and Juan Acevedo.

“We’re stronger on the pitching side,” Cashman insisted on the eve of Opening Day. “We have a lot more choices and depth. Our pitching has a chance to be better.”

Of course he would say that since he was the one responsible for constructing the roster. But the fact was, not many others believed the Yankees pitching, with age in the rotation and transition in the bullpen, would be better.

“This year, more than any other year, we have a nucleus of three or four guys who have been together a long time, and the rest is like, less than two years,” said Williams, the longest-tenured Yankee who would be heading into this 13th season in the organization. “In that way, we are going through a sort of transitional period as far as team chemistry goes. But I think our nucleus is strong enough that we can dictate the rules to the rest of the clubhouse and lead by example.”

Said Jeter: “It’s a different group. The feel is the same because you’ve still got Mr. Torre managing. But still, this group here hasn’t accomplished anything. So until you do, you continue to work on it.”

NEXT WEDNESDAY: For more than five years, David Ortiz had underachieved as a member of the Minnesota Twins. But then he signed with the Red Sox prior to the 2003 season, and everything began to turn for him and a cursed franchise. The big slugger, who seemed to make it his mission to kill the Yankees, became Big Papi and he went on to forge a Hall of Fame career.