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Clash Of The Catchers: Yankees Tensions Not Going Anywhere
By
Ben Yakas
Published May 18, 2011
Modified May 18, 2011
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By
Ben Yakas
Published May 18, 2011
Modified May 18, 2011
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With Posadagate (or "Operation Pout Down") slowly shifting into the background after a messy weekend in the Bronx, the Yankees can finally start to get back to normal...or not: the News reports that the rift between Posada and manager Joe Girardi has existed for years, and the two clashed repeatedly during the 2005 season, when Girardi was a bench coach heavily involved with catchers' meetings and scouting reports: "Jorge would deviate from those plans all the time during games, which drove Joe nuts. Joe would call him out on it all the time, which drove Jorge mental," a source told them.
The working relationship between the catcher and the former catcher constantly created tensions throughout the 2005 season: "Jorge felt everything he did behind the plate was being second-guessed by Girardi on the bench. The way Jorge called a game was a big issue for Girardi," the source added. When Girardi dropped Posada, who has been struggling mightily in his new position as DH this year, to ninth in the batting order before Saturday's game, a friend of Posada's implied his day-off was just the culmination of several long-simmering problems: "It was just the combination of everything building up in him - his frustration at not helping the team and the feel that, right now, he sucks, and that everything in his world is pretty (expletive). He didn't want out and doesn't want out."
Don't expect that things will get easier for Posada just because he's back in the lineup and publicly apologized. Posada went 2-3 with a double in last night's win against the Tampa Bay Rays, butGirardi said before the game he would be judged on his performance on a day-to-day level: "As you know, we're in a long stretch and there's some guys that I need to DH from time to time. So we'll just go day to day.''
Of course, if it's not one thing...the Yankees could be facing terrible parking woes in the near future. Their $340 million stadium parking system is on the verge of financial collapse—in April, paying customers occupied only 31 percent of the 9,000 parking spaces on game days. The garages, which are owned and operated by Bronx Parking Development Inc., will likely be out of business before the end of the year, according to sources. Yankees fans won't be the only ones put out by this—if it goes bankrupt, the Bloomberg administration faces the biggest default of a tax-exempt bond in this city since the 1970s.
Tagged
baseball
joe girardi
Jorge Posada
mlb
parking
Yankees
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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