2008 Woodie Awards
NY Yankees in search of change
Peter Smelser, Editor-in-chief
Issue date: 10/17/06
Last Updated: 12/26/07
In 1776, King George III had British troops working on lopping off the head of an American Revolution. In 2006, King George (Steinbrenner) was rumored to be lopping off the head of his team manager Joe Torre, after another "failure."
The New York Yankees entered this year's Major League Baseball playoffs looking like an unstoppable juggernaut. Winning 97 games with one of the scariest batting lineups assembled top-to-bottom, it was expected that they celebrate a World Series Championship in the streets of New York.
But, surprising most, they lost again early in the playoffs.
This is just the continuation of the Yankees postseason woes that have been going on since 2001. But this season seemed to be a culmination.
After destroying the Detroit Tigers in game one, things came unglued for the Yankees. They lost three consecutive games and the series to the Tigers.
Alex Rodriguez, New York's $25 million golden boy, batted 1-14 in the four game series. Gary Sheffield tried his best to match A-Rod and batted 1-12, as the Tigers steamrolled the Yanks in games two, three and four.
So what went wrong? Well, everything. But this has been a long time coming.
What happened to the Yankees this year starts with an old adage that defense wins championships. In baseball your pitching is the biggest part of that defensive.
This year, like the past few, the Yankees have not had pitching. Randy Johnson, this late in his career, is not a No. one starter, neither is the aging righty Mike Mussina. Johnson is only getting older and his career-high 5.00 ERA shows it. Jaret Wright has flopped for this team and the one bright spot, Chien-Ming Wang, is still developing.
The one great pitcher the Yankees have left is closer Mariano Rivera. But even he is showing the test of age and spent several chunks of this season injured.
The lone way the Yankees could get to Rivera from their starting pitching was through a bullpen that had more holes than a sponge.
The New York Yankees entered this year's Major League Baseball playoffs looking like an unstoppable juggernaut. Winning 97 games with one of the scariest batting lineups assembled top-to-bottom, it was expected that they celebrate a World Series Championship in the streets of New York.
But, surprising most, they lost again early in the playoffs.
This is just the continuation of the Yankees postseason woes that have been going on since 2001. But this season seemed to be a culmination.
After destroying the Detroit Tigers in game one, things came unglued for the Yankees. They lost three consecutive games and the series to the Tigers.
Alex Rodriguez, New York's $25 million golden boy, batted 1-14 in the four game series. Gary Sheffield tried his best to match A-Rod and batted 1-12, as the Tigers steamrolled the Yanks in games two, three and four.
So what went wrong? Well, everything. But this has been a long time coming.
What happened to the Yankees this year starts with an old adage that defense wins championships. In baseball your pitching is the biggest part of that defensive.
This year, like the past few, the Yankees have not had pitching. Randy Johnson, this late in his career, is not a No. one starter, neither is the aging righty Mike Mussina. Johnson is only getting older and his career-high 5.00 ERA shows it. Jaret Wright has flopped for this team and the one bright spot, Chien-Ming Wang, is still developing.
The one great pitcher the Yankees have left is closer Mariano Rivera. But even he is showing the test of age and spent several chunks of this season injured.
The lone way the Yankees could get to Rivera from their starting pitching was through a bullpen that had more holes than a sponge.
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