Colón’s Corner: Obituary For a Fallen Franchise

A fitting end for an era of failure

I can wax poetic. I can summarize the Yankees’ history which if we’re being honest is meaningless. It stopped being about baseball a long time ago.

Instead, it became about marketing a brand. It’s not Dolce and Gabbana. It’s a baseball team. Or at least at one point, it was. Complacency has long been an Achilles heel in anything in life and sports is certainly no different. Hal Steinbrenner however, who thinks he’s smarter than you and he’s not, doesn’t understand.

He fools you into thinking Brian Cashman is a good general manager. He isn’t. He fools you into thinking Aaron Boone is an effective manager. He’s not. The last six worthless years of Yankees “baseball” should tell you that.

They don’t hang banners for stability. The Boston Red Sox have had heavy turnover throughout the 21st century, they’ve hung four banners. George Steinbrenner fired Billy Martin five times, including in the middle of the 1978 season after Billy had led them to a championship the year before. They won again in ‘78, that time under the leadership of the late great Bob Lemon.

Joe Torre got shown the door after 12 seasons that produced six pennants and four championships. Joe Girardi got sacked after leading the Bombers to Game 7 of the ALCS after a four-year playoff absence. Can someone explain to me why Boone and Cashman should be any different?

Hal, the furthest thing from a chip off the old block insists on keeping Cashman in particular who has not produced a championship winning roster in 15 years and would rather bargain shop and nickel and dime than gun for top talent. His way is best apparently. A way that’s seen low impact moves fail to move the franchise’s feckless needle and consistent banking on the low-end talent he tries to get by with imploding when the chips are down. Gallo, Verdugo, Gray, Donaldson, Rizzo. I need not go on.

A column has written about this current awful iteration of the Yankees before by me. Yet in a miserable episode of Deja vu we found ourselves here again. Empty Octobers, empty quotes to the press, and more empty acquisitions. Prospects who are far too overhyped and fail to deliver. Money poorly spent on B and C tier players when they once prided themselves on A tier talent both homegrown and outsourced. The talent is bereft, and even the organizational approach to the sacred art of hitting is flawed beyond repair.

It’s over again. And as long as the insecure, overrated, egomaniacal Napoleon that is Brian Cashman along with the dimwitted puppet in Aaron Boone remain at the helm, over it will remain. We’ve witnessed the brutal death of a once great franchise and international institution. The killers of this franchise roam about with immunity. It makes you sick, it makes you wonder, it makes you fall out of love with the game. A game Brian Cashman, Aaron Boone, and Hal Steinbrenner, and the collection of misfit toys they call a baseball team haven’t the slightest clue of how to play.

Mike Colón is a media reporter and writer who hosts the Mic’d In New Haven Podcast, a show that features interviews with various personalities from New York City and beyond.