Oh, snap. Hank Steinbrenner is at it again. He seemed to take a direct shot at Derek Jeter, who is building a Florida mansion the size of a Best Buy, in saying that some Yankees were “too busy building mansions” to concentrate on winning it all last year.
Here’s the full Hank quote:
“I think, maybe, they celebrated too much last year,” Steinbrenner said Monday. “Some of the players, too busy building mansions and doing other things and not concentrating on winning. I have no problem saying that.”
I think Yammering Hank can forget an invite to St. Jeterburg’s housewarming party!
Now, do I think the building of Jeter’s new home was a distraction for him? Absolutely not — it’s not like he was at the property with a hardhat hammering nails or something.
However, I do think that the 2010 Yankees were a little complacent, especially evidenced by Joe Giradi lah-de-dahing the last few months into a Wild Card, when they should have won the division. You keep the pedal off the metal for too long, sometimes it’s hard to get the engine going again.
And I do think Jeter should have asked for help from Kevin Long months before. Instead, he spent literally half the season in the hitting doldrums before finally approaching the hitting coach in mid-September. Was that complacency or pride? Maybe a little of both. But I have been predicting a big 2011 for Jeter, with the Angry Jeter taking over.
That wasn’t all Hank said today — he compared revenue sharing and luxury tax money to socialism and communism!
“We’ve got to do a little something about that, and I know Bud wants to correct it in some way,” Steinbrenner said. “Obviously, we’re very much allies with the Red Sox and the Mets, the Dodgers, the Cubs, whoever in that area.”
“At some point, if you don’t want to worry about teams in minor markets, don’t put teams in minor markets, or don’t leave teams in minor markets if they’re truly minor,” Steinbrenner said. “Socialism, communism, whatever you want to call it, is never the answer.”
The funniest part of this wasn’t him getting all Milton Friedman here. No, the thing that made me chortle was comparing the Yanks as being the same boat as the Mets! Heh.
What do you think? Tell us about it!
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