TAMPA – When the Yankees were actually winning championships and not just vowing to do so, they were a button-down team that nevertheless made room for idiosyncratic characters like Paul O’Neill, David Cone and David Wells.
And if, in the era spanning 1996 through 2000, Pinstripes defined the man, the uniform was most certainly not a one-size-fits-all type of deal.
Now, however, we wonder. We wonder whether a club that over the past five years has grown more and more homogenized, even while incorporating personalities as disparate as Randy Johnson and Alex Rodriguez, and has lost some of the soul necessary to grind through 162 regular-season games and then however many more it takes to win the World Series.
The Yankees sign players who have a flavorful history of rocky road and somehow, whether intentionally or not, turn vanilla. And then, perhaps not so surprisingly, cannot combine to find the way to win 11 times in the postseason.
“When we sign players, we sign them for who they are, both on and off the field,” GM Brian Cashman said yesterday. “We want them to be themselves.
“But do players try and tone it down in order to fit in when they step into the clubhouse? Probably. And I think that if a player can’t be himself, that can’t be a good thing.”
This isn’t a Big Brother is Watching kind of thing, though we all know He is. It isn’t about facial hair or standing at attention during the Anthem and God Bless America. This isn’t about anything sinister.
It is, however, about how sometimes the ideal of conforming isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
“Generally speaking, a team’s personality is defined by the manager and either the most senior player, or star, or captain with the rest of the team following suit,” said Al Leiter, who’s been around long enough to know. “Here, Joe [Torre] is very calm, classy, business-like and conducts himself as the ultimate professional, and Derek [Jeter] is in that exact mold.
“Now fast-forward, and when you’re bringing players onto the team who have not only established themselves as stars, but are future Hall of Famers who have strong personalities of their own, it isn’t necessarily a positive thing for them to change who they are.
“Because any player’s strut, swagger, personality, self-esteem and spirit all are integral parts of how they evolve as players. Remove that from them, and their ability is compromised.”
No one ever, ever, ever sees Jeter sweat. He’s as stoic (and successful) as they come. And yet, as aware as the captain is of his responsibility to establish a tone for his team, he doesn’t demand his teammates march in synchronized lockstep behind him.
“I am who I am, but I certainly don’t expect any player to change his personality to become more like me,” Jeter said. “I could care less what a player’s personality is as long as he performs on the field.
“In ’98 when we won 125 games, I know I didn’t go out to eat with everybody on the team. As long as everybody’s on the same page when we’re on the field, nothing else matters.”
Johnson seemed at times to be pitching in shrink-wrapped material last year, his flamboyance as much of a memory as his 98 mph heater. While Johnson yesterday allowed that “I might not have been as animated last year, but I pitched well in plenty of games where I wasn’t jumping around,” he did say he already has advised Johnny Damon not to change at all from the way he was on a Red Sox team where the players seem to have the largesse to behave as if a substitute teacher is in front of the classroom.
“I talked to Johnny and said that he’s a very successful player coming from a very successful team, and not to change anything.
“I want to win; that’s a given. And I have to be myself, no more and certainly no less. The one thing I’d say is that if you’re an outgoing personality and think you have to suppress that part of you because you’re a Yankee, that’s not going to work any better than an introvert trying to fit in by becoming a Type-A personality.
“Players have to be who they are.”
Even, if not especially, when they slip into Pinstripes.
