Hideki I-Rob-You

The Sporting Life:

The Public Professor’s

Saturday Sports Column

Former New York Yankee pitcher Hideki Irabu was found dead the other day in his L.A. home, an apparent suicide.  Yankee owner George Steinbrenner had once infamously dubbed the overpaid, under-performing Irabu “The Fat Toad.”  But Yankee fans had already started calling him “Hideki I-Rob-You,” which was a much better nickname.  Steinbrenner’s “Toad” was uncreative and uninteresting.  The fans’ moniker not only highlighted Irabu’s lowlight performance with The Bronx Bombers, but also pointed out what a dunce Steinbrenner himself was for coughing up all that money to lure the guy over from Japan.

And that’s why I’ll always remember Irabu less for his own shortcomings on the mound and more as a symbol of Steinbrenner’s failures.

The Boss wanted to win and was willing to pony up the cash to pay for good players, but he was forever mucking up the works.  In way over his head when it came to player personnel decisions, Steinbrenner’s massive ego and spoiled brat, mine-mine-mine mentality often led him to insist on one disastrous deal after another.  Though of course when they would go south, he would typically blame them on his “baseball people.”  And then he would turn around and buy another clunker.  That’s why the only two times during his Steinbrenner’s four decades-long reign that the Yankees ever had truly great teams (the late 1970s and late 1990s) were when he was suspended from Major League Baseball, leaving the front office free of his bullying and meddling.

That’s right.  Two different commissioners each suspended Steinbrenner for years at a time.

The first suspension came in 1974 when Steinbrenner pleaded guilty to several felonies, including: devising a scheme to illegally funnel corporate campaign contributions to politicians; making “false and misleading” statements about $25,000 he donated Richard Nixon’s 1972 re-election campaign; and trying to influence and intimidate his employees into giving false information to a grand jury.

This of course was what Yankee manager Billy Martin was he talking about in 1978 when he famously responded to a question about Reggie Jackson and Steinbrenner undermining his authority on the team by stating: “One’s a born liar, the other’s convicted.”

God, I miss Billy.

Ronald Reagan ended up giving Steinbrenner a pardon.  I don’t miss either of them.

The second suspension came during the 1980s when it was revealed that Steinbrenner had paid a degenerate lowlife named Howie Spira to dig up dirt on star outfielder Dave Winfield.  Why would an owner do such a thing to one of his players?  Steinbrenner was hoping it would give him an excuse to avoid making contractual payments to Winfield’s charity for children.  Seriously.  You can’t make that kind of stuff up.

To be sure, Hideki Irabu was a major disappointment with the New York Yankees.  He was a god-awful pitcher with a rotten disposition whose failures on the mound caused endless frustration for Yankee fans such as myself.  But on the occasion of his death, I won’t focus on the dreadful statistics or his temper tantrums that were reputed to have alienated teammates.  Rather, I’ll think back on him as Hideki I-Rob-You,  poster child for Steinbrenner’s dumb personnel moves, a constant reminder of why the Yankee owner needed to keep his paws off his own team, and an easy card to pull when some ignorant or shameless apologist would wax rhapsodic about “The Boss.”

Rest in peace, Sweet Toad.