Most of the time it’s just a punch line, a club to swing at the TV in anger while yelling abuse at it. Most of the time, sensible fans roll their eyes at the petulant lament and quote Billy Joel, “The good old days weren’t always better.”
Most days.
But the Yankees’ season has officially reached a near-impossible testing point. do not have You can’t ask this question even if you’re part of the silent majority that believes baseball is best spread out over 162 seasons. Even the most patient fans can’t help but ask this question. They ask it after the following developments:
What would George do?
What will George do? How would he feel if he watched the Mets make Yankees fans nostalgic for the 10-run bailout rule and win the season in the Subway Series?
What did George do?o What if, before the break in the bottom of the seventh inning, Yankee Stadium had already been abandoned by most of the less-masochistic Yankees fans and taken over instead with hellish chants of “Let’s go Mets! Let’s go Mets! Let’s go Mets!”?
What will George do? What would have happened if the Yankees had been on a long slump journey after this 12-3 blowout, now at 10-22? What would he do if he knew the Yankees had won 50 games before losing their first 22 games of the season, then just 10 before losing their next 22 games?
What will George do? If this same incompetent and poor lineup is run there every day, New York Yankees cleanup spotWhy was what was supposed to be the most stylish post office box in sports being shuffled around on a daily basis?
Well, we know what George would have done. He would have made a big fuss. He would have beaten up players in the clubhouse, threatened the manager with the back pages of the newspaper, maybe even swung an ax. The legend, as the years go by, takes on a nostalgic sheen to all of this.
But as you get older you’ll understand What George Did It was rarely a solution. It was in 1978, when replacing Billy Martin with Bob Lemon was a panacea. Most of the time it was firing good people, like Dick Howser, or ousting good people, like Stick Michael. All in the name of being a tough boss, a demanding boss, a boss who was also a fan and sometimes forgot the difference. And it didn’t solve many problems.
George Steinbrenner would have enjoyed manager Aaron Boone’s press conference after this disaster, in which Boone naturally uttered the “it’s all in front of you” cliché that irritates so many fans (and, let’s be honest, Steinbrenner probably changed the locks on Boone’s office door during the All-Star break).
But Boone’s words finally contained some harshness, which might be as close as the Yankees got to watching an angry Boone behind closed doors. When they were playing badly, it was an exhilarating peek behind the curtain.
It said: “Nobody in that f**king room has higher expectations than us. We’re pissed. We have to play better. Enough is enough. I know we’re fighting like hell. Nobody’s gonna get out of this except us.”
Then the volume of his voice picked up just a little bit: “Right now we’re playing by our teeth, but we’ve got to change that. We’ve been playing badly lately, but we’ve got to get better.”
Then, in a tone like a father who finds his kids hiding barrels in their tree house, he says, “I don’t care if you say you’ve been having a bad day or you’re in a slump. It’s no fun when things like this happen. I know how hard this game is. No one is going to feel sorry for us, especially not in this uniform.”
So maybe what George should have done that day was to salute a coach who proved he cared about his team as much as his boss did. Heads might not have been flying, players might not have been kicked out first thing in the morning. In fact, maybe his father would have found solace in Boone’s rare passion and would have been inspired to act like his son, Hal, and believe in his teammates and the long season that awaits.
At the end of the day, the teams around the Yankees are losing, too. They’re not losing. Maybe they should be losing, but they’re not. So it’s an honest point for Boone to bring it up.
Still… 12-3 is tough to watch against anyone, especially the Mets. This past month has been tough to watch.
What would George do? In this case, it may make sense to ask the question, but it’s probably best not to have to witness the impact of the answer.
