David Carroll - TSN.ca
I thought my dreams had come true.
Reports out of New York on Monday described what looked to be a looming power struggle between Yankees general manager Brian Cashman and club co-chairman Hank Steinbrenner.
The point of contention was set-up man Joba Chamberlain. While Cashman was happy with the 22-year-old coming out of the pen, Steinbrenner was not.
"I want him as a starter and so does everyone else, including him and that is what we are working toward and we need him there now," he said during an interview with the New York Times. "There is no question about it, you don't have a guy with a 100-mile-per-hour fastball and keep him as a setup guy. You just don't do that. You have to be an idiot to do that."
To his credit, Cashman stood his ground and I braced for a showdown.
It didn't come, at least not yet, as the Yankees co-chairman backed off his comments on Monday afternoon.
"We're not going to rush him (Chamberlain)," he said from the Yankees' spring training complex. "I think most people agree with me, including the baseball people and most of the fans, that sooner or later it would be nice if he was a starter."
For a while, it looked like Hank was going to return us to the time where George Steinbrenner ruled Yankee Stadium with an iron fist.
I miss the glory days of firing managers every few weeks, having Dave Winfield investigated, calling Hideki Irabu a "fat %^$#@ toad", kicking Don Mattingly off the team for not shaving his sideburns and demanding an employee get him calzones for lunch every day.
Of course those last two weren't real but they easily could have been.
The Steinbrenner, as played by Larry David in Seinfeld was out of control and yet, in some ways seemed tame compared to King George in his prime. He was a showman who had the the market cornered in both calculated and spontaneous outrageousness.
You didn't have to like the Yankees back then but must admit they kept things interesting.
Hank seemed poised to return the "crazy" to the Yankees and give them back their anything can happen so you had better keep an eye on us mystique but things calmed down.
As far as Chamberlain goes, there are lots of reasons to leave him in the set-up role: the days of two innings a night from Mariano Rivera are pretty much over, using a one-two bullpen punch to shorten games to 7 innings has been proven effective (Orosco and McDowell, Ward and Henke, Rivera and Wetteland being key examples) and Rivera won't be around forever, they need a successor.
Having the Hammer of God come in late in games, especially in the playoffs, was one of the big factors in the Yankees late 90's titles. It's not a stretch to imagine that Chamberlain giving the club that same late inning security once Rivera is gone.
For now, Cashman says they are all on the same page. Chamberlain will be a starter by the end of the season and won't be rushed.
So after the initial flurry, things settled down quickly. Too bad for fans of controlled chaos.
I could almost see the headlines ....
Yankees replace GM with Video Game AI:
"The Artifical Intelligence can learn from its mistakes and see trends no matter what the skill level," said the team in a media release.
Or,
Yanks hire Major League character Roger Dorn as GM:
"Did you see Major League II? He general managed the Indians to the World Series with Charlie Sheen, the guy who played the President on '24' and about five other players," explained an unnamed source.
The magic could have been back.
Now, we wait. If the Yankees' rotation continues to struggle, the Chamberlain topic could come up again and maybe the next time there will be a bit more anything can happen involved.