Yankee Fans: Relax and Enjoy the Race
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

It’s genuinely amazing how little credit the Yankees get sometimes. Witness the hysteria over the Great Yankee choke-job of 2004.The Yankees haven’t choked anything away; they still have the best record in the league, and the sudden narrowing of the division race has less to do with the team’s recent stretch of .500 baseball than with the great play of the Red Sox.
But there is a feeling that the Yankees have collapsed, which seems to have been crystallized in the image of Kevin Brown breaking his own hand on a wall.
This has less to do with the team and the way it’s been playing than the absurd expectations harbored by fans. You could claim that those expectations are fair because of the payroll, but that’s untrue; the payroll should, logically, put pressure on team management. The players can hardly be blamed for signing on to ill-considered contracts.
You could claim that those expectations are fair because the Yankees play in New York; but that claim just reveals the peculiar and charming blend of insecurity and narcissism passed off as boastful pride that has characterized Gotham ever since the first Dutchman set foot on its shores.
The Yankees are playing toward the lower end of expectations, but in all have done well. There’s not even any reason to be surprised at the seasons being had by the four players most often blamed for the team’s supposed failures.
The silliest criticism is leveled at Alex Rodriguez, said to lack the heart and fire to compete in New York, or at least to get runners in from scoring position in close games. Fans debate his psychology with all the fervor of Arabists scrutinizing Grand Ayatollah Sistani: Might the drop-off in his statistics have something to do with moving from a great hitter’s park to a good pitcher’s park? Might his frustrating lack of success in the clutch just be the same bad luck that can affect any hitter? The answer to both is, “Yes.” Rodriguez is not the problem.
The debate society may want to note, before deciding that Rodriguez should be released for general ineffectiveness, that his road OPS this year (.937) is precisely two points below his road OPS from 2001-03.
The ire directed at Javier Vazquez is less ridiculous than what Rodriguez must endure, but only slightly. True, Vazquez isn’t having a particularly good season, but what could have been reasonably expected? He was acquired because he was thought to have a shot at turning into the next Pedro Martinez, or at least the next Mike Mussina. But he was also acquired with the knowledge that, having averaged 225 innings a year from the ages of 23 to 26, his arm might be shot.
As Vazquez’s strikeout rate has dropped by a third this year, it’s looking like the dice came up badly for the Yankees, but anyone who was paying attention knew that was a good possibility.
The directing of blame towards these two, though, isn’t nearly as bad as the directing of blame toward Mussina and Jason Giambi. What could anyone have expected of them? Mussina has been, for more than a decade, one of the most reliable and hardest-worked pitchers in the major leagues. Did anyone really think that he would never start to show the wear?
And to feign surprise at Giambi’s breakdown is simply the limit of what can be accepted. With his thick body, utter lack of athleticism, advancing age, and recent history of injury, he could not have been considered anything but a terrible risk coming into the season. It’s entirely likely that had he not developed the tumor that has kept him out, an injury – in his knee or elsewhere – would have limited him just as much.
It’s telling that with “failures” ranging from A-Rod’s failure to be a markedly better player than he was over the last three years to Giambi’s failure to make his body hold up under strains it cannot endure, the Yankees are still the best team in the American League. Had everything gone right, they could have won 120 games. It has not and they’re still in first place. Labor Day is past; Yankees fans, relax and enjoy what you haven’t in seven years: a real pennant race.