The Middle Finger: Hank Steinbrenner Part Deux

HEIL, STEINBRENNER!!!

If you had "20 Games" in your When Will Boy Wonder Start Shooting Off At The Mouth Pool, you win! Take it away, Stable Boy:

I want him as a starter and so does everyone else, including him, and that is what we are working toward and we need him there now. There is no question about it, you don't have a guy with a 100-mile-per-hour fastball and keep him as a setup guy. You just don't do that. You have to be an idiot to do that. The starting rotation is not what I would have chosen at the beginning of the year, but that is not a big news flash to anyone.

Ladies and Gentleman, our first two-time "winner" of the Middle Finger, Mr. Hank Steinbrenner!!!

Ah yes, even though everyone is already banged up, they haven't had an off day since Vietnam (before yesterday), and IT'S STILL EARLY, Hammerin' Hank is pissed. He's had it up to his bulldog cheeks with this team. It's time for change, dammit. Who cares if it means that our best pitcher would have to go to the minors for a month? Who cares if it leaves a glaring, gigantic, Paris Hilton vagina-sized hole in the bullpen? Who gives a fuck if it ensures more late-inning losses than a relief staff anchored by Eric Gagne and Joe Borowski with a little playoff-version of Brad Lidge sprinkled in? For fuck's sake, we need a change!



I officially hate Hank Steinbrenner. I initially thought that it would be quite amusing to see him run the Yankees. Yeah, I was wrong...more like BEmusing (I'm hilarious!). This former stable jockey now clearly believes that he should have all the power and should be making all personnel decisions. And where are these thoughts coming from, really? Does he really believe that he's the smartest guy in any room that he walks into? You know, for a guy who has gone on record stating that his favorite actress is Jennifer Love Hewitt, I'm surprised that he's still allowed to cross the street without holding an adult's hand. And I'm pretty sure that he knows nothing about talent evaluation, but maybe I'm selling Boy Wonder short.

Now let's examine his claim as far as the on-field implications go. Joba Chamberlain is arguably the best set-up man in baseball. He's the only pitcher that I trust to get the ball to Mariano. Eventually, he will be a front of the rotation starter. But not now. Not this year. Once Brian Cashman and Unfrozen Caveman Manager made the choice to keep him in the bullpen this year, that's it, it's done. He's got to stay there all season. There can be no hindsight in this circumstance. No what if's. No we should have's. None of that shit. It doesn't help anything.

Because, you see, here is the problem. You can't just take a set-up man, sit him for a few days, and then say, "Hey, Joba, you're starting today and we're counting on 7 innings or 100 pitches...good luck." You can't do that. Not even terrible manager hall of famers Eric Wedge and Bob Brenly would do that. You can't do that especially to a young kid that you want to be dominant for the next decade. Thus, to make that move work, he has to go to Scranton to stretch out his arm. He's in the minors for at least 5 starts. That is a full freaking month with your most dominating pitcher striking out International League hitters. It's not plausible.

In the situation that the Yankees are in now, Joba can help them win every other day...maybe 4 times a week. Handjob Hank would prefer it if Joba could help the team win every fifth day. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Personally, I'm fine with making Joba a starter...just not this year. The bullpen dynamic is fantastic right now the way it is. You've got Bruney and Traber in the 6th/7th, Joba in the 7th/8th, Mariano in the 9th, and Kyle Farnsworth somehow successfully dodging sniper fire as he crouches behind the monuments. The starting pitching hasn't been very good thus far, but it's early. I would rather be worrying about Hughes and Kennedy growing into back-end of the rotation than the Indians with Sabathia or the Tigers with White Trashlander wondering if their aces have lost it.

Who is The Hammer calling an idiot by the way? Now THAT is an intriguing question. Cashman? Unfrozen Caveman Manager? Those responsible for The Bronx Is Burning? I'm not really sure there either. I like to think that he didn't know what he was saying. So, in essence, he was referring to himself as an idiot. When you think of it that way, it starts making sense. Hank is the type of guy who would call himself out to the media for being an idiot.

And I love the dig that Hummer Hank threw in at the end about how he wanted to dump the kid's for Santana. You know what, Johan is 1-2 in a terrible league right now. You would have given him 200 million. Did you forget about that, assbutt? The more that you hear and read come out of New York, the more you have to respect the job that Brian Cashman has done. It can't be easy dealing with the Steinbrenner Asylum yet he always sticks to his guns regarding how the team should be run.

Ahhhhhh!!! Hank Steinbrenner drives me crazy with his random tirades. I wish he would just go out and buy Seasons 1 and 2 of The Ghost Whisperer on DVD and let the season play out a bit before he starts sending goons to threaten the players if they go 0-4 one night. It won't happen though and by the 4th of July, Unfrozen Caveman Manager will have been fired and replaced by Isiah Thomas. I can see it unfolding already.



So enjoy your second bird, Hank. You have certainly earned the mothafucka.

PS - If you want to point fingers and do what needs to be done to help the team, see what the Blue Jays did with Frank Thomas and apply it to a certain greasy first baseman hitting .109. I'm not saying, I'm just saying...

Close Runner-Ups this week: Brendan Haywood for his bush-league cheap shots on Our King and the scorebard-reading challenged DeShawn Stevenson. I CAN SEE YOU, BITCH, and you lost by 30!!!