Could somebody please tell Hank Steinbrenner to shut up?

Just when it looked like the Yankees were starting to win the PR battle in their contract battle with Derek Jeter, some reporter had to reach out to Hank Steinbrenner for a quote. And, as expected, Hank said something stupid. Shocker, I know.

Hank, the Steinbrenner responsible for giving Alex Rodriguez that ridiculous 10-year, $275+ million deal, told the Associated Press last night:

"As much as we want to keep everybody, we've already made these guys very, very rich, and I don't feel we owe anybody anything monetarily," the Yankees co-chairman said Tuesday. "Some of these players are wealthier than their bosses."

The first part is technically true -- no star player has given the Yankees any hometown discounts -- but a little inartfully said. The last part is just silly. Even the richest player is a pauper compared to a baseball owner. Sure, Yankee star players may have a better cash flow than Hank probably does these days. But he's 1/4 owner of the richest franchise in sports. And it's not like he got that money on his own merits; he happened to be born into the Steinbrenner family. Bless his heart, but please, spare us the poor-mouthing.

Look, I'm on the Yankees' side here, but what Hank said isn't helpful. If he had to say anything, I wish he had done something funny, more along the lines of when he wondered if A-Rod wanted to go into the Hall of Fame as a Yankee or as a Toledo Mud Hen.
Blogger Dan Hanzus chastised the Yanks for not putting Hank in a panic room or something to prevent this from happening:

Unfortunately, Yankee officials were playing checkers when they needed to be playing chess, and that's how a reporter from the Associated Press managed to get through to Hal's loquacious brother, Hank, on Tuesday.

Heh!

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Derek Jeter has PR machine working overtime for him

I wrote something for The Faster Times today, about how ridiculous Derek Jeter agent Casey Close was in comparing his client to Babe Ruth. And jusr prior to that, we had Jeter's personal trainer making his case to Jeter biographer Ian O'Connor. Now there's yet another inside source to the Jeter camp -- this one anonymous -- griping about how poorly their guy has been treated, and calling it an "arbitration ambush" approach. What's next? Jeter's mother complaining?

Anyhow, here are a few tidbits from the Mark Feinsand article in the Daily News:

"Players like Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle - and Derek Jeter - are what make the Yankees the Yankees," the source said. "The iconic players make the iconic franchise, not the other way around."

It's both, actually. Would Jeter be an icon if he were with, say, Houston, all his career? I think not. Craig Biggio had over 3000 hits for the Astros, with some similar career numbers as Jeter, but he never got his level of fame -- or endorsements.

Feinsand himself claims that the Yankees " have not been shy in pointing out Jeter's shortcomings, presumably as a counterpoint to what he brings to the franchise - a peculiar approach to signing a free agent of Jeter's status." Um, no, they haven't, unless you think that Randy Levine mentioning that it's a different contract situation than it was 10 years ago is a smear tactic.

Anyhow, the anonymous source also says, "If you have a valuable asset, why would you want to devalue it? That's what they're doing. It has an arbitration feel to it."

Huh? By most accounts, instead of devaluing him, they've offered Jeter two to three times his current market value. How insulting, right?

According to what Feinsand's source told him, Jeter "is likely looking for a four-year contract that takes him through his 40th birthday - similar to the deals the Yankees came to with both Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera three years ago. "He's not trying to be unreasonable," the source said of Jeter. "He just doesn't want to go through this again in a few years."

Using Posada here is a great example -- to show why the Yanks shouldn't give Jeter a four-year deal! The year after signing that contract, Jorge got injured. And while he bounced back in 2009, he was awful in 2010, lost the ability to throw, and is no longer the starting catcher. And the Yankees still owe him $13 million for 2011. That's exactly what they're trying to avoid with the captain.

If Derek Jeter wants to keep that "above it all" status, he might start by getting his mouthpieces to shut up and stop pleading his case in the press. You know, like the way free agent Mariano Rivera,  the most valuable player of the Yankees of the last fifteen years, is doing right now.

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