GLENDALE, Ariz. — I’ve seen this before. I still remember the decade or so that began in the late 1990s, the beginning of a new millennium in which the Yankees became much more than a baseball team.
It’s a brand. Band — if that band is the Beatles. It’s by no means bland.
He had an insatiable passion for star collections. It’s as if “Ocean’s 11” changes to “Ocean’s 12” and “Ocean’s 13” every year…
The Yankees imported Japan’s Roger Clemens for Hideki Irabe, and then imported the real Roger Clemens. Chuck Knoblauch, Jason Giambi, Hideki Matsui, Alex Rodriguez, Randy Johnson. The playoff series began with then-Tigers manager Jim Leyland calling the Yankees’ batting lineup a murderer’s row. It wasn’t enough.
Suddenly, they were moved in with an unprecedented amount of security in baseball, and fans lined up on both sides of the hotel waiting for their arrival, as if they knew where Taylor Swift was staying, and the matchup began. The other person felt like a foil. Someone had to meet the schedule, so I called the other team. Many opponents were overwhelmed by their size before the match began. But more often than not, the Yankees got all their A-games from their competitors, even in April and May. It was the World Series in the second division.
Celebrities and salaries increased, as did expectations and pressure. It was a certain level of joy that came out. The whole team felt heavy. The burden of justifying everything was heavy. So was New York. So too has the scrutiny from the media corps, which has grown to keep pace with stars and paychecks. So did George Steinbrenner and his team pursuing ever more championships or extreme horror.
That’s what I was thinking as I traveled across the country for the opening of the first spring training camp to see the new Beatles. When I entered the clubhouse late in the morning, the three players who entered the locker after Chris Taylor were Mookie Betts, Shohei Ohtani, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
Clayton Kershaw’s voice resonated even louder when he called the multibillion-plus offseason investment in Ohtani, Yamamoto, and Tyler Glasnow “remarkable,” though not specifically. Kershaw, who has seen plenty of wins and stars in his 16 seasons with the Dodgers, acknowledged the size of the press scrum gathered around him (60 people, more than two-thirds from Japan) and that this is the reality of a full season. He pointed out that it would be.
“This talent is probably the best I’ve ever been a part of,” Kershaw said, recovering from shoulder surgery in November and aiming to return in July or August. . I hope I can be a part of it too. ” said perhaps the greatest pitcher of this generation, as if he were a co-star.
Kershaw, Ohtani, Betts and Freddie Freeman are all MVPs. Kershaw is a three-time Cy Young Award winner. Yamamoto is a three-time recipient of the Sawamura Prize, Japan’s equivalent of the Psy Prize. Ohtani is the best two-way player of all time. He is a genius who signed a 10-year, $700 million contract. Yamamoto is only 25 years old, has pitched zero games in the major leagues, and signed a pitching contract worth $325 million, the highest in history. Kershaw, Walker Buehler, and perhaps Dustin May could also be added to the rotation as the season progresses. Good or promising players like Max Muncy, Will Smith, Teoscar Hernandez, James Outman, Bobby Miller, and Evan Phillips are basically supporting characters in this Hollywood production.
So is Jason Heyward. He grew up winning in the Braves organization with Freeman, was part of the Cubs that had to win in 2016, broke a 100-year curse, and joined the Dodgers last year as he was supposed to. At the end of the season, they won 100 games and made the playoffs for 11 consecutive years, winning 10 division titles during that time.
However, the Dodgers defeated Arizona in the division series, leaving them with just one championship since 1988 in the pandemic 2020 season. That leads to spending over $1 billion in the offseason, and one wonders if there was more pressure than just pressure. pressure.
“This is exciting. It’s new. It’s unique,” Hayward said. “It’s a lot of fun, both from a fan standpoint and from a media standpoint, and there’s a lot of really cool things that we’re going to take in and see for the first time, and there’s a lot of speculation and anticipation. This year more than ever. But on the player side, we don’t look at it as a burden. In this clubhouse, we look at it as an opportunity to come to work every day and take on the challenges.”
That sounded familiar. Words I heard in the Yankee clubhouse. But when you’re as dedicated as any team in history, like the Yankees a quarter-century ago or the Dodgers today, it’s hard to drown out the outside noise. This spring, there will be more reporters covering the Dodgers than in the AL Central Division all year. They’re going to see a lot more A-game. The weight of consecutive losses becomes even heavier. The meaning of victory diminishes. They think they know the all-or-nothing situation of the past 10 years. But this is more than any team has ever done. More strain, stress and pressure. Now more than ever:
Championship or fear?
