Last hurrah for the Yankees' Core Four? It already happened

I don't believe in voodoo or evil eyes or curses -- especially in sports. I never believed in the Curse of the Bambino upon the Red Sox or that a goat has
Last hurrah for the Yankees' Core Four? It already happened
Last hurrah for the Yankees' Core Four? It already happened /

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I don't believe in voodoo or evil eyes or curses -- especially in sports. I never believed in the Curse of the Bambino upon the Red Sox or that a goat has cursed the Cubs. However, I do firmly believe that if there are curses, or that there should be curses, then the New York Yankees will be cursed forever, starting right now.

This is what the team gets for erecting a thirty-five square foot graven image to immortalize their late owner, George Steinbrenner -- a glitzy monument to his pomposity and excess -- that positively dwarfs the monuments of the other Yankees who actually played baseball . . . thus rendering the glorious likenesses of Ruth and Gehrig and DiMaggio and Mantle as just so many little Facebooks in the crowd.

There's already a joke going around that the only three things made by man that you can see from a satellite in outer space are The Great Wall of China, the Pyramids and the plaque of George Steinbrenner at Yankee Stadium.

But the curse aside, as the playoffs begin today, it would appear that the Yankees are most unlikely to be able to repeat as champions. It is especially instructive that the quartet of stalwarts who have been the core of the club for so long -- Derek Jeter, the noble captain; Jorge Posada, the yeoman catcher; Andy Pettitte, the reliable southpaw, and Mariano Rivera, the inscrutable closer -- all have begun, almost together, to start to crumble. Both Petitte and Posada were shelved with injuries this year and Rivera, surely the best reliever ever, three times blew saves in September. We are advised now that he is "working on his motion." Mariano Rivera -- working on his motion. It sounds as odd as: Vincent van Gogh -- working on his brush strokes.

As for Jeter, since June he has played his age, which is thirty-six, and which is particularly, historically, long in the tooth for shortstops.

Jeter's 10-year contract concludes this year. Obviously, he and the Yankees will stay the course, together. Among other realities, Jeter is simply worth more to the Yankees as their icon than he is to any other team as an ordinary player. The Yankees will pay him the baseball version of a golden parachute to stick around and lend his class to the crass awhile longer. Derek Jeter, shortstop emeritus.

But for now, notwithstanding the talents of CC Sabathia and Mark Texeira and, of course, A-Rod, and the multitude of other stars that the Yankees have bought and paid top dollar for, the simultaneous erosion of the team's four horsemen seems to symbolically portend the end for the defending champions. You get the feeling that the last hurrah was last year.

And then, there's that new curse to contend with, too.


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Frank Deford
FRANK DEFORD

Frank Deford is among the most versatile of American writers. His work has appeared in virtually every medium, including print, where he has written eloquently for Sports Illustrated since 1962. Deford is currently the magazine's Senior Contributing Writer and contributes a weekly column to SI.com. Deford can be heard as a commentator each week on Morning Edition. On television he is a regular correspondent on the HBO show Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel. He is the author of 15 books, and his latest,The Enitled, a novel about celebrity, sex and baseball, was published in 2007 to exceptional reviews. He and Red Smith are the only writers with multiple features in The Best American Sports Writing of the Century. Editor David Halberstam selected Deford's 1981 Sports Illustrated profile on Bobby Knight (The Rabbit Hunter) and his 1985 SI profile of boxer Billy Conn (The Boxer and the Blonde) for that prestigious anthology. For Deford the comparison is meaningful. "Red Smith was the finest columnist, and I mean not just sports columnist," Deford told Powell's Books in 2007. "I've always said that Red is like Vermeer, with those tiny, priceless pieces. Five hundred words, perfectly chosen, crafted. Best literary columnist, in any newspaper, that I've ever seen." Deford was elected to the National Association of Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame. Six times at Sports Illustrated Deford was voted by his peers as U.S. Sportswriter of The Year. The American Journalism Review has likewise cited him as the nation's finest sportswriter, and twice he was voted Magazine Writer of The Year by the Washington Journalism Review. Deford has also been presented with the National Magazine Award for profiles; a Christopher Award; and journalism honor awards from the University of Missouri and Northeastern University; and he has received many honorary degrees. The Sporting News has described Deford as "the most influential sports voice among members of the print media," and the magazine GQ has called him, simply, "The world's greatest sportswriter." In broadcast, Deford has won a Cable Ace award, an Emmy and a George Foster Peabody Award for his television work. In 2005 ESPN presented a television biography of Deford's life and work, You Write Better Than You Play. Deford has spoken at well over a hundred colleges, as well as at forums, conventions and on cruise ships around the world. He served as the editor-in-chief of The National Sports Daily in its brief but celebrated existence. Deford also wrote Sports Illustrated's first Point After column, in 1986. Two of Deford's books, the novel, Everybody's All-American, and Alex: The Life Of A Child, his memoir about his daughter who died of cystic fibrosis, have been made into movies. Two of his original screenplays have also been filmed. For 16 years Deford served as national chairman of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, and he remains chairman emeritus. He resides in Westport, CT, with his wife, Carol. They have two grown children – a son, Christian, and a daughter, Scarlet. A native of Baltimore, Deford is a graduate of Princeton University, where he has taught American Studies.