COMMENTARY : Yankees Playing Out the String But Whining All the Way to End

What the Yankees really need is out of the old Bob Waters textbook. That’s the leadership course they failed.

Davey Johnson ought to know about it before he seeks the job. Bobby Bonilla should have his head examined if he takes his free agency to the Yankees without knowing where the copouts are.

The most recent revelation came the other day when one of the millionaires announced, “The magic number is six.” That’s six as in Oct. 6. “That’s when we get to go home,” this Pride of the Yankees explained.

Waters would have recognized vintage whine.

The late Bob Waters was a classic newsman at this paper, a wonderful boxing writer and a tough editor, too. He signed his share of overtime slips. And there were occasions when he called for undertime slips.

These Yankees have been stealing for weeks, some of them almost all season.

Those nice things I said about them in July when they were flirting with .500, I take them back. They are the New York Crabapples. In betraying the manager, they have revealed themselves.

Ballplayers like to throw around the concepts of pride and character as what keeps them going when all is bleak. What these players have revealed is un-pride and un-character and, ultimately, un-class. They have blamed poor Stump Merrill for their own failings.

“We need your help. Do your job,” one of the stalwarts said to reporters, meaning they should campaign to get the manager fired.

Merrill hasn’t been John McGraw. Some guys’ value is as minor-league developers or third base coaches and not as overmatched big-league managers, but he isn’t to blame for those horrid performances.

Reality is that Merrill has never had a grip on his players so he’ll have to go. They have been obsessed with getting him fired and have played accordingly.

But what is the next guy going to get from them -- unless he’s John McGraw, who understood Waters’ text, and had management support.

Put them in the crucible of a pennant race and don’t expect anything classier than fingers pointed at someone else. They don’t even have loyalty to each other.

It’s been players who ought to know better.

Go back to opening day. The Yankees lost a tough one and the tone of the clubhouse was set by Steve Sax and Alvaro Espinoza whining that Espinoza wasn’t credited with a hit on a dribbler scored as a fielder’s choice.

Sax will come close to batting .300 and he has the security of his big contract, but think of how nobly he went to third base in order to get Pat Kelly into the lineup. That was tantamount to sabotage.

Espinoza, a find for Dallas Green, has been something other for Merrill. Also less than a mathematician. When he wasn’t in the lineup in Toronto in late August, he went around grumbling that Merrill was deliberately preventing him from reaching the incentive clause of 150 games.

Well, he already had missed 13 games before that one.

And does anybody really believe the manager was scheming to cheat a player out of a little bonus? Worst, some players believed Espinoza.

Espinoza has advertised his scorn right along. A man with his performance chart at least ought to be a positive force in the clubhouse.

That Toronto series is shown as a mark on the chart where the Yankees pulled their own plug. They got blown out and boy, did they jump on Merrill for using Tim Leary with a five-run lead.

Leary was arguably their best pitcher last season. He needed a chance to work out of his funk. Merrill had to use him sometime if there was ever going to be a market for Leary.

But the collapse goes back before that. Players couldn’t wait to announce that they had come to “the best day” of the year. “I got my ticket home.”

The undertime slip should have been included with the boarding pass.

Well, at least Sax has continued to keep track of the balls he’s hit hard that didn’t go for hits. That’s one version of pride.

Lee Guetterman has complained about not pitching enough and forgetting about the period he wesn’t pitching well enough. He wanted his agent to talk to the front office about that; maybe he’d ask to be traded. Greg Cadaret had similar grumbles.

When Bernie Williams came along and played like their best center fielder in years, Roberto Kelly moaned about the indignity of playing left field. Kelly has shown his own center field inconsistency in backing up bases and general energy. Remember also that he did his best work when Dallas Green had him batting ninth. Kelly has been better about Williams lately, but damage was done.

I keep waiting for Don Mattingly to stand up and use his stature to put his teammates in their place. You know, when Don Mattingly speaks, Yankees listen. But Mattingly has been conspicuously silent in support of the manager.

These guys need somebody in the clubhouse to look up to. That kind of leadership is not Mattingly.

He complained about the organization’s instability and the impatience with young players. When the young players exposed their inexperience, he was disturbed by the evidence of how far away the team was.

When they all might have been turned on by playing the Red Sox in Boston, he was comfortable about sitting out the third game of the series.

He’s played coy about whether he’ll be back or not. He took the big contract before last season knowing full well how far away this team was, and fully aware of his own back condition. No surprises for Donnie.

Nobody has stood up and told them they were stealing. Graig Nettles is the tough old warrior they gave a job as a coach. Nettles told people he wasn’t coming back to be a coach. He hasn’t looked like a manager-in-waiting. He hasn’t been a coach at early workouts, either. He takes the bus.

And where has Gene Michael, the general manager, been since the applause rang in July? He hasn’t been stamping his foot about how the players were undermining Merrill. He was most assertive in saying Merrill wasn’t firm enough on the dunderhead haircut edict.

Steinbrenner, wherever he is, would not have permitted the crybabies to carry on.

They need a kind of player who can come in and deliver a swift kick in the pants. Sax and Mel Hall said the Yankees ought to get Bonilla. He’s an overtime player. He ought to know better.