Beyond the Byline: As a proud Yankee fan, changes are needed

WILKES-BARRE — The great thing about Fenway Park in Boston and Wrigley Field in Chicago — and even Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles — is that those ball parks still sit exactly where they were when they first opened.

Yes Fenway and Wrigley are the two oldest ballparks in Major League Baseball and Dodger Stadium. Chavez Ravine, is the third oldest.

The point here is that those ballparks share one thing in common: every Red Sox, Cubs and Dodgers player all stood in the same batter’s boxes and pitched from the same pitching mounds and stood in the same spots in all three parks.

That is real baseball history.

Think about it: all those players played in the same parks. I can see them all. Ted Williams in Boston, Ernie Banks in Chicago, Sandy Koufax in Los Angeles. It’s something that means a lot to pure baseball fans.

So as I extend congratulations to the World Champion Dodgers — which is difficult for any real Yankee fan to do — I also congratulate my Bronx Bombers on a great season. The Yanks were the best team in the American League and, perhaps, the fifth best team in the MLB behind the Dodgers, Padres, Phillies and Mets.

But I just can’t let this season go as we head to a very long off-season of trying to figure out what to do to make the Yankees better.

And I approach this task by, yes, hopping in the Wayback Machine to the days of old Yankees Stadium — the original cavernous oddly painted green with those glorious monuments right there in centerfield where Mickey Mantle maneuvered around to chase down and opponent’s double.

This is where real Yankee players played real baseball games against other real baseball teams. It was a time when players wore flannel uniforms and the dimensions were short down either line and very long in center — well over 450 feet.

This was a ballpark — these were baseball players.

The teams and players of the 1960s were so much better than today. Every team had an All-Star or two or three or more — Hall of Famers even.

The Yankees had Mantle, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford and more. There were so many great players back then: Hank Aaron, Eddie Matthews, Warren Spahn of the Braves; Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal of the Giants; Roberto Clemente, of the Pirates; Harmon Killebrew, Tony Oliva and Rod Carew of the Twins; Al Kaline, of the Tigers; Maury Wills, Tommy and Willie Davis, Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale of the Dodgers; Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, of the Red Sox; Frank Robinson, Pete Rose, of the Reds; Brooks Robinson, Jim Palmer, of the Orioles; Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, of the Cardinals; Ernie Banks, Ron Santo, Billy Williams, Cubs; Richie Allen, Robin Roberts, of the Phillies; and many more.

It was always good to see players like these in any game. First of all, these guys always gave 100% — they were a pleasure to watch.

I would love to go back and sit in the stands at Yankee Stadium or Connie Mack Stadium and watch a game start to finish.

My dad was a true baseball fan. In the early 60s, dad took me and my mom to Pittsburgh to watch a weekend series between the Pirates and the San Francisco Giants. Dad said he wanted me to see some great baseball played by great baseball players.

Boy was he right.

During this game, a Giant hit a ball down the right field line into the corner of Forbes Field. The batter/runner decided to try to stretch it into a triple. Clemente ran the ball down, turned and threw a strike — all the way to third base — to nail the runner by three feet. It was one of the most amazing defensive plays I have ever seen on a baseball field.

Dad was right, we witnessed some really great baseball during those three games. Besides Clemente, I saw Mays, McCovey, Marichal and many more.

But I doubt we will ever see baseball played like it was in Forbes Field back in the 60s, nor will we ever see players like that again — yes, there are good players today, but none play the game the way they all did back then.

I direct you to a story written by Scott Boeck of USA Today, which lists some amazing and depressing facts.

“The Los Angeles Dodgers spent over a billion dollars last winter — on just four players,” Boeck wrote. “But, it’s the New York Mets who opened the 2024 season with the highest-player payroll ($305.6 million) among the 30 Opening Day rosters, according to USA TODAY’S annual salary report.”

Boeck goes on to report that the Dodgers, who spent $1.301 billion on Shohei Ohtani ($700 million), Yoshinobu Yamamoto ($325 million), Tyler Glasnow ($136.6 million) and Will Smith ($140 million), aren’t far behind with a $249.8 million payroll.

There is extreme wealth in MLB and it is reflected on which teams annually make the playoffs. Something needs to be done to raise the parity/competitive level for the sake of the game.

That being said, my Yankees need to change their ways. They need to better evaluate players, they need better coaches to handle things like Aaron Judge’s annual post-season failures. Judge is great and he is also a terrific role model — but when the playoff bell rings, he thinks its recess time.

And somebody has to ask Manager Aaron Boone what he was thinking when he put Nestor Cortes, who hadn’t pitched in months, in Game 1. Yanks were leading by 1 — Cortes gave up a grand slam to Freddie Freeman.

And what the heck was going on in the fifth inning of Game 5? Why didn’t Gerrit Cole run to first base to take the throw from Anthony Rizzo that would have ended the inning and preserved the Yanks’ 5-0 lead?

It’s time the Yankees took off the rose colored glasses and did a serious assessment of their team and management and tossed the analytics.

Invest in players who can put the ball in play, who won’t look at third strikes and who will hustle and play defense — and be allowed to grow facial hair.

And they need their team owner to write big checks when necessary.

Be proud of the Yankees, but they can be better.