WHITESTONE, NY – The most iconic sports organization with the most historical team members is the New York Yankees franchise. For years they proudly displayed their past players who have contributed to the 27 World Championships. Quietly something strange is going on down on the farm.
Driving through the strip of Dale Mabry in Tampa, on the corner of Himes, the home of the Yankees development complex, a billboard that displayed the bragging rights is blank. It usually showed a montage beginning with Babe Ruth, all the way to Derek Jeter. In between those two icons were Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, and even home grown product Bernie Williams.
On the corner of Martin Luther King Boulevard you can see the back of the scoreboard. It was covered with a montage of the greats who played in pinstripes. That’s gone too. An electronic message board flashed a mugshot of Rachel Balkovec with the message, “Creating Herstory.”
The Yanks have been around since 1903 and have produced tons of memories to its generation of fans. Their knack of creating mystique and aura on any given game is second to none.
Have the Bombers fallen to the spell of cancel culture?
Has the hierarchy decided to move on from its past?
Are their annual Old-Timers Day events soon to be a thing of the past?
A hint could be the hiring of the new coaching staff. Absolutely no past players to help pass the torch, except for Hensley Meulens to teach the Yankees Way. What makes this even more pathetic is Meulens role is being the assistant to the assistant hitting coach. The two gurus ahead of him have a total of zero hits in professional baseball.
If the new mentality of these clueless geeks behind the laptops, who go the ANALytic route is to forget the past, then I guess the Yankees were doing it all wrong when they won those 27 championships. Somewhere up above the men who embraced the past legends must be fuming. Will Monument Park be replaced by picnic seating, and will the Retired Numbers go the crypto route?
Try to R.I.P. George and Hank!
