MVN - Most Valuable Network

Hank Speaks: What Else Is New

After last night’s excruciating loss to the Rays, in which the Yankees looked lethargic when compared to the younger Tampa Bay club, Hank Steinbrenner had some choice words for his struggling 209 million dollar investment. In an interview with the NY Post, he said:

 ”The bottom line is that the team is not playing the way it is capable of playing,” Steinbrenner said. “These players are being paid a lot of money and they had better decide for themselves to earn that money…..I’m not saying they are not giving the effort, but they need to be playing harder.”

Hank, you cannot have it both ways. Either they are playing hard enough and giving the requisite effort, or they are not. When you say they need to play harder, you are saying they are not giving the effort.That, in turn, is a major indictment of the manager that you hired a few short months ago. It is amazing that Hank is calling out his manager after 6 weeks of poor play, when the club has had plenty of injuries to key cogs as well as slow starts from important young players. It is hard to say what exactly the owner wanted to accomplish with his little rant. Does he really think the players are going to read the quotes and say, “You know what, I really have not been trying. Hank has  motivated me to improve.” If so , then he is quite delusional.

Hank then went on to say,

“This is going to get turned around,” Steinbrenner said. “If it’s not turned around this year, then it will be turned around next year, by force if we have too.”

Ooooh. Brian Cashman, if you had not already figured out that you are on a short leash, Hank is putting you on notice- watch your back. Seriously, I really liked Hank when he first started asserting himself, and I am glad that the owner cares so much about the team. But if he runs a perfectly good and competent general manager out of town, I will not be a happy camper.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 14th, 2008 at 11:26 am and is filed under Off the Facade. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.