Requiem for my Yankees

Cashman’s name should have been a giveaway.

George, the Boss, was idiosyncratic and in baseball terms, a player. I always felt that he viewed the income generated by the Yankees’ baseball operations as a contribution by the fans entrusted to him with a mandate. Win a pennant. Although the Yankees seemed to make more and more money as they spent more and more to honor that mandate, the Yankees were something much different than a mere business. Business success was a byproduct. So George spent, and the Yankees won to the chagrin of all but Yankee fans, and by the way, they also seemed to make money.

No more.

Since Cashman, cash is king. The Yankees are a business and need to be managed as a business. Anyway, everyone always said sentiment has no place in baseball. Remember the Bambino? Still, George was certainly emotional, a combination of rashness and impulse blended strongly with sentiment and second chances (more in the case of managers named Billy). Cashman, a mirror image only as a negative. So payroll is down, pennants a memory, and earnings?

Well, cash, man, … cash.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2015; all rights reserved