Hey, Hank: Reach out and touch someone

Wallace Matthews

May 4, 2008

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Hank Steinbrenner, please pick up the white courtesy phone.

Your favorite team won for the second day in a row yesterday, beating a couple of starting pitchers who reasonably might have been expected to overpower your tired, aging lineup.

And your two starting pitchers, one whom you enjoyed beating up in arbitration in February and one whom you wish would morph into Jamie Moyer or disappear, came up with the kind of efforts to make even you forget the failures of Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy.

The bats continue to show signs of life - well, all except those swung by Robinson Cano and Jason Giambi - and the team that was under .500 in April is now playing .667 ball in May. (It's only three games, but you've got to start somewhere.)

Wallace Matthews E-mail | Recent columns

Lord knows you have no problem delivering the kick in the butt when necessary, or even when unnecessary. So where is today's phone call? Where is the pat on the back for a job well done?

"I'm very disappointed with the way the season has gone, period," you said Friday before the Yankees, behind Chien-Ming Wang, beat Erik Bedard and the Mariners, 5-1.

"We just can't win one out of five games, every time Wang pitches," you told the AP reporter who happened to catch you in a talkative mood, which is generally whenever things are going badly. "It's not going to work. It's not a good win percentage. Starting pitching is where it's at, especially in the postseason. At this point, we'll see if we even make the postseason."

So where is the phone call to the press box, the statement issued from Yankee Central in Tampa, the fortuitous answering of the blind call to your cell phone seeking some sort of comment on the latest news out of Yankee Stadium? I tried to call you yesterday, as did a lot of other reporters at the chilly Stadium, in an effort to get you to say something nice about your team for a change. But you weren't answering the phone, nor were you calling back.

My usual motto, of course, is "if you haven't got anything nice to say, pull up a chair," but some days you just can't help yourself. There's just nothing nasty to be said. And yesterday was one of those days. So where the heck were you hiding yourself?

Your first call, of course, should be to Mussina, the 254-game winner you have been dying to yank from the rotation and replace with a kid who has pitched all of 36 major-league innings, almost none of them back-to-back.

You might want to pat yourself on the back a little. After all, Mussina did pitch a little like former Mariner Moyer in shutting down Seattle for six innings - although not in the sixth, when he struck out the side, beating Richie Sexson on a fastball with a runner on base.

"Reared back and blew it right past him," Mussina said wryly. "I cut it loose. Eighty-nine miles per hour."

Your second call should be to Joe Girardi, the new manager you determined was the only major change this club needed to improve off last season. Girardi seems to understand that a baseball season is to be judged not on a day-by-day, inning-by-inning, out-by-out basis but only after a significant number of games have been played and a pattern has been established.

"People tend to make too much of one game," said Girardi, who nevertheless was happy with yesterday's 6-1 victory. "The season's a grind. You can't get too emotional after one game, win or lose."

I'm certain he wouldn't mind hearing that things no longer look as bleak as they did Friday afternoon.

For one day, at least, try to put aside the fact that Giambi and Cano are hitting .154 and .150 and that Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada are on the disabled list. Think about Johnny Damon, 3-for-5 with two doubles and a homer yesterday, and Derek Jeter, with three hits, and Bobby Abreu, with two hits, and Hideki Matsui, leading all your regulars with a .317 average. Think about Mussina, who passed Hall of Famer Carl Hubbell on the all-time win list, tied Jack Morris and Hall of Famer Red Faber, and might even catch Hall of Famer Bob Feller (266) this year.

Most of all, think about how much more baseball there is to be played, how many more games will be won - and lost - and how many more angry tirades there are to be delivered.

This is a rare chance to make a pleasant call, one that leaves the recipient enlightened, not enraged. Hank, your boys did well over the past two days. Isn't it time you did well by them?