The Yankee Years Part 20

Jeter and Posada combined to bat .500 in the series. The rest of the team that had scored 930 runs in the regular season batted .173.

_Soon after the Yankees' elimination, Steinbrenner released a statement through his public relations people, which had become nearly his sole means of public communication, to say, "Rest a.s.sured, we will go back to work immediately and try to right this sad failure and provide a champions.h.i.+p for the Yankees, as is our goal every year."

The Yankees had won 97 games, drawn 4.2 million people to Yankee Stadium, made the playoffs for a 12th consecutive season, outscored every team in baseball by at least 60 runs, employed 36 past, current or future All-Stars . . . and their owner had winnowed it all down to a "sad failure."

Torre bore the brunt of the growing frustration in the organization. The playoff losses obliterated the story of the resolve of these flawed Yankee teams. The Yankees came from behind to make the playoffs in 2006 for the third time in four consecutive seasons. In 2004, they started 8-11 and began June in second place. In 2005, they started 11-19 and began July with a .500 record. In 2006, they trailed Boston for most of the first four months and started August in second place. In 2007 they started 21-29 and were a .500 team into the second half of the season. In every case Torre brought the team home to the playoffs. The collateral damage, however, was acc.u.mulating. The cost of playing from behind year after year was the constant organizational anxiety that covered the lengthy seasons. There was no margin for error, little room to breathe.

During the 2006 season, for instance, the Yankees suffered a blowout loss, 19-1, to the Cleveland Indians, Steinbrenner's hometown team, on the Fourth of July, Steinbrenner's birthday. The defeat left the Yankees in second place, four games behind the Red Sox. Steve Swindal, merrily enjoying the holiday on a boat, called up Cashman and began screaming at him. "I pay you and Joe all this money!" Swindal said as part of his rant.

Said Torre, "Cash got p.i.s.sed and I got p.i.s.sed. I talked to Steve the next day and I said, 'Steve, you have to understand: we're trying to win the game. And if we lose 2-1 or 18-6, there's no difference.' "

Three days later the Yankees were playing the Devil Rays in St. Petersburg. Swindal walked into the Yankees clubhouse. The visiting manager's office is the first door on the left as you enter the clubhouse at Tropicana Field. As Swindal walked in, Torre motioned him into his office.

"Close the door," Torre said.

Swindal sat down.

"Let me tell you something," Torre said. "Either fire us, fire me, or trust what we do. If you think when we don't win it's because we're not paying attention, you've got another thing coming. That was ridiculous."

"Well," Swindal said with a nervous chuckle, "you know how I am."

"Yeah," Torre said. "And we'll work this through. But you hired us for a reason. You either believe in what we're doing or let us go."

The 2006 playoff loss to Detroit depleted further the goodwill account Torre had built in the Yankee organization, a reality made obvious the morning after Game 4.

_Hours after the Yankees lost Game 4 to the Tigers, the back page of the New York Daily News Daily News the next morning featured a picture of Torre and declared in capital letters without the typical equivocation of a question mark, "OUTTA HERE!" The story said Steinbrenner was firing Torre and replacing him with Lou Piniella (though Piniella was deep in discussions to sign on as manager of the Cubs and had had no contact with Yankees officials). Reporters began staking out the front lawn of Torre's Westchester, New York, home. Steinbrenner and the rest of the Yankees' front office said nothing publicly about Torre's status for two days, letting the speculation continue ablaze, but they did conduct a high-level conference call that included Steinbrenner, Cashman, Torre, president Randy Levine, chief operating officer Lonn Trost and manager partner Steve Swindal. Several times the Yankees' decision makers brought up the idea that perhaps Torre had become "distracted" as the New York manager, even making reference to the charitable work he does for his foundation for victims of abuse by family members, the Safe at Home Foundation. the next morning featured a picture of Torre and declared in capital letters without the typical equivocation of a question mark, "OUTTA HERE!" The story said Steinbrenner was firing Torre and replacing him with Lou Piniella (though Piniella was deep in discussions to sign on as manager of the Cubs and had had no contact with Yankees officials). Reporters began staking out the front lawn of Torre's Westchester, New York, home. Steinbrenner and the rest of the Yankees' front office said nothing publicly about Torre's status for two days, letting the speculation continue ablaze, but they did conduct a high-level conference call that included Steinbrenner, Cashman, Torre, president Randy Levine, chief operating officer Lonn Trost and manager partner Steve Swindal. Several times the Yankees' decision makers brought up the idea that perhaps Torre had become "distracted" as the New York manager, even making reference to the charitable work he does for his foundation for victims of abuse by family members, the Safe at Home Foundation.

"I resented the fact that they claimed I was distracted by something," Torre said. "I told them, 'What suddenly happened in the postseason that distracted me that wasn't going on during the season when we won as many games as any team in baseball?' "

Indeed, the Yankees won 97 games, the most in the American League and tied with the New York Mets for the most in baseball. They scored more runs than anybody in baseball. They trounced Detroit in Game 1 of the best-of-five series, 8-4, and took a 3-1 lead into the fifth inning of Game 2 with veteran righthander Mike Mussina on the mound at Yankee Stadium. Apparently that's when the "distractions" must have manifested themselves, for the Yankees suddenly lost their grip on the series.

Ali, listening to her husband on the conference call, interjected in a stage whisper, "What are you defending yourself for? If they want to fire you, let them fire you. Simple as that."

Torre didn't hear much support from his bosses on the other end of the line. The Yankees had come to believe that anything short of a world champions.h.i.+p was a failure. Of course, such thinking was possible only because of the four world champions.h.i.+ps they won in Torre's first five years on the job. No other team since 1953 has won four World Series t.i.tles in five years, a 53-year span that covers the advent of free agency, the beginning of expansion and the full integration of the major leagues. The credit in the bank from those t.i.tles had run out for Torre. If he was going to be judged harshly and almost entirely on two and a half games against the Tigers-23 innings in which Mussina, Randy Johnson and Jaret Wright got outpitched and the Yankees batted .163-well, that was the brutal truth of the job. The Yankees played every season as an "all-in" card game, and the manager had to understand the consequences if he didn't play a winning hand. Torre knew this reality. At the end of the conference call he stopped defending himself and his record and offered advice to George Steinbrenner.

"George, I always want to make you proud of what I do," Torre said, "but if you feel in your heart you should make a change, then that's what you should do. I'm not begging for my job. I'm here to tell you that I'm going to work the same as I always have for you. I'm not going to do anything different. What am I going to do different? I can only be who I am. But if you're more comfortable making a change, then that's what you should do."

When the conference call ended, nothing had been decided. Steinbrenner needed to think about it. Torre hung up not knowing if he would manage the Yankees again. Another day pa.s.sed. Still nothing. Torre was unable to take any questions from the media because he had no idea about his status. He did ask Jason Zillo, the Yankees' public relations director, if Zillo could do something about the reporters on his front lawn. Zillo promptly provided the lawn service, calling the news outlets to ask them to end the fruitless vigil.

On the next day the Yankees finally announced that Torre would meet with reporters at 1 p.m. at Yankee Stadium. For Torre, however, there was a slight hitch to the plans for a news conference: He still had no idea if he was going to manage the Yankees. He still had heard nothing from Steinbrenner. Torre was getting dressed to go to that news conference when he decided to do something about being left to twist in the wind. He called Cashman.

"Cash, have you heard anything yet?" Torre asked.

"No," Cashman replied. "I haven't heard anything."

"Do me a favor," Torre said.

"Sure, what's that, Joe?" Cashman said.

"Call them and tell them to fire me right now. If it takes them this long to make up their minds tell them to f.u.c.king find somebody else. I don't want to be here. This is ridiculous."

It was typical Torre. One of his strong suits for working for Steinbrenner was that from the moment he was hired he never needed the job badly enough to become Steinbrenner's lackey. Steinbrenner liked his managers and executives to be beholden to him (none were more so than "true Yankee" Billy Martin; and most deferentially called him "Mr. Steinbrenner"), but Torre saw the Yankee job as playing with house money. He called Steinbrenner "George."

But the "fire me" edict to Cashman was typical Torre, too, because it was such an emotional reaction. Ali often told him he took things too personally and reacted too emotionally, and this seemed to be yet another case.

Cashman argued to Torre to remain patient just a little while longer, and Torre eventually agreed. He could go to the press conference and simply answer questions to the best of his knowledge, of which he had very little when it came to his job status. Five minutes before the press conference was about to begin, Torre's phone rang. It was Steinbrenner.

"We want you to manage next year," The Boss said.

After being "fired" on the back page of the Daily News, Daily News, after being told he was "distracted" while serving as the manager of the winningest team in the league, and after being placed in a limbo status for two days right up until five minutes before his press conference, Torre reacted to Steinbrenner's olive branch the best way he knew how: he politely thanked Steinbrenner. after being told he was "distracted" while serving as the manager of the winningest team in the league, and after being placed in a limbo status for two days right up until five minutes before his press conference, Torre reacted to Steinbrenner's olive branch the best way he knew how: he politely thanked Steinbrenner.

_It was the last meaningful conversation Torre would ever have with Steinbrenner. The change in the relations.h.i.+p had nothing to do with Torre's job status. It had everything to do with Steinbrenner's health. No one would tell Torre of any specific health issue afflicting Steinbrenner, but it was obvious to all in the Yankees family that Steinbrenner's physical and mental acuity were slipping quickly. Steinbrenner and Torre had spoken often over the years and developed a cordial, respectful relations.h.i.+p. Torre had a natural ease of dealing with Steinbrenner.

"It drove him nuts that it made sense when I talked to him," Torre said. "I remember one time I told him, 'George, we've got to talk about this.' He said, 'I don't want to talk about it because you'll talk me into it.' I forgot what the subject matter was. I laughed. He said, 'I don't want to talk to you about it because you'll put it in a way that makes it simple.' "

The banter and the conversations faded to almost nothing. About a month or so after Steinbrenner agreed to bring Torre back for the 2007 season-it was around Thanksgiving, 2006-Torre ran into Steinbrenner in Tampa after flying there on a private plane with his family. Steinbrenner, 76, was at the airport waiting for his grandchildren to fly in.

"Hi, pal," Steinbrenner said. Other than exchanging pleasantries, there was no conversation. Steinbrenner, as he had taken to doing regularly, was wearing dark gla.s.ses indoors. What struck Torre was that Steinbrenner's hand was shaking, and The Boss stuck his hand in his pocket to try to quell the tremors.

"He was okay," Torre remembered, "but you could see he didn't have the thunder he once had."

There was no diagnosis of which Torre was aware, but it had become obvious by 2007 that the old lion had reached his winter. Torre knew Steinbrenner had drifted away from the day-to-day operations and long-term planning. One day he ran into Steinbrenner in the parking lot of Legends Field as Steinbrenner was getting into his car. Torre was riding a golf cart. Steinbrenner walked over and put one foot on the golf cart and a hand on its roof to steady himself. What Torre noticed was that Steinbrenner's hand kept shaking on the roof of the cart. At about that time one of the Yankees star players also encountered Steinbrenner in the parking lot. Said the player after the meeting, "Honestly, I'm not even sure he knew who I was."

"I talk to him from time to time," Torre said one day in the 2007 spring training camp in the manager's office. "He doesn't show up down here anymore. He used to show up here every day. He loved it. But he can't sit there and talk to you anymore. And it's sad. No matter what you thought of him you never want to see anybody go that way, lose his spirit basically. You don't want to see it happen.

"I remember we were sitting on my couch together one day a few years ago and I said the same thing I would always tell him: 'You know, if you could just do me one favor. Just understand: I want to make you proud. I can't control the fact that people give me credit for what's happening. Because every time that happens I always credit you for bringing me here and getting the resources to do it. But don't blame me and don't get mad at me because of that, because I can't control that.'

"He said, 'Oh, I don't. I don't feel that way.' I knew better. And it kept us from being really as close as we could have been. Instead of him perceiving this as 'I got the right guy. I'm proud of that,' it's all about 'He's getting too much credit.' And because George likes to maintain control, and scare people, and I think he eliminated that with me. He couldn't control me and he couldn't scare me, and I think that frustrated him.

"I told him, 'I'd like to have a situation between the two of us where if you see something you don't like, you just call me. All right? Just call me. One thing I'll never lose sight of is you're The Boss. I'll always respect that. I never want to get to the point where I think I'm bigger than that, because that's not the case.'"

What Torre appreciated about Steinbrenner was that The Boss was always accessible. He was apt to come bl.u.s.tering into Torre's office at any time, call him on the telephone or summon him and his other baseball advisers to another emergency meeting in the third-floor executive boardroom of Legends Field. Torre liked knowing that Steinbrenner always was there and he knew where he stood with him.

But that was no longer true in 2007 due to Steinbrenner's health. One of his last true allies, Cashman, would move philosophically further away from him that winter, and Williams had everything to do with it.

__Williams, 37, was a free agent who wanted to return to the only organization he had ever known. The 22-year-old kid who had reached the big leagues in 1991 with such a wide-eyed look that teammates derisively called him "Bambi"-their mistake was taking his naiveness for a compet.i.tive softness-had come to win four world champions.h.i.+p rings, smash 2,336 hits, make five All-Star Games, win one batting t.i.tle and earn $103 million. And after all of that he still gave forth that same youthful naiveness that charmed Yankees fans. Williams was one of their own. They had watched him grow up, deliver in the clutch and still remain humble, wide-eyed and sincere.

The beauty of Williams was that he hadn't changed much at all, wearing the same uniform and look of blissful earnestness. Before there was Manny being Manny, the catchphrase to excuse the childlike goofiness of Manny Ramirez, there was Bernie being Bernie. After the Yankees beat the Texas Rangers in the clinching Game 4 of the 1996 Division Series, Williams called up Torre in his hotel room.

"I've got a problem," Williams said.

"What's that?" Torre said, expecting the worst.

"My family flew out and it costs $500 to change the tickets to go back a day early. Do you know anyone at the airline?"

Williams was making $3 million in 1996.

"Stuff like that made him charming, it really did," Torre said. "Bernie Williams always expected the best. I'll always remember he made the last out of the 1997 Division Series, a fly ball to center field with a runner on second base, and I had to practically peel him off the steps leading to the clubhouse. I said, 'Bernie, it's not always going to turn out the way you want it to.' He was devastated."

Teammates delighted in Bernie being Bernie. One time he left Yankee Stadium after a night game and forgot his own child, who was playing video games. When he reached home he realized his oversight and called up Andy Pett.i.tte and said, "Andy, can you bring him home?"

Another time, after the clinching game of a World Series, Williams drove home without his wife. Waleska Williams was left standing in the waiting room with trainer Steve Donahue.

On the last day of the 2005 season, the Yankees went to Fenway Park in Boston knowing that if they won the game they would open the Division Series at home against the Angels, and if they lost they would open against them on the road in Anaheim. Before the game Williams asked Torre, "Do you mind if I drive home with my wife after the game?" Said Torre, "Bernie, if we lose today we go to Anaheim." Replied Williams, "We do?"

Williams would call the Yankee Stadium clubhouse from his home in suburban Westchester at one o'clock in the afternoon and, like a Little Leaguer, say, "It's raining here. Are we playing tonight?"

He was known to be late reporting for work from time to time. Williams was late, for instance, for Game 6 of the 2001 World Series, and barely arrived in time after his taxi had to negotiate the heavy security measures and barricades set up around the ballpark.

There was another time when Torre walked up to Williams in the lunchroom of the visiting clubhouse in Tampa Bay. Williams was making a sandwich.

"How are you doing, Bernie?" Torre asked.

"I missed the bus. I'm sorry for being late," Williams said.

"Bernie," Torre said with a smile, "I didn't even know you were late. But thanks for offering it up. That sandwich is going to cost you $200."

Williams laughed.

Williams occupied a special place in Yankees history. He had played on a Yankees team that lost 91 games, in 1991, and he was there for the reconstruction and the run of a modern dynasty. Williams played in 2006 under a one-year deal for $1.5 million. He was a bargain at that rate, hitting .281 with 12 home runs and 61 runs batted in. He wasn't an everyday player anymore, not even a part-time center fielder, and he and Torre both knew that. Williams wanted to play another year as a bench player, occasionally starting in the outfield in the event of an injury or a needed day of rest for one of the main outfielders, Damon, Abreu, Cabrera and Matsui.

Soon after the Yankees lost the 2006 ALDS to Detroit, Cashman held a meeting with Torre and the coaching staff, in which they discussed whether Williams still had a role with the team for 2007. Cashman said that everyone in the room agreed that Williams was done. However, as the Yankees roster began to take shape over the winter, Torre came to believe that Williams reemerged as their best option off the bench.

Torre knew that he could still be counted on to give a quality at-bat in a key spot, and who had the added benefit of being a switch-hitter, which causes difficult decisions to opposing managers when they try to match up their relief pitchers to gain platoon advantages. Over the previous two seasons, at ages 36 and 37, Williams. .h.i.t .317 and .321 with runners in scoring position and two outs.

Torre told Cashman he wanted to bring back Williams on a similar deal that he had in 2006. Cashman wanted nothing to do with it. He had a better idea, he said. He pulled out some numbers. He started giving Torre pinch-hitting numbers and on-base percentage numbers for Josh Phelps and Doug Mientkiewicz. That was Cashman's plan: he could do better with a combination of Josh Phelps and Doug Mientkiewicz than bringing back Bernie Williams for one more year. Torre was astounded.

"Cash," Torre said, "Bernie Williams may not play much outfield because we don't have room in the outfield, but as a bench player, a switch-hitter, I know if I'm managing in the other dugout and I know they have Bernie Williams sitting there, it's going to affect who I bring in and how I manage the game. If you know the player Bernie was, and he's not that far removed from that, you know that the danger is still there."

Cashman stuck to the on-base percentage numbers.

"I can't fight that," Torre said. "For me and some of the other managers, is Mientkiewicz coming up to pinch-hit going to scare me like Bernie Williams does? Even though he's got a better on-base percentage?"

Cashman did not budge. He was also worried about the awkwardness of having to cut an icon like Williams if he showed he really was done. Torre said, "It was like talking to a brick wall. It never went anywhere."

The philosophical battle was no battle at all. Cashman's faith in numbers won out decisively over Torre's trust in his players. Cashman would not offer Williams a major league contract. He was open to the idea of letting Williams come to camp to try out with a minor league deal. Williams was too proud a Yankee for that. Torre tried multiple times to talk him into coming to camp as a nonroster invitee. Williams would have none of that scenario. The lack of a real major league offer told Williams all he needed to know: the Yankees had no more use for him.

"I talked to him about three or four times," Torre said, "and I kept trying to convince him to come down, and I did everything but promise him he was going to make the team. I couldn't do that. And I'm not even sure to this day what was going on in Bernie's head. I knew he was hurt by the fact that he was just dismissed. I just think that in Cash's mind, they were sort of stuck into paying him for so long, and paying him so much money, he felt he owed him nothing, which I'm not sure is the right way to look at things. And then Cash got upset with Bernie, was p.i.s.sed off at something."

In January of 2008, Cashman unwittingly tipped his hand about how he felt about Williams in comments he made at a symposium at William Patterson College in New Jersey, an event Cashman did not figure was destined to hit the newspapers. Cashman took shots at Williams, saying he had a "terrible season" in 2005, that Torre played Williams in 2006 "ahead of guys who could help us win," and that Williams grew more involved in his music career "and that took away from his play."

The Mientkiewicz-Phelps Plan was, by most any measurement, a bust. Mientkiewicz broke his right wrist and played in only 72 games. (Williams played at least 119 games in his last 12 seasons after the strike-shortened 1994 season.) Phelps was waived in June after playing just 36 games. Combined, Mientkiewicz and Phelps batted .200 in all games coming off the bench, with five hits in 25 at-bats.

"I don't know how many times that year I would look at Don Mattingly and say, 'This is a good spot for Bernie,' " Torre said. "You've got a pinch-hit opportunity coming up and they've got a lefty and righty warming up in the bullpen, and with Bernie you neutralize their choices."

The Yankees went to six World Series under Torre and Williams. .h.i.t third or fourth in the lineup in every one of them. With his expressive eyes, fluid stroke and sprinter's body, Williams was not your typical middle-of-the-order slugger on champions.h.i.+p teams. He never hit more than 30 home runs. He was, however, more than tough enough to hold down that kind of responsibility.

"Bernie was a son of a b.i.t.c.h; the pressure of the game never bothered him," Torre said. "It never bothered him. You know, you try to explain all that stuff, and unless you have a feel for what you're seeing, it's tough to rationalize with sheer numbers.

"I don't think Bernie cared about what it looked like on the field, as opposed to simply what it was. I think good players go on the field knowing there is a danger of being embarra.s.sed and it doesn't bother them at all. Bernie never thought anything negative was going to happen until it happened."

For Torre, Cashman's dismissal of Williams was also, in part, a repudiation of the manager's trust and understanding of players. The hits to his standing as the secure manager of the New York Yankees were piling up: the sniping via the franchise's own network and the cold war with Steinbrenner in 2005, the virtual firing and subsequent twisting in the wind after the 2006 Division Series, and now this, the decision by Cashman to trust a belief in numbers rather than trust Torre's belief in Bernie Williams.

"The one that p.i.s.sed me off more than anything was Bernie Williams, where my opinion was completely disregarded," Torre said. "I was beating a dead horse, and I'll never forget that."

_The future of Joe Torre as manager of the New York Yankees was a last-minute addition to the menu at a March 9, 2007, benefit luncheon for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Tampa Bay at the Tampa Marriott Waterside Hotel. The Boys and Girls Clubs of Tampa had long been a favorite charity of George Steinbrenner, and you could find his name affixed to one of its buildings as proof of his generosity. Each spring training, Steinbrenner would make sure his staff and ballplayers joined him in supporting the Boys and Girls Clubs of Tampa Bay by attending the luncheon, which had grown to become one of its largest fund-raising events. Brian Cashman decided to use the 2007 luncheon, away from the prying eyes of the New York media, to address the th.o.r.n.y issue of what to do about Torre, which for the previous five months had grown c.u.mbersomely into the elephant in the room n.o.body wanted to acknowledge. Torre's status beyond that 2007 season was unresolved.

Cashman approached Torre and asked him, "What do you want to do, Joe?"

Torre immediately recognized the opening. The general manager would not have asked the question if he didn't want Torre back. That qualified as a major development. Torre was on the last year of his contract, a status that carried more weight than his 11 consecutive seasons guiding the Yankees into the playoffs, four of which culminated with world champions.h.i.+ps. The impending end to the deal put him squarely in the crosshairs of his critics, some of whom happened to reside in his own organization. When Torre had left for spring training, his wife, Ali, sent him off with a kiss, a hug and this warning: "This is going to be your toughest year, because they're always going to refer to this being the last year of your contract."

Said Torre, "I guess I get naive at times, but I didn't expect it was going to be tougher. That's because I thought you were always on the last year of your contract, no matter what it said. Even if you have a contract, there's always a threat you can be fired. But I never realized how right she really was."

Without a contract for 2008, Torre was a lame duck, made all the more wounded by what amounted to his mock dismissal after the 2006 season, which had played out like being put through every protocol of a firing squad-the blindfold, the c.o.c.king of the chambers, the ready, aim, fire! command-but for blanks being subst.i.tuted for bullets.

The most important baseball operations decision in the 2007 spring training camp was what to do about Torre. Cashman opened the door to an extension when he approached Torre at the March 9 benefit. Cashman wasn't even sure if Torre had plans to manage beyond 2007. Torre didn't hesitate with a response. As difficult and painful as the fallout was from the 2006 Division Series loss, Torre had lost none of his enthusiasm for the job. He hated the interoffice sniping, the jockeying for credit and the a.s.signment of blame, and he hated knowing not everybody in that front office fully supported him, but Torre loved managing people and ballgames as much as ever.

"I'd like to keep managing," Torre told Cashman. "I still enjoy it."

"Okay," Cashman said. "You're my guy. As long as I'm here, there's n.o.body I'd rather have managing this team than you. How long would you like to do this?"

Torre understood that the door to a contract extension suddenly was jarred open. He was wise enough not to even have broached the subject over the winter after very nearly being fired, but smart enough to know this was the opportunity to get it done. Torre had an idea.

"How long do you have on your deal?" Torre asked Cashman.

"Through next year."

"Okay. Just tie me to you. We'll have the same thing. Take it through next year so that we're on the same terms."

"That's fine with me," Cashman said.

Torre was making $7 million in 2007, the last year of his deal. A one-year extension would, if nothing else, remove his lame duck status and shrink the size of the bull's-eye on his back. It would minimize the speculation that at any moment he could be fired, a sword of Damocles that can drag down a team, not just the manager.

Torre took it as very good news that Cashman wanted to extend him, especially given Cashman's clout in the organization.

"When he said that, I'm thinking, It's just a formality," Torre said. "I thought it was a slam dunk. The general manager asks you how long you wanted to manage and I just a.s.sumed . . . of course, I shouldn't a.s.sume anything because he did say, 'I just want to know what to go to them with.' "

__"Them." It was a new concept in the Steinbrenner regime. With Steinbrenner no longer robust enough to be The Boss, the absolute ruler with absolute power, the Yankees' power structure had devolved into a blurry one that still needed defining. Steinbrenner's sons, Hank and Hal, were in the loop but not yet fully vested in the daily operations of the club. Trost and Levine steered the business operations of the franchise, but contributed to baseball matters, too. One of Steinbrenner's sons-in-law, Felix Lopez, was growing increasingly interested in all aspects of the business of the New York Yankees, completing one of the most astounding rises in corporate American history. Lopez came to the Yankees' boardroom by way of landscaping. He met Jessica Steinbrenner, The Boss's daughter, while tending to her yard. He married The Boss's daughter and immediately became a baseball expert.

Another son-in-law, Steve Swindal, was the team's general partner and Steinbrenner's handpicked successor. Steve Swindal had married The Boss's daughter Jennifer. He ran Bay Transportation Corporation, a marine towing company purchased by Steinbrenner's company American s.h.i.+pbuilding. When the Yankees played in Miami against the Marlins in 1997, Steinbrenner asked him if he would like to become a general partner of the Yankees. Swindal loved the idea. He enjoyed the work while by and large tending to keep a low profile.

Then one day, June 15, 2005, to be exact, Swindal was sitting near George Steinbrenner at a press conference to announce the construction plans and financing for a new Yankee Stadium when Steinbrenner blurted out that Swindal, and not either of his own sons, would replace him someday as head of the Yankees. Most everyone in the room was surprised to hear Steinbrenner publicly anoint Swindal as his handpicked successor. One person was particularly surprised: Swindal himself. Steinbrenner never had told him he was his choice for running the team, never had discussed succession plans with him.

"It was news to me," Swindal said.

Steve Swindal was the man who would be king of one of the most valuable properties in professional sports, the New York Yankees, which had become an iconic global franchise worth about $2 billion when you folded in the YES network, the most successful regional sports network in the television industry.

Swindal's authority was soon to be completely wiped out by one of the most expensive drinking benders in the history of imbibing.