Since when does ESPN step in to demand a forfeit for the Yanks

Below is a column by espn.com's Jayson Stark

It's always fashionable to blame the Yankees for just about anything and just about everything these days. Traffic. Inflation. Bad haircuts. Whatever.


So why not the weather?


Why not a hurricane?


Why not a headline that looked something like this:


HURRICANE FRANCES RAVAGES FLORIDA. STEINBRENNER BLAMED.


OK, it never quite came to that this week. But it did come to this:


DEVIL RAYS DELAYED BY HURRICANE. YANKEES DEMAND FORFEIT.


If you weren't paying attention, that looked like the clear seven-word summation of what happened Monday at Yankee Stadium, when the Tampa Bay Devil Rays failed to show up on time for a doubleheader without a valid note from their mothers.


But of course, it's more complicated than that. And as best we can tell, after hearing all sides in this fiasco, it isn't the Yankees who deserve to take the heat on this. Or the Devil Rays.


It's the poobahs at Major League Baseball, who must have been the only people on the planet not watching the Weather Channel over the weekend.


Does anybody out there really believe the Yankees are so desperate to hold onto their lead over the rampaging Red Sox that they tried to squeeze a forfeit out of a team caught in a hurricane?


Come on, friends. George Steinbrenner may believe that the goal in life is to go 162-0 and sweep the World Series by a score of 57-1. But he isn't that inhumane.


All the Yankees were really doing, in requesting that forfeit ruling Monday, was asking the commissioner's office, in that diplomatic way of theirs: Why the heck were we forced to wait around all day for a team that had no more chance of arriving in New York by 3 p.m. than it did of swimming from Tampa Bay to the Bronx?


Why were they there? Not because they wanted to be. They were there because MLB's COO, Bob DuPuy, assured them repeatedly all weekend that the Devil Rays would show up in plenty of time to play.


As early as Friday, Yankees president Randy Levine told ESPN.com, the Yankees called the commissioner's office and said: "There's a hurricane coming. What do you want us to do (about Monday's doubleheader)?"


"If they had just told us Friday, 'The Devil Rays are not coming,' all of this would have been avoided," Levine said.


But that isn't what the Yankees were told. They were told by DuPuy on Friday they should prepare to play, Levine said. They were told the same thing on Saturday. They were told again on Sunday. They were reassured yet again Sunday night, despite forecasts that showed the storm had slowed in the Tampa Bay area.


So all the Yankees did was what they were told. They prepared to play. They showed up to play.


And when game time rolled around (a couple of different game times, in fact) and there was nobody to play, they got slightly annoyed. Can't blame them.


There should have been a simple announcement Sunday, if not earlier: "The health and safety of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and their families is more important to us than any Labor Day doubleheader. Therefore, we're postponing both games." How complicated is that, huh?


But what were they doing there? Why were they told to play? Why did MLB even think it was possible to play? That still isn't clear.


DuPuy didn't return two calls for comment. But MLB spokesman Rich Levin says baseball was assured by the Devil Rays "that they would be there on time." Which is interesting, since the Rays themselves say they never had any intention of leaving until the storm had passed and they knew their homes and families were safe.


"We'd do it again tomorrow," said Rick Vaughn, the Devil Rays' vice president of public relations. "There's no way we wanted to come up during that storm."


Even the Yankees admit that Devil Rays GM Chuck LaMar talked to Yankees GM Brian Cashman as early as Friday and told them just that. They even relayed that message to MLB.


But Levine says the Yankees were then told by the commissioner's office: "That's not true. We're telling them to get up there."


There have been intimations that it was Devil Rays owner Vince Naimoli who told DuPuy his team would show up Monday right on time, ostensibly because it planned to leave Sunday.


But Vaughn says that while there was some preliminary talk about trying to fly out Sunday night, the forecast continued to worsen. So "by Friday night, when we left the ballpark," Vaughn said, "our traveling secretary told me, 'We'll leave Monday morning, unless you hear (otherwise) from me.' "


The commissioner's office, however, would not confirm that Naimoli had sent DuPuy a different message -- or, in fact, that he had told them anything about anything.


"We're not going to talk about what conversations we had with the Devil Rays," Levin said. "We were led to believe the Devil Rays could make it there in time for the game. As far as who said what to whom, we're not going to get into it."


The other bizarre aspect of this story is the Yankees' suggestion that the Devil Rays took their time getting out of Tampa on Monday, when they could have flown out first thing in the morning.


"Let me tell you about our day," Vaughn replied. "We got to the park at 7:30 in the morning, because the bus was supposed to leave at 8. And we were ready to go. But the airport in Sarasota was closed.


"So then we tried to fly out of Fort Myers. But there were tornado warnings along I-75. And Chuck said, 'I'm not going to jeopardize these players' safety by trying to drive 2½ hours (to Fort Myers) in this weather.'


"Finally, around 11:30, we heard that the Tampa airport would be open around noon. ... But the bridge was flooded, and they only had one lane open, and it took us an hour just to get across the bridge. So there was no way we could leave Tampa until 3 o'clock.


"We left Tampa at 3 and played a game -- in New York -- at 7." Vaughn said. "I never heard of anybody doing that. But we did it. We walked in, put our uniforms on, went out, stretched and started the game."


The Yankees, on the other hand, say they were told at one point that the Devil Rays would leave Saturday, before the storm even hit -- then were told Monday that the Tampa airport was open all morning.


With all these different stories flying around, of course, who knows what any of us should believe. So Levine said the Yankees didn't demand they be handed this win by forfeit. All the Yankees asked MLB to do, he said, was "investigate."


"What we said to Major League Baseball was, 'Do an investigation,' " Levine said. "If you determine that Tampa Bay was supposed to leave and it didn't have a valid reason for not leaving and not showing up, then the rules say there should be a forfeit."


But MLB's "investigation" didn't exactly last as long as the Iran-Contragate hearings. Before Monday night's game was even over, Bud Selig had issued a statement saying MLB believed in determining the outcome of its games by playing them, not forfeiting them. And by Tuesday afternoon, MLB had rescheduled the postponed game as part of a Wednesday doubleheader.


The Yankees had asked for that game to be rescheduled for after the season and only played if necessary. But MLB rejected that argument, too.


"We try to play all our games," Levin said, speaking for Selig. "Things like hurricanes do happen. When they happen, you have to make an adjustment. And we made an adjustment."


That, however, isn't the Yankees' beef. They understand there was a hurricane. They understand that created issues for a lot of people. They understand why the Devil Rays didn't want to leave until the storm had headed elsewhere.


"We're not objecting to any of that," said the Yankees' president. "What we're objecting to is: That's not what (MLB) told us. ... If (the Rays) couldn't get there -- or baseball was telling them they didn't have to get there -- why didn't (MLB) just tell us that? If they'd come to us Friday, Saturday or Sunday and said, 'This is not going to happen,' why would we have opened the gates?"


Uh, good question. And one that could have been easily answered, too, had anyone from the commissioner's office just taken a good look at the Doppler, considered all the human issues involved and thought this through.


There should have been a simple announcement from Selig or DuPuy on Sunday, if not earlier: "The health and safety of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and their families is more important to us than any Labor Day doubleheader. Therefore, we're postponing both games and we're telling the Devil Rays to wait out this storm. We'll stay in constant communication with all sides. And when it's safe for them to leave for New York, we'll have a further announcement on rescheduling these games."


How complicated is that, huh? But instead, the Devil Rays probably will be fined and/or disciplined. Lucky them.


And all that forfeit hoopla has probably led most of the continent to think the Yankees' official hurricane policy was something to the effect of: "We deserve that forfeit. And oh by the way, we don't care if your power stays out till November."


Ridiculous.


But when in doubt, blame the Yankees. It's been a can't-go-wrong formula for 80 years. No reason to abandon it now.

Jayson Stark is a senior writer for ESPN.com.

Jayson tell me that you're kidding me. How heartless are you if the Rays wanted to stay home with their family to make sure that their families were safe. What a surprise an ESPN writter is pro-Yankee, this is something that has never happened before. They just give us more reason to dislike ESPN, one thing about ESPN I like, besides living 15 minutes away from it, is Jim Caple, and one letter he had in his report today was classic.

Commissioner Selig,


This letter is a formal request for Major League Baseball to award the Yankees a victory by forfeit due to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays' failure to show up on time for a scheduled Labor Day doubleheader at Yankee Stadium. The Devil Rays claim they could not reach New York on time due to Hurricane Frances. We do not consider that excuse sufficient.


The infamous Hurricane of 1938 that struck New York and New England killed 700 people, left 63,000 homeless and registered winds as high as 120 miles at the Empire State Building. But it didn't postpone the Yankees game or stop Lou Gehrig's playing streak. Granted, the Yankees were playing in Chicago that day, but the point remains: A hurricane wasn't enough to stop Gehrig and the Yankees then, and it isn't a sufficient excuse to postpone a Yankees game now.


A hurricane may be reason enough to take a day off for a losing team that has never finished anywhere but last place, but it is not the Yankees' way to postpone games due to climactic conditions hundreds of miles away. The way of a true champion is to play on, no matter what the weather conditions are anywhere else.


There are hurricanes, tornados, cyclones, typhoons, monsoons, floods, avalanches, tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions all over the world, but the Yankees play on. There are starving children in Ethiopia, Liberia and Sudan who would be happy to play in a hurricane, and thus are inspired by the manner in which the Yankees take the field each night despite their suffering. There are wars all over the world. Our brave troops are risking their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. Reserve units are being forced to extend their service time for month after trying month.



Derek Jeter and the Yanks play through rain, snow, sleet and hail.
And the Yankees honor their sacrifices by suiting up every night.


The U.S. Postal Service does not deliver on Sundays and holidays, but the Yankees play. USA Today does not print on weekends, but the Yankees play. There are entire weeks during which the New Yorker and Sports Illustrated don't publish, but the Yankees play.


We played the night that NBC aired the final episode of "Friends." We played the night that Mariah Carey's movie "Glitter" opened. We played the night "Cats" closed.


And the Devil Rays cannot overcome a hurricane?


We played the time Don Zimmer couldn't get through the stadium's metal detectors. We played the night David Wells drank all the beer in the concession stands. We played the night Darryl Strawberry snorted the third base line.


And the Devil Rays can't show up on time?


We played the night Alex Rodriguez's limo broke down on the Major Deegan. We played the night Jason Giambi cut the cheese on the team bus and everybody had to get out and walk the rest of the way. We played the night Ruben Rivera stole Joe Torre's hubcaps.


And the Devil Rays can't get to the airport on time?


We played the day the air conditioning didn't work right in the team hotel. We played the night Derek Jeter couldn't find his little black book. We played the day there were those really bad solar flares and we couldn't get decent cell phone coverage. We even played that one night it looked like it was going to rain really, really hard only it didn't.


And the Devil Rays don't reach the ballpark until six hours after the original scheduled start?


The facts of the case and your decision are clear. You must issue a forfeit. Baseball teams cannot willy-nilly decide on their own not to show up for scheduled games just because it is slightly inconvenient. The Yankees do not play that way and they expect no less from their opponents.


Indeed, Kevin Brown got a bad night's sleep and woke up in a very bad mood this morning, and yet the Yankees have no plans to cancel our current homestand.


Sincerely,


Randy Levine
President
New York Yankees

Yankees give it up, you're running scared and the Red Sox Nation loves it. The Sox are only 2 games back and the Yanks are going nuts. Well it's thursday and it's Football season so what does that mean, my weekend picks.


NE over IND
SEA over NO
SD over HOU
DET over CHI
STL over ARI
CIN over NYJ
TEN over MIA
BAL over CLE
TB over WAS
JAX over BUF
OAK over PIT
ATL over SF
PHI over NYG
MIN over DAL
DEN over KC
GB over CAR

And NE's score is going to be 28-10 in a game that will start to prove that the Colts will not make the post season, that's right the Colts won't make the post season. And when this happens I will no longer have to call one of my readers "The Princess"

How about the sox 2 games back and a 5 game lead on the Wild Card. And why is Agassi still playing, he's so old and I hope that Roger Federer beats him, at press time Federer is up 2 sets to 1.

Well that's the blog for today, next update will be on Saturday, enjoy the Pats game tonight, oh and the Sox will take 3 out of 4 from Seattle.

Leave some,
Chag