THE AUDIENCE APPLAUDS as President George W. Bush strides confidently to the podium in the wood-paneled East Room of the White House. Dressed in a light blue suit, crisp white shirt, and pale blue tie, Bush is smiling, and there’s an undeniable twinkle in his eye. And why not? Standing on risers behind him are 42 of the greatest baseball players and managers who ever lived. Yes, he’s now the 43rd President of the United States, but being around baseball stars still makes George Bush feel like a kid.
“Laura and I are delighted to welcome you all to the People’s House,” Bush tells his guests. “This is an exciting day for my administration and all the baseball fans that live here in Washington.”
It’s been a busy first two months in Washington for the young President. Shrugging off his contentious election, Bush has aggressively pursued his agenda, sending an education bill favoring charter schools to Congress on just his sixth day in office. He quickly reversed Clinton’s executive order on the environment, removing caps on carbon emissions and opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling. And he’s worked tirelessly to pass a mammoth $1.6-trillion tax cut that skews heavily toward the rich. Though this isn’t the compassionate conservatism Bush promised on the campaign trail, at least half the country is smitten by his forceful and carefully crafted persona.
But today is March 30, and Opening Day is just two days away. What better time to enjoy the perks of being President? Hank Aaron, Reggie Jackson, and Sandy Koufax are standing behind him now, applauding. So are Duke Snider, Nolan Ryan, Carl Yastrzemski, and 36 more Hall of Famers. How cool is that?
But the person the President acknowledges first is not in the Hall of Fame. At least not yet.
“I first want to thank the Commissioner for coming,” says Bush, looking directly at the man from Milwaukee seated in the front row. “Mr. Commissioner, it’s good to see you again, sir. You’re doing a great job in shepherding our National Pastime through some pretty tough times.”
Commissioner Bud Selig smiles broadly and nods to the President. It’s been a busy three months for Selig, too. He laid out his bargaining plan at the mid-January owners meeting in Phoenix, with the aggressive moves on George Steinbrenner’s money and high player salaries coming straight out of the Blue Ribbon Report. The owners even approved one of Selig’s pet ideas—a draft that would allow teams with losing records to take players from the teams at the top.
The current labor contract expires in October, and Selig does not expect the union to play past August without a new agreement for fear of another lockout next spring. Paul Beeston is still his lead negotiator, but Selig has let everyone know who makes the decisions. “This time the owners will be speaking with one voice,” he’s said on many occasions. “Mine.”
Clarified roles aside, there are serious doubts that Selig can reach a new labor deal without a work stoppage. And the President has already told baseball not to look to Washington for help. “I hope there’s not a strike,” Bush said a few days before his inauguration. “But it’s going to be up to the participants. They shouldn’t be looking to me.”
Selig would prefer a settlement without Washington’s help or the need for contraction. The idea of eliminating several teams is still popular with many owners, though no one—with the possible exception of his good friend Carl Pohlad—is willing to give up his club. Certainly not Montreal’s Jeff Loria, who is now threatening to sue if Selig tries to shutter his franchise.
Still, the Commissioner recognizes the threat of contraction gives him leverage with both the union and cities still reluctant to build new stadiums. And that’s why baseball VP Bob DuPuy dutifully continues to collect information on likely candidates for elimination.
But this is far from Selig’s mind now as he listens to Bush ad-lib his way through a 15-minute speech. “There are some familiar faces here, but none more beloved than Yogi Berra,” Bush says. “Some in the press corps here even think he might be my speechwriter.”
Bush chuckles along with the crowd, then rambles through one story after another as only a real fan can, recalling everything from his first game at the Polo Grounds to his own baseball card collection.
“It is such an honor for us to welcome you here,” he says. “Thank you for coming, and I hope you enjoy the lunch as much as I know I’m going to.”
It is hard to tell who delights in shaking hands and taking pictures more, Bush or the players. While Selig is enjoying himself, the Commissioner is on a tight schedule. He leaves immediately after the luncheon and is sitting in his Miller Park suite just a few hours later, watching the White Sox–Brewers exhibition in the stadium’s trial run. He feels a mixture of relief and pride when it’s apparent the new building will pass its first test.
He’s on a plane the next day to Puerto Rico, where he watches the widow of Roberto Clemente throw out the first pitch Sunday night before Toronto plays Texas in the season opener. Then he’s back home Thursday night with Hank Aaron to honor Warren Spahn as the first inductee in the new Milwaukee Braves Hall of Fame.
And now it’s April 6, Opening Night at Miller Park. Selig is standing with his wife Sue, Wendy, and Wendy’s husband Laurel Prieb in a loading bay under the stadium. They watch as a team of black SUVs rolls to a stop. The door to one opens, and out jumps the President, who spies his welcoming party and walks right over.
“Hey,” says Bush, lifting up his pants leg. “What do you think of these cowboy boots?”
The First Lady and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice have also made the trip. So has former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson, now Secretary of Health and Human Services, along with Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta. But Bush has little interest in his traveling party. The President is eager to meet the Cincinnati and Milwaukee players, and Secret Service agents surround the President and the Commissioner as they walk through the catacombs to the clubhouses.
Bush enters the Reds clubhouse first and is greeted with an awkward silence. “Do we just stand here and stare at each other?” he asks, and the players suddenly flock to the President’s side, many snapping pictures with disposable cameras. Bush greets each player with “Nice to meetcha” and ends their brief chats with a slap on the player’s shoulder.
The Brewers are far looser when Bush strolls in. “You’re looking great,” the President tells Rod Carew, draping an arm around the Brewers hitting coach. “Now, this guy played a lot of ball games,” he says loudly while shaking hands with 38-year-old Tony Fernandez. Most players are ready with new baseballs and Sharpies to get Bush’s signature.
Bush tells the Brewers he still hasn’t decided what pitch he’ll throw when he takes the mound. “Split finger,” he says at one point, flexing his right shoulder, then demonstrating the proper grip. “But I may go with some breaking stuff, know what I’m saying? Big breaking curve stuff.”
The 15 minutes allotted for this visit pass quickly, and the President and the Commissioner are then escorted to the Brewers dugout, where Selig dons a white MLB jacket and Bush pulls on a blue warm-up jacket with BREWERS emblazed across the chest. Selig walks out of the dugout first, receives an appreciative ovation from the sellout crowd of 42,024, and throws a looping strike to Brewers manager Davey Lopes.
It’s the President’s turn next, and Bush gets a nice reception in a state he lost by 5,708 votes in November. He winds up and throws a pitch that bounces six feet in front of the plate and wide. Lopes snares the errant toss while Bush holds his pose for several seconds. Maybe the splitter wasn’t the best idea.
Bush leaves the mound as Selig steps up to a microphone to address his fans. “After all of these years and all the struggles, it’s hard for me to articulate how I feel today,” Selig says. “I want to say to all of you tonight, there are many people who played a role in building this magnificent ballpark, but none greater than all of you.”
Once the game begins, Bush trades stories and one-liners with Selig while they watch the Reds take an early lead with Miller Park’s first home run in the top of the 4th. The Brewers surge back with three runs in the bottom of the inning, but it’s soon time for the President to leave, and Bud and Sue walk Bush and the First Lady back to their waiting car. “I just can’t believe it,” Sue Selig says when it’s her turn to bid Bush good-bye.
“What?” Bush asks. “You can’t believe that I am here or that I am President?”
“I can’t believe you are the President,” Sue answers. According to Gallup, 47 percent of Americans share her disbelief.
Selig is back in his suite when Milwaukee first baseman Richie Sexson slams a solo home run in the bottom of the 8th to give the Brewers a 5–4 win, their first of the season. And it’s clear the $414 million Miller Park, with its one-of-a-kind retractable roof, 70 luxury suites, and fan-friendly sight lines, is a winner, too. The Brewers are now projecting a $50 million increase in revenues, $20 million more than original estimates.
Still, the Commissioner knows that a new stadium can only help a franchise so much, especially when you’re trying to pay down $164 million of debt. Cable television money dominates the game now, and the Brewers’ $4.6 million television and radio deal is just about the lowest in the game. The big market teams rake in 10 times as much—or more.
With contract talks just now heating up, Selig is looking for a much bigger cut of the television pie. His friend in the White House has good reason to be worried about this baseball season.
“I think we should take the $70 million offer for the Yankees rights fee and extend our relationship with MSG for 2002,” says George Steinbrenner, his voice rising. “It’s going to take time to build a network and we need the money now—we have a big payroll, a lot of bills, and no guarantee we’ll find investors.”
Steinbrenner pauses while the others sitting in the conference room of the New York law firm LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae listen closely. YankeeNets Board members Ray Chambers, Finn Wentworth, Tom Murphy, George’s son-in-law Steve Swindal, and their lawyer David Boies have heard George air these concerns before, and their looks of disapproval do little to push Steinbrenner off his chosen course.
“I don’t share the bitterness towards Chuck Dolan and Cablevision that many of you have,” George says. “I trust Chuck. He’s a friend, and I don’t feel good about leaving him. Hopefully, our lawyers can negotiate a deal for 2002 quickly, but it would not trouble me if we had to go an additional year.”
This is the same message Steinbrenner put in a March 17 memo to his YankeeNets partners, chairman Harvey Schiller, and Boies just after Dolan sent them a one-paragraph letter offering $70 million to air Yankees games in the 2002 season. George is worried, and for good reason. The Yankees have a $110 million payroll, the highest in baseball history, and once again are at best a break-even operation. The Nets are losing millions. And YankeeNets is burning through money, hiring a management staff—Schiller alone is earning $2 million a year—building out a network infrastructure, and paying $1 million a month in legal fees while trying to break free of Cablevision.
It’s April 17, the second day of arbitration hearings before U.S. District Judge Frederick Lacey, who was appointed by a state judge to arbitrate the nine-month Cablevision-YankeeNets dispute. At issue: Dolan’s contention that a clause in Cablevision’s recently expired contract with the Yankees provides the cable giant the right to match any offer for the team’s television rights. In perpetuity. A ruling in Dolan’s favor would kill any chance of YankeeNets starting its own regional sports network.
The first day of arbitration brought questions from Lacey and a surprise from (and for) Steinbrenner: sequestered in a room with several of his partners, Steinbrenner revealed an all-stock offer from Dolan to buy the Yankees outright. Chuck claims the deal is worth $1.2 billion, Steinbrenner reported. But when Chambers pushed for details, it turned out that Dolan valued the Cablevision stock north of $100 a share. The stock closed at $67 on April 16, down $14.94 since the start of the year and heading south. (Indeed, it would slump to $47.45 by year’s end.) The offer was misleading—at best—and George turned silent.
But now there’s a real deal on the table: Dolan has agreed to give YankeeNets its freedom for $30 million, payable in three installments. What the partners won’t have is carriage on Cablevision, which represents almost 40 percent of the Yankees’ 8 million customer base. “Your network will never run on my system,” Dolan tells Steinbrenner, and George knows his friend is not bluffing.
No carriage on Cablevision. No investors. Another $30 million spent that they don’t have. “Look, I don’t see what we lose by waiting another year,” Steinbrenner says.
Chambers thinks Steinbrenner could not be more wrong. An analysis by Morgan Stanley, the investment bank hired by YankeeNets to guide them through this process, projects a loss of $63 million of equity for every year the project is delayed. Turning down their freedom may also lead to a class-action suit from their current investors. And Chambers’ contacts in the investment world have expressed strong interest in financing their network—now called Project Ultra—once YankeeNets breaks free of Cablevision.
“George,” Chambers says, “I assure you that if we break away from Cablevision we’ll have the money you need for the Yankees payroll. We can’t be afraid of success.”
“Why would you guarantee that to me?” Steinbrenner asks.
“Because I think the upside potential for all the partners is so much greater than if we were to stay with Cablevision,” Chambers replies.
Just then, the phone rings. Lewis Katz, who missed today’s arbitration hearing to meet with Comcast President Brian Roberts, is on the line from Philadelphia. And when Katz comes on the speakerphone, there is panic in his voice. “Roberts says there is something going on with this deal,” Katz says. “I don’t know what it is, but I don’t think we should pay the $30 million.”
And that’s when Tom Murphy has heard enough. Normally a quiet, reserved presence, Murphy bangs his fist on the table. “What the hell is going on?” Murphy says. “This is what you guys have been litigating about for the last two years. This is what you want. You want your independence.
“Take the damn deal!”
For a moment, no one knows quite what to say. Everyone present—including George—has the highest regard for the 75-year-old Murphy, who spent most of his 42-year career building Capital Cities Communications from a small broadcasting company into a multibillion-dollar media corporation encompassing both television and newspaper chains. In 1985, he engineered a merger with ABC, turning the struggling broadcaster back into a powerhouse. Murphy retired in 1996, a month after selling Capital Cities/ABC to Disney for $19 billion.
Chambers knows he doesn’t have to say anything more. He looks over at Steinbrenner, and George nods. “Okay,” George finally says. “Let’s make the deal.”
Judge Lacey tells the YankeeNets partners they have 60 days to reach a final decision, but the course is set before they leave the building. Within weeks, Chambers and YankeeNets President Wentworth are talking to several of the top private equity firms on Wall Street, with Steve Rattner’s Quadrangle Group emerging as their favorite. In typical YankeeNets dysfunction, the Yankees are entertaining offers from Goldman Sachs, and it’s soon obvious that both firms are prepared to invest hundreds of millions in this venture, putting the value of the new network north of $800 million.
What’s less obvious is how they plan to convince Dolan to put their network on his cable system.
Selig and Don Fehr agreed early this year to keep negotiations out of the media, and the 23 meetings between MLB’s Beeston and Rob Manfred and the union’s Michael Weiner and Steve Fehr have remained under the radar. The story, though, remains the same: the small market teams want more revenue sharing—50 percent is their starting point—and lower salaries. The union has reservations about the former and firmly opposes the latter. They also want no part of the luxury tax plan. Talk about testing for steroids is on the agenda, but it has not yet made it to the bargaining table.
In late June, Beeston flies to Milwaukee to give the Commissioner details of a union proposal the president of baseball finds encouraging. But Manfred has quietly told Selig the union’s proposal is nowhere near the 50 percent in revenue sharing and the 50 percent luxury tax the Commissioner is after, so Selig makes Beeston wait five days before hearing him out. Beeston has barely finished his pitch when Selig says he’s pulling the plug on all contract talks with no indication of when he wants to start them again.
While contract negotiations break down—once again putting the game’s future in doubt—it’s another season for big moments, milestones, and surprises in the game Selig oversees. And another season of disappointment for his hometown team.
Barry Bonds sets a record pace for home runs early, and hits his 50th home run—and 544th of his career—on August 11, the earliest a player has reached that mark. “It’s something my godfather [Willie Mays] said I should have done years ago. I finally accomplished it, and he can leave me alone for a while,” says the ever-gracious Bonds, who at 37 is also the oldest player to hit 50 homers.
Diamondbacks pitcher Randy Johnson—also 37 years old—blanks the Pirates on August 13 for his 16th win. Johnson’s 10 strikeouts give him 277, putting the six-foot-ten left-hander on track for a record fourth straight 300-strikeout season.
Alex Rodriguez, the game’s best shortstop, shows a touch of class at the All-Star Game in Seattle when he walks onto the field and switches positions with Cal Ripken, who was voted the starter at third in his final season. It gives Ripken a record 15 All-Star starts at shortstop, and the Orioles icon hits a home run and is named MVP in the American League’s 4–1 win.
The Mariners are 63–24 at the break, on pace to eclipse the Yankees’ three-year-old record for wins. The bargain-basement Twins, on everyone’s list for contraction, are 55–32, the league’s second-best record.
Selig’s Brewers get off to a good start in their sparkling new home and end May four games over .500. But they’ve suffered a wave of injuries, none worse than Jeffrey Hammonds’ sore right shoulder. The center fielder was Wendy’s and GM Dean Taylor’s big move in the offseason, signing him to a three-year, $21 million deal. Hammonds goes on the DL in mid-June and will have season-ending surgery a month later.
If this were New York, Steinbrenner would tell Brian Cashman to find a suitable replacement. But it’s Milwaukee, and Selig’s daughter tells the media that the team cannot afford to replace its highest-paid player. The Brewers go into a tailspin by late June and never recover, sending them to their ninth straight losing season. This is not the team Selig promised in exchange for his new stadium.
A host of new stars debuts in 2001, none better than Seattle’s Ichiro Suzuki. The Japanese import goes 9 for 14 in a three-game mid-August series in Boston to raise his average to .344. (Ichiro will finish with a game-high 242 hits, the most in 79 years.)
St. Louis fans welcome rookie Albert Pujols, who hits his 29th home run on August 20 and is batting .333, while they say good-bye to Mark McGwire. Steroids have helped Big Mac belt 21 home runs in just 223 at bats, but he’s hitting .197 in what turns out to be his injury-marred farewell. (After hinting at retirement all season, McGwire will make it official on November 11.)
Steroids are also helping Rodriguez, who is hitting .322 with 37 home runs and 107 RBI when the Yankees come to Texas for a four-game series in late August. In past seasons, Jeter and A-Rod have stayed at each other’s homes when their two teams meet. But those sleepovers—and their close friendship—ended in March when Rodriguez told Esquire magazine, “Jeter’s been blessed with great talent around him. He’s never had to lead. You go into New York, you wanna stop Bernie and O’Neill. You never say, ‘Don’t let Derek beat you.’ ” Jeter, as distrustful privately as he is pleasant publicly, rarely gives people a second chance and quickly slammed the door on Rodriguez.
The dustup with Jeter is the first real blemish on A-Rod’s résumé.
It won’t be the last.
It’s been a typical season in the Bronx: the Yankees are in first place and Steinbrenner is unhappy. The Boss held the usual emergency brain-trust meetings in Tampa while the team was stuck in second place in mid-June and rumors swirled of his displeasure with Torre. But the team started winning games in bunches by the end of the month, regaining first place for good on July 3, and peace was restored.
Clemens, now 39, has finally turned into the pitcher Steinbrenner thought he signed two years ago, winning 19 of his first 20 decisions in dominant fashion. He beat his former teams in his last two starts, striking out 10 Red Sox hitters in a 3–1 win, then holding the Blue Jays to two runs over 7.1 innings on September 5—the 15th time he allows two or less runs this season and lowering his ERA to 3.44. The five Blue Jays who go down on strikes give the Rocket 191 strikeouts in 196.1 innings—against 60 walks and 183 hits—which all but wraps up Clemens’ sixth Cy Young Award.
The 4–3 win over Toronto pushes the Yankees’ lead over second-place Boston to 9½ games with 22 to play, and only one real question remains: can Clemens go a record 20–1 when he faces the Red Sox in the final game of the season between the two rivals? A sellout crowd is in the Stadium on September 10 to find out, but the game is rained out before Clemens throws his first pitch. History will have to wait another day.
The Yankees do make history of a different kind later that night. Though the dysfunction and distrust that plagues YankeeNets continues to grow—things get so tense that CEO Harvey Schiller is asked to draw up a code of conduct for partnership meetings—a deal for a regional sports network is finally struck. Goldman Sachs and Quadrangle will each invest $150 million and split 40 percent of the new network, which values the venture at $850 million.
Industry veteran Leo Hindery, who has close ties to the Dolans, kicks in $20 million and will come aboard to run what will soon be called the Yankees Entertainment and Sports—YES—Network. Steve Swindal and Ray Chambers’ son-in-law Michael Gilfillan will take over as cochairs of YankeeNets, replacing the soon-to-depart Schiller.
On September 10, executives and lawyers for all sides are at the law offices of Irwin Kishner at Herrick, Feinstein in midtown Manhattan when Steinbrenner makes one last call from his suite at the Regency, asking yet again if Goldman and Quadrangle will make good on their deal. Assured there is little to worry about, George gives his approval. At a few minutes shy of 1 a.m., all the documents are signed and the deal is done.
The details of this groundbreaking deal will be spelled out in a front-page story in the New York Times the following day. It’s a story almost no one will read.