Posts tagged HankSteinbrenner at FanHouse

Were you under the impression that Hank Steinbrenner wasn't calling the shots for the New York Yankees right now? Maybe you were thinking that Brian Cashman and Hank's brother Hal were the ones who made the decisions, and Hank was just the one who said stupid things in the media.

Well I've got some news for you. You're a know-nothing piece of crap and Hank Steinbrenner doesn't have the time to waste on your insignificant existence! He's in charge, damn it!

Sitting behind his desk at George M. Steinbrenner Field, Hank Steinbrenner yesterday spit on the notion he has taken a step back in running the Yankees

"There is one very important point here," Steinbrenner told The Post during an exclusive half-hour session. "The most important thing to remember is this: If you didn't get it from me or my brother [Hal], it doesn't mean [anything]. I don't care about some piss-ant employee. If you don't get it from me or Hal, it's meaningless. I have a lot of things [in Tampa] and Hal is in New York, which is good."

You hear that you little piss-ants!? Yeah, he's talking to you, Cashman. Hank is in charge round these parts, and he doesn't want to hear anyone say otherwise!

Also, in a delicious bit of irony, Hank goes on in his interview with the New York Post to say that he's going to shy away from the media this year. He says this after he holds an interview to reiterate that he's in charge, and then tells everybody what the team plans on doing this season and that he still feels the team should have gone after Johan Santana last winter.

Way to keep your mouth shut, Hank. That lasted a whole three, maybe even four seconds.

You know what I'm enjoying? A Yankees-free postseason. The last time that happened I was fourteen years old. You know who was good back then? Freaking Paul Molitor. God forsaken Mark Langston was good back then. We had to churn our butter by hand. I feel like I'm living in Tomorrowland, now. Like the people mover is going to slowly roll me toward a happier America where Tampa has a sports team and Manny Ramirez is more than a Rated Rookie.

Oh well, no matter what the future holds, at least we'll have that fat-headed gentleman to the right, am I right guys? Guys?

Tonight's Dugout (OF TOMORROW!) is after the jump.

After weighing his options, Brian Cashman decided to return to the Yankees, agreeing to a three-year extension on Tuesday. From the New York Times:

"I know I've said it before, but it's an incredible opportunity and honor to hold the title of general manager for the New York Yankees," Cashman said in a statement. "With it comes a great responsibility to ownership, the people who wear the uniform and our fan base. I've got a job to finish here. That's the bottom line.

"I consider coming off a season where we didn't reach the playoffs for the first time since 1993 as a personal challenge. I've never been one to run from a challenge, and I look forward to having the chance to go after this thing again."

I can't say I'm terribly surprised. The Yankees are the only team Cashman has ever been with, and leaving now, on the eve of opening the new stadium, would have been a difficult decision. Plus, it's not like the Yankees aren't making it worth his while -- Newsday reports that his new contract is "in the vicinity of three years and $6 million."

Now that baseball season is almost over, it's time to completely forget about baseball and focus on awards season! My original idea for tonight's Dugout was the AL Cy Young Award 2008 Chatroom, but that ended up being Cliff Lee bouncing a rubber ball against a wall for 35 panels, so here is that Dugout's hotly-contested National League equivalent. On second thought, they should just give that to Cliff Lee too.

Tonight's Dugout, with all the speculation and obsessive statistical analysis you come to the Internet for, is after the jump.

Yankees GM Brian Cashman's future has been a topic of discussion all year, but now that the Yankees have officially been eliminated, Hank and Hal Steinbrenner want to know his intentions now. Technically, Cashman's current deal doesn't expire until the end of the October, but Sports Illustrated's Jon Heyman said the Steinbrenner Bros. want to know Cashman's intentions by next week.

Most baseball people believe that for a variety of reasons, including an excellent working relationship with Hank Steinbrenner's younger, quieter brother Hal, Cashman will choose to return to the job he's held for 11 years. Cashman is expected to give both Steinbrenners his answer as early as next Monday or Tuesday. Negotiations on his new deal would begin the moment Cashman provides the go-ahead and are not expected to take long.

The Steinbrenner Bros. have made it clear that they'd love to bring Cashman back, and simply because of the market you'd have to imagine they'd be willing to make him the highest-paid GM in the game. Even so, Heyman suggests that Cashman might be intrigued by potential front-office openings in Seattle, Philadelphia and maybe even Washington. (Really? He'd jump from the spend-happy Yankees to the thrifty Nationals? Talk about a culture shock.)

No other team can offer the resources for Cashman to do his job like the Yankees can, but in turn he must deal with extremely high expectations. My hunch is that Cashman stays, but only with assurances that Hal will keep Hank in check and allow Cashman to do his job without meddling from the top. Whether that's a concession Hank would actually agree to remains to be seen.

Hank Steinbrenner is jumping bad. As Fornelli reported earlier, the Yankees' co-owner is upset about a number of things. In a magnificent transcendence of introspection, clarity, and common sense, Steinbrenner terms the AL East as unfair, laments the socialist nature of revenue sharing, and shrieks foul of the NL West and the 2006 St. Louis Cardinals.

I love obtuse, obscenely rich folks as much as the next guy, but they sure don't make it easy!

Today's Dugout is after the jump.

After leaving the Tampa Bay Rays in 2005, Lou Piniella took a year off from managing baseball and spent his time occasionally working games from the broadcast booth for Fox. It was Lou's first year off of managing since 1989, and from what he said about the job at the time, he enjoyed his time away from the dugout.

Of course, in 2007 Lou got the itch to manage again when the Cubs came calling, and now he's led them to their second straight division title, and even has some people thinking that the Cubs might win the World Series this year. Of course, at the age of 65, you have to wonder how much longer Lou plans on sticking around. It seems he's even wondering himself.

Cubs manager Lou Piniella is only one victory shy of his 1,700th career triumph as manager, but he seems to be weary of the long grind that accompanies the season.

"It has been a tough year," Piniella told the New York Daily News. "And sometimes it can really take a toll on you. I don't know how much longer I want to do this."

If the Cubs do go on to win the World Series, I would fully expect Piniella to retire and walk off into the sunset as a Chicago god. They'll erect statues of him throughout the city, and odds are August 28th (Lou's birthday) will be celebrated as if it were Christmas within the city limits.

If history repeats itself, and the Cubs don't win it all, then the picture gets a bit murkier. Lou is under contract through 2009 with an option for the 2010 season, so he'd probably return for next season, but nobody can be sure. Hank Steinbrenner has already made it clear he'd like to hire Lou for a consulting job with the Yankees the second he retires from managing.

Now that the Yankees have officially been eliminated from the playoffs, it's time for the organization to move on and start figuring out ways to get themselves back in the postseason in 2009. For Hank Steinbrenner, this means it's time to start making excuses for the 2008 season.

Hank has occasionally written columns for The Sporting News this year, and in his latest effort, he blames the Yankees problems on their geographic location.

"The biggest problem is the divisional setup in Major League Baseball," Steinbrenner wrote. "I didn't like it in the 1970s, and I hate it now. Baseball went to a multi-division setup to create more races, rivalries and excitement. But it isn't fair.

"You see it this season, with plenty of people in the media pointing out that Joe Torre and the Dodgers are going to the playoffs while we're not. This is by no means a knock on Torre -- let me make that clear -- but look at the division they're in. If L.A. were in the AL East, it wouldn't be in the playoff discussion. The AL East is never weak."

See what he did there? Not only did he make an excuse for the Yankees missing the playoffs, but he also gave himself an excuse for when people start asking questions about Joe Torre leading the Dodgers to the playoffs while the Yankees missed the postseason after deciding they didn't want him anymore. In his next column, Hank will write about how the Yankees didn't make the playoffs because they have to wake up earlier than teams on the west coast, so they're more tired at the end of the season.

If the season ended today, the Yankees would finish fourth in the AL East. Not surprisingly, Hank Steinbrenner isn't happy. What's his solution? Trampling all over his general manager's turf. From the Bergen Record:

"Suffice to say, there's not going to be any more, on my part, of trying to keep everybody happy. If I want somebody, I'm going to go after him," Steinbrenner told The Record by phone [Thursday] afternoon.

Not content merely promising to second-guess his general manager in the future, he also threw Brian Cashman under the bus for the team's current failures. From the New York Post:

"We're going to have to look at what has been done wrong over the last five years, which I've had one year to try and figure out," Steinbrenner said. "Clearly, a lot of mistakes were made. I'm going to be reviewing the entire organization. We're going to do everything we can to win next year."

Cashman's contract expires at the end of the season, and as recent as last week, reports citing unnamed "MLB sources" indicated that the Steinbrenners wanted him back. Were those reports premature? Because if that's really the case, Hank has a lot to learn about the art of persuasion. I'd be surprised to see Cashman walk away months before the debut of the new stadium, but I'd understand if he's at least tempted to look around before signing away his sanity to work for such an impulsive, overbearing boss.

When the Yankees are officially eliminated from the playoffs in a few weeks, there's going to be a lot of blame going around. Fans will blame Alex Rodriguez for never coming through in the clutch, Brian Cashman for never making the deal for Johan Santana, and Hank Steinbrenner for forcing Joe Girardi to move Joba Chamberlain to the starting rotation.

They'll also be blaming the Rays and Red Sox for having superior teams. Still, there's one person who probably deserves more credit for the Yankees demise than anybody else, it's just that most Yankees fans probably don't even realize it. That man is President of the United States, George Bush.

Are Yankees fans also Barack Obama supporters? The Yankees have won eight world championships during Democratic administrations in the past 50 years but haven't won a title with a Republican in office since Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1958. Since then, the Yankees have won titles during the terms of John F. Kennedy (1961-62), Jimmy Carter (1977-78) and Bill Clinton (1996, 1998-2000).

The Rocky Mountain News' Tracy Ringolsby also digs a little further and notices that the Red Sox haven't won a World Series with a Democrat in office since Woodrow Wilson in 1918. So it looks like Yankees fans will have a lot easier time figuring out who to vote for this November than I am.