COMMENTARY : Steinbrenner Would Be Stupid to Dismiss Impact of Showalter

At a time when Don Mattingly speaks quite openly about an uncertain future with the Yankees--assuming Mattingly has any Yankee future at all--Buck Showalter says hardly anything about his own. He doesn’t talk about next season. He just wants to be managing the Yankees next week. He does not discuss whether he expects to return to the Yankees once his contract is up, or if he wants to. Somehow, the only news about a New York manager this week involves the one managing a last-place team that hasn’t been near the playoffs in years.

You ask Showalter if he has had any conversations with George Steinbrenner about a new contract and Showalter shakes his head firmly and says, “In no form or fashion.”

Then he quickly adds, “And I have no problem with that. If [Steinbrenner] wants to wait until the last day of this contract [Oct. 31], that’s his right. I know what my contract says. I signed it. It was always my intention to live up to it to the best of my ability.”

Across the last four years, Showalter has managed 578 consecutive games for Steinbrenner. It seems like a baseball miracle. I believe four years is enough for any sane person. It is why I keep hoping Showalter will be the first manager to fire Steinbrenner before it is the other way around. But if Showalter wants to return, if he is willing to make this kind of decision with his heart, there is no question he should keep his job.

If Steinbrenner does not want him next season, whatever happens this weekend or in the playoffs, then Steinbrenner is more of a mashed potato about baseball than ever.

Steinbrenner has a lot of decisions to make when the season ends. About Gene Michael, his general manager. About Showalter and Mattingly. And there are decisions to be made about Mike Stanley and Wade Boggs and Jack McDowell and John Wetteland and David Cone. The owner should start by offering the manager a three-year contract as soon as the season is over. Maybe Showalter will quit anyway, having had enough of behind-the-scenes bullying that never stops.

But Steinbrenner, as baseball-impaired as he is, would be crazy to quit on him.

“A lot of us are in the same boat,” Showalter was saying in his office the other afternoon as equipment was loaded out in the main clubhouse for his team’s last regular-season trip.

“I’m talking about me and the players and the coaches. I happen to think it’s one of the things that’s made us band together the way we have down the stretch.”

Brian Butterfield, one of Showalter’s fine coaches, poked his head in the office and said the bus was leaving for the airport in about 10 minutes.

“We’ve got a handful of games left,” Showalter said. “It would be pretty hypocritical of me to be worrying about my situation when I’ve preached from the day I got here that any success we all achieved would be success by association. I would like to think that when this is all over, my players won’t see any change in me in the last year of a contract, or even the last week of a contract.”

Then Showalter told about the first moments after the Yankees’ last home game last Sunday afternoon. Showalter, always respectful of the game, always respectful of its heroes, did not want to come out of the dugout right away.

There is a chance this was Sparky Anderson’s last game as a manager at Yankee Stadium, and it had been a great win for the Tigers, and Showalter wanted him to have his moment without intruding. But Anderson caught his eye and grinned, and came jogging in Showalter’s direction. The two men shook hands, and Anderson gave him a rousing pep talk about the games the Yankees had left.

“When I looked out on that field and saw Sparky Anderson, knowing about his own uncertain future after everything he’s done in this game,” Showalter said, “then who am I to think I’m entitled to any guarantees about my own?”

There have been no guarantees. Maybe none are coming. Anything Steinbrenner would say about Showalter’s future at this point would just be hot air. There are people around the Yankees who believe that if they don’t make it to at least the American League Championship Series, that the shake-up of the farm system is just the beginning, that both Gene Michael and Showalter are gone. Steinbrenner spent a ton of money this season and was sure that guaranteed him first place.

Steinbrenner said in the spring he was uncomfortable with all the talk about the Yankees being a lock in the American League East. It is another reason you don’t believe him if he says water is wet. Steinbrenner is the one so sure they were a lock, especially after he signed McDowell and Wetteland.

“I’m not naive about any of this,” Showalter said. “I knew what I was getting into when I took this job. And from the first day I’ve had this job, when I had a one-year contract and thought I had the world by the tail, I’ve preached two things: accountability and responsibility.

“I was hired here to win. And even though we could’ve won last year if there hadn’t been a strike, maybe even would’ve won, maybe that doesn’t enter into it. I don’t sit around and think that way. Maybe in the end there’s only one evaluation that will matter: Did we win?”

There should be more of an evaluation than that. Over the past four seasons, Showalter and his players finally have overshadowed a blowhard owner who has always thought he is the show at Yankee Stadium. The manager has made people respect the Yankees again, in the clubhouse and on the field. Now, Showalter’s Yankees make this run at the playoffs when just about everyone in town thought they were through.

And during this run, Buck Showalter has been at his best. He is the best manager for this team, even if the owner still seems to need more convincing. And better than this owner deserves.

“When the season is over, I’m going to pack up my personal stuff,” Showalter said. “I’ve never done that before.”