No One Gets Out Of Here Alive … Until After Steinbrenner’s Exit
It will be interesting to see if George Steinbrenner returns to Yankee Stadium for the World Series finale after the hubbub surrounding his most recent departure.
The Boss reportedly isn’t doing well. He’s doing so poorly, in fact, that stadium officials shut down elevators and locked up stairwells until the Evil Empire’s emperor had left the building after Game 2.*
The scene, as described by Scott Miller of CBSSports.com, played out like the events of a slasher flick writ large. Without warning, baseball officials, media members, the few remaining Yankees fans whom hadn’t yet been mistreated by stadium officials found themselves trapped by gates automatically dropping and locking from the ceiling in certain stadium corridors through which Steinbrenner was to be carried. Where there were no corridors to be locked, makeshift curtains were set-up to block the world from the Boss or the Boss from the world or both.
Security guards not only shut down the press elevator carrying media members downstairs to the interview areas until after Steinbrenner had departed, they also locked the doors downstairs, trapping several dozen media members in the stairwell. One security guard shooing people out of the area, according to one official who was there at the time, said that they were “cleansing the hallway.”
It’s bizarre-to-downright-conspiratorial that little was made of this in the media, considering it was members of the media who were, um, cleansed. Also, any time a group of humans gets so-called “cleansed” of anything, I get squeamish. I bristle. Are you happy Yankees? I’ve bristled.
It’s bad enough the nine trillion dollar stadium (rough estimate) is falling apart after six months of activity, but how many safety codes were broken so that they could wheel the old man out of the stadium without anyone noticing? And before you answer, dear hypothetical reader who is hypothetically answering out loud so that I can hypothetically hear them, let me pose another question: was this the best plan the entire stadium security crew could come up with?
They knew Steinbrenner was coming. Knew he was sick. Knew there was a little shindig going on at the park. Knew there’d be a few bodies milling around. Ripping a page out of Attica State Penitentiary’s prison lockdown playbook was the best plan they could deploy? Woof.
Woof, I say. And I mean it. I really, really mean it.
It’s one thing for the Yankees to request demand Fox-TV not turn their internationally broadcasting cameras on the sickly Steinbrenner, but to trap people in various parts of the park while he escapes cloaked in concrete and security, well … sadly, that’s not all that shocking either.
What will be shocking is if it happens again in Wednesday’s Game 6. Steinbrenner isn’t expected to return to the stadium then, but it’s not like his arrival at the House that Jeter Built would be the first time expectations weren’t met in the Bronx now would it? (that was a moderate zing for those in the back).
I’m feeling drunk kind, so I’m willing to chalk up Thursday’s incident to being a poorly handled mishap. If it happens the exact same way six days later, perhaps the story will make its way to the public.
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*Is it still okay to refer to the Yanks as the Evil Empire while Steinbrenner’s health deteriorates? I mean, no matter what happens to Steinbrenner, the empire remains evil, n’est-ce pas? There’s still Hank. Don’t forget about Hank (which I believe was the alternate title to “What About Bob?”) It’s not like the sky is going to open up, the birds will start singing and New Yorkers will suddenly move to Oakland, Pittsburgh and Miami to see A’s, Pirates and Marlins games. They’ll remain the damn Yankees with or without the Boss.
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