Randy to the Yankees…mmmaybe
So yeah, the Yankees and Diamondbacks, at it again. I don’t have anything to say about whether or not it’s a good eadl until something actually happens, but… what I thought was interesting today, reading these stories, was the weird sniping going on. Yankees president Randy Levine, quoted in the MLB.com story:
“It was disappointing,” Levine said of the three-team deal which fell through. “We thought we had an agreement, and the Dodgers reneged after they called and asked to get involved. That’s life. It moves on.”
Now, I understand that a huge amount of raw bullflop is shoveled out by front offices on all transactions. LA made a seven-year offer on Beltre, the M’s weren’t trying to trade Mike Cameron that one time, the reason for this move was x, or y, or… whatever. In many cases, as fans, we have to throw our hands up and say “There is no way, without tape recordings of phone conversations, that I’ll ever know the truth about this.”
I accept that. I also know that a huge part of the baseball rumor mill is fueled by front offices, some of which like to float rumors that another team’s shopping player x so they’ll have some pretense to call that team and say “so, what would you want for player x?” And also that many baseball rumors are entirely the creation of someone, from someone in the front office with an agenda to a reporter with a deadline and no story written.
This is unusual because it’s a nasty little shot at the Dodgers. It’s petty. Baseball’s a small, small industry: there aren’t many major league teams, and it’s in everyone’s best interests to have good relations with everyone else. Personalities get in the way, of course, and you see some teams never deal with each other, but that’s normal, and even then it’s rare for someone to be called out like this.
It means either — New York’s really so angry about LA pulling out of the deal that they’re willing to talk about it in public, or New York’s even more petty of an organization than their enemies think.
In the wake of the first three-way deal falling through, it was weird to see how crazy and scattered the fallout was, with different stories about DePodesta losing his nerve to LA nixing the deal as a favor to Vazquez. And now, there’s still open ill will towards LA over it… it’s strange.
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51 Responses to “Randy to the Yankees…mmmaybe”
I find it incredible how little attention has been paid to post #4 by Jim Thomsen. Outstanding song.
Now I’m going to have that song running through my head all day. I have images of Randy Johnson twirling circles through the Alps, then running across the grey convent courtyard as he arrives late to mass.