WPCNR VIEW FROM THE UPPER DECK. By Bull Allen. September 29, 2007: As the agony and the ecstasy of the race for second place in the major leagues unfolds this week,  I cannot help be reminded of 1964, the year before the Yankees sunk into oblivion until George Steinbrenner took over the ball club in 1975. The year of the great Philadelphia Phillie collapse – up 6 games with 12 to play and they lost em all – with a very similar manager to Willie Randolph: the implacable unemotional cold and cerebral Gene Mauch.

Ebbets Field, Brooklyn USA. 1955.

Memorial Day Doubleheader, Brooks and the Pirates. The Brooks won both ends. 

Photo (c) by John C. Wagner, Jr., www.pportals.com/jcw. Used with permission.

Connie Mack Stadium (formerly Shibe Park) in the 1960s. Scene of the Philadelphia Phillie El Foldo in 1964. Photo from the WPCNR Collection.

Watching the pictures of the Yankees celebrating second place Tuesday night shows just how oriented toward mediocrity major league baseball has become. However, you see the Yankees had to win this year  -- why to inflate the selling price of this ball club when the Principal Owner, George Steinbrenner departs.

So now we are treated to the ugly celebrating of second place. New York did not have the horses to take out Tampa Bay firmly last week, losing a pair to the Rays – and two to the Blue Jays. And what happened to the overrated Roger Clemens? He won 6 games for the Yankees that is $3 Million for each win. But, hey at least they picked him up. Though I still have to laugh at the comments by his team about what a team player he is. If you’re a team player you stay with the team. Period.

The Metropolitan Nightmare.

 Picking up Roger by the Boss is is more than Omar Minaya did for the Mets who are now struggling to make the Wild Card with 3 games to play, tied with the Phillies, because they have pitching that has been overused.  And as I pen this, the Mets have lost again. The Phils have won. This is not good.

 If the Phils win tomorrow and the Mets lose it is over. And the San Diegos have won, too, meaning the Metropolitans are facing doom—2 games behind the Diegos for the Wild Card, 1 behind the Phils for first. The Phils win two. They win and the Mets go home.

What excitement! For second place.

Had Minaya acquired a pitcher, perhaps two,  for the stretch run, he would not be in this position.  When teams fought for pennants when I was a kid, they went for pitching not hitting to shore up for a stretch run. Should the Metropolitans lose this one, it can be placed squarely on the front office. And over bullpen usage.

Why are the wild cards so exciting? Well, because the ball clubs are flawed. It’s like watching ants struggle haplessly.  No team in the wild card hunts is complete. They have ragtag rotations, unreliable bullpens, inconsistent offenses. Might we dare say, they have inept motivational management. 

 I suspect because of the failsafe nature of the Wild Card – a lack of the feeling of the necessity to win.

Well now the Metropolitans have to win,  twice  --  to have a shot at making the playoffs and they have the pesky last place Marlins. The Phils have to take out the Nationals twice more…then what do you do?

Do they play off, if San Diego or Arizona are tied for first? Ha! Let the geniuses on Fifth Avenue (Major League Baseball Headquarters), figure that one out. It is a dog’s breakfast.

You have to be intense every game.

You saw this lack of desire to win to win at all costs that has cost the Metropolitans. You saw it in the Red Sox attitude of a couple of weeks ago, maintaining that first place did not matter as long as they got in. How else do you explain sitting Many Rodriguez in two games against New York, and keeping Ortiz out in that Friday night Fenway fracas?

 Now you have the ludicrousness of the Yanks spraying champagne over themselves for finishing second. It was a disgrace.  If  Francona had to win those games you bet your bippy he’d play Manny and Pappy.

There was a time when the Yankees finished in the Wild Card in 1995, when they did not champagne it. Apparently that attitude has changed. The cheerleaders of the New York Press Corps have dutifully reported this a great Yankee resurgence, failing to note the injuries that killed the Detroit Tigers and the Seattle Mariners.

A save by the farm system

The Yankees actually found some arms  and put players in the outfield who can catch and have strong arms,  and pitchers in their farm system to take up the slack.

But now Joe Torre is once again faced with a five game short series. Will St. Joseph stop the kneejerk refusal to use Mariano Rivera in tie games? He has lost two World Series because of this syndrome. Will he stop putting in untried pitchers in tied games that are tied?

You have to hand it to the Yankee farm system which supplied them with young arms  Joba Chamberlain, Phil Hughes, Kei Igawa, and of course the mysterious ace of the orient, Chien-Ming Wang. Very reminiscent of the 1964 young arms that saved that season before The Yankees said goodbye to the  big time for 10 years – the awful CBS years.

Another plus has been Ron Guidry as Pitching Coach – someone who knew how to get someone out in big spot.

I have seen the Wild Card race take front and center all season long to the detriment of the pennant races. Now we are focusing on the Wild Card finish. It is disgraceful that the clubs “in contention” cannot dispose of these cellar ballclubs when they have to.  But that’s exactly why you can’t have the wild card in baseball (and fastpitch softball) – it is too even a game.

Contrived Series Schedule

The other absurdity – one of the two latest sins upon baseball perpetrated by the Bud Selig era -- is that the first place teams get to decide the playoff schedule. The Red Sox sometime on Monday will get to choose whether there are 5 straight games played or there is a day off in between for travel.

By the way the darlings of New England have officially first, having disposed of Minnesota Friday night, while the Yankees gave up 4runs late and lost to Baltimore. But, it did not matter. The Yankees were already “in,” remember?

Here’s the playoff take..

 A day off favors a team with a weak third starter, allowing them to pitch their first and second starters twice. No days off mean you lose your second start with your second starter, maybe and no days off also means bullpen flameout.  Any first team that selects a day off inbetween games 2 and 3 is doing the Wild Card team a favor. The Yankees and Mets are great examples of that. When the Yankees have days off they do better, so do the Mets. The Mets bullpen has been blownup the last seven games which have been played back to back.

But, Major League baseball  cannot give teams a choice of the schedule. Really, that is soooo bush league.

Inflating the Price

This is an unpleasant subject. But George Steinbrenner is not well. A member of his family, Harold Steinbrenner has been made Chairman of the Yankee Global Enterpises LLC. If Mr. Steinbrenner passes away, we have been vaguely assured the Yankees will stay in the Steinbrenner family.

But will they? Will the younger Steinbrenner have The Boss’s will to win at all costs?

Or is this the last hurrah to produce a winning ball club once more when the infrastructure is about to implode as it did in 1964 when Mickey and company limped into to the World Series just like this year’s Yankees did.  That was the year when the New York Press Corps was howling for Yogi Berra to be fired when the Yankees fell apart by midseason.

But they developed Mel Stottlemyre out of the minors that year, and Al Downing to supplement Whitey Ford and Jim Bouton with Pete Ramos,  Rollie Sheldon and Hal Reniff in the pen and Tony Kubek, Mickey, Roger, Tom Tresh and Bobby Richardson and Joe Pepitone and Elston Howard had one last good year together to win by 1 game over the Pale Hose and the Baby Birds.

The next year they went down the tubes, finishing last—10^th in a 10-team league.

The Yankee youth pitchers this season will be well scouted next season and will most likely not be that effective. The Yankee starters Mussina and Pettitte  are suspect. The rooks, Mr. Hughes and the main man, Mr. Wang are not going to be enough. The young players being relied on will again be heavily scouted next spring and will not be as effective. Cabrera, Cano, Duncan have had great years the scouts will descend on them like vultures next year and pick them apart. Meanwhile Matsui is 33, Jeter is 33, Damon, 34, Posada,36. The big time players are getting older. That’s a lot of age.

My thinking is – if the Yankees lose their will-to-win, their leader for the last 32 years, George M. Steinbrenner, the Bronx faces a bleak future. The farm system has produced this year. Will they continue to do so?

I see the Yankees winning one more year or at least being close for one more year, setting them up for the opening of a new ballpark in 2009. But the nucleus is getting old: Jeter shows no signs of slowing down, yet. Posada is in his mid-thirties having his best year. A-Rod, he is at best a streaky player who was in his walk year this year. Everybody has a great year in their walk year.  Matsui, Abreu, getting long in the tooth. The Yankees are a team in transition mode …going down…not up.

Forbes magazine valued the Yankees at $832 Million early this year. That is up from $250 Million in 1998. When they build Yankee Stadium the Yankees will own that $1 Billion ballpark. That should make the Yankees command – for starters $1 Billion on the market – if not more.  A handsome acquisition for any conglomerate or sports collector like God forbid, the owners of some hockey and basketball teams in town.

The commitment of the Steinbrenner Family to the Yankee winning tradition when they can command enough money so no Steinbrenner will ever have to work again, well I think they are going to sell that team, take the big time money and run.

 Should a conglomerate buy the team, you’re not going to have the win at all costs mentality that to his everlasting credit George Steinbrenner brought to the Yankees for the last 32 years.

As a Yankee fan, I salute Mr. Steinbrenner as perhaps the greatest owner New York baseball has ever had. Thirteen trips to the postseason—better than the Atlanta Braves – better than the Yankees of Jacob Ruppert and the Yankees of Dan Topping and Del Webb.

Thank you George on behalf of Yankee fans everywhere.

Blaming the Umpire

Another thing that happened this week that sends a really bad message is Major League Baseball suspending an umpire for saying a profanity to a player allegedly because the profanity caused the player to hurt himself by charging the umpire.

Come on. The player tossed his bat at the home plate umpire objecting to a strike call. The first base umpire confirmed it. The player gets mad, charges the first base umpire, who rebukes the player.

Pardon me (full disclosure here, I umpire ballgames), but did the first base umpire tell the player to charge at him? No, the player lost his cool. His temper and  perhaps his career.

When his manager through him to the ground to prevent further suspension, the player injured his ACL. He’s out for the season for San Diego.

And the umpire gets suspended?

Major league players are told that arguing third strikes are automatic ejections. You cannot do that.

These players should know better.

Terrible things are said to umpires. Players  and managers show them no respect, and neither do broadcasters.

But without the integrity of umpires – baseball is lost.

I totally disagree with suspending the umpire for a hotheaded, immature ballplayer’s fit of temper which caused the player to injure himself basically.

Umpires are held to a much higher standard than players, coaches, managers, reporters. When they show a little humanity, they suffer. We generally take the crap as part of the game and let it roll off.

A player, a coach, a parent, a fan, a manger has no right to charge an official anywhere, nor challenge a call.

 An official’s reaction should not be penalized. It sends a bad message.