'Staggering amount of negative noise in NY from media and fans,' exec. rival of Yankees to Joel Sherman, 9/07

(From Joel Sherman's column, 9/21/07): "As a rival executive (of the Yankees) said recently,

• “...It is staggering the amount of negative noise that comes in New York (from media and fans)

when your team spends that much money, has their expectations and has their history. It is bad anywhere, but in New York it is so much louder and so much more relentless. To stay the course, to stay yourself, I really admire that.”"

From Joel Sherman's 9/21/2007 NY Post column, "Steadiness and Sturdiness"

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• Joel Sherman finds the Commissioner's office to be the source of much anti Yankee negativity. From his 2006 book about the 1996 Yankees, "Birth of a Dynasty:"

"Unfortunately for the legacy of this group, the success of these Yankees (1996 team) coincided with

• a powerful push by central baseball to convince fans that the disparity between the financial "haves" and "have-nots" was destroying the competitive balance of the sport. The Yankees came to embody the big-market superpowers. They were demonized for buying championships.

• They were cast as villains by a Commissioner's Office that saw the advantages of portraying them as a prop in a strategy to win salary concessions from the players in collective bargaining,

• Thus the Yankees of this era do not receive near the amount of credit they deserve for what they accomplished."...

Page 311 from Joel Sherman in his 2006 book, "Birth of a Dynasty," about the 1996 Yankees.

• The Yankee organization has failed to address this problem as baseball media has become even more centralized. Perhaps they take the view that it's just the way things are when you're the Yankees. This isn't true, and it's an attitude that costs the Yankees money and fans. Negativity is used because it works. Prospective free agents and their wives are aware of it as well. ed.

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