The Artful Pick-Off

By WALTER SHAPIRO

You can measure a baseball fan by his boyhood heroes. On the wall behind Fay Vincent's desk is the original artwork from Whitey Ford's 1953 Topps baseball card, a talisman of the bygone era when the New York Yankees symbolized success, stability and smug superiority. If Joe DiMaggio personified grace, and Mickey Mantle represented God-given talent, then Ford, the gritty little lefty ace of the pitching staff, was guile elevated to Hall of Fame standards. This quality is not lost on the baseball commissioner, who says with reverence, "He had the greatest pick-off move to first."

The image is worth savoring. A pick-off can be a thing of beauty: the pitcher leans in toward home plate, spies the base runner overreaching himself, then suddenly wheels and fires to first to nab him by half a step. Artful misdirection plus exact timing equals a dramatic out; Vincent understands that baseball equation. For never in the game's history has there been a pick-off move as adroit and emotionally satisfying as the one the commissioner executed last week when he threw George Steinbrenner out as the principal owner of the Yankees.

July 30, V-S Day (Victory over Steinbrenner), may become a patriotic holiday in New York City and wherever the proud traditions of baseball are honored. That evening, the commissioner announced the glorious news: "Mr. Steinbrenner will have no further involvement in the management of the New York Yankees." At Yankee Stadium, where the last-place club that Steinbrenner has assembled (a Mercenaries Row of no-talent free agents, high-priced castoffs and rookies) was playing the Detroit Tigers, the crowd rose in a standing ovation when the news spread that the familiar chant "the Boss must go" would actually become reality.

For most fans the formal rationale for the commissioner's decision was as irrelevant as the details of the government's tax case against Al Capone. What mattered was that Steinbrenner's 17-season reign of terror was finally over, and the Yankees were liberated from the egomaniacal whirl of managerial musical chairs, maladroit trades and the public castigation of star players and pitching coaches alike.

The commissioner, of course, must play within the white lines, balancing his freedom to act in the "best interests" of baseball with constraints on his power to deprive an owner of his property rights over a $200 million franchise like the Yankees. Steinbrenner's transgression was giving $40,000 to admitted gambler Howie Spira. The money was almost certainly payment for Spira to delve for dirt on Dave Winfield (now with the California Angels), whom the Boss publicly plotted against from the moment he signed the star rightfielder to a 10-year contract in 1980. If this sounds confusing, take comfort that the commissioner saw in Steinbrenner "a pattern of behavior that borders on the bizarre." But the Yankee owner's payoff to a gambler, with its echoes of Pete Rose's bookie season, gave Vincent the disciplinary leverage he needed.

"My feeling was that having him permanently removed from the management of the Yankees would be a very good result," Vincent explained afterward in his understated, lawyerly fashion. "And the only way to get it was to propose it. I couldn't make that part of the sanction because I can't order him to become a limited partner." Instead the commissioner devised his pick-off play, designed to snare Steinbrenner into voluntarily giving up his majority (55%) control of the Yankees.

When Steinbrenner arrived at Vincent's office last Monday, he was presented with the draft of an order suspending him for two years. As expected, Steinbrenner's lawyers protested. At that moment Vincent unveiled his counteroffer, scribbling the terms on a yellow legal pad that should be enshrined under glass in Cooperstown. The agreement called for Steinbrenner to acknowledge wrongdoing, become a minority owner, forgo any possible litigation and agree to a lifetime ban on even discussing the Yankees with the new managing partner.

Why did Steinbrenner, 60, choose perpetual exile into irrelevance over a two-year sentence? The commissioner guesses that Steinbrenner believed the fig leaf of continuing as a silent partner in the Yankees would allow him to hang on to his other sports post as a vice president of the U.S. Olympic Committee. But that is a dubious proposition, since there are already loud rumbles within the Olympic Committee that Steinbrenner will be pressured to resign. Deciphering Steinbrenner's motivations has never been easy, since there is always a peculiar disconnection between his words and his deeds. But last week he was uncharacteristically inaccessible; a press release, which might charitably be described as disinformation, made it seem as though baseball had given him a gold watch and a retirement party. "For some years now I have been preparing to turn over the operation of the Yankees to my sons and sons- in-law," read Steinbrenner's statement. "My son Hank, subject to league approvals, will become general partner at this time."

Hank Steinbrenner, 33, has been running his father's horse-breeding farm in Florida and moonlighting as a high school soccer coach. His baseball experience consists of a limited apprenticeship, not entirely remembered fondly. Dave Righetti recalls that in mid-season 1986, the year he set a record with 46 saves, Hank Steinbrenner proposed that the Yankees' ace reliever be immediately replaced by a career minor-leaguer who had just saved his first and only game in the majors. "I don't mind that from George. He signs the checks," says Righetti, the senior statesman among the denizens of baseball's Bronx Zoo. "What got me was how quick Hank was to react. He didn't have any patience either."

A well-positioned baseball executive predicts that the chances are no better than even that Hank will be permitted to follow in his father's impetuous footsteps. The first hurdle is winning a two-thirds majority of the Yankees' 18 limited partners, but in this election Papa George still casts 55% of the votes. Far more onerous is the requirement that Hank Steinbrenner garner the approval of both major leagues. Some unidentified owners have been quoted as expressing reservations over the propriety of Steinbrenner's being allowed to bequeath control of the Yankees to his son. But other baseball insiders caution against exaggerating the possibility of rejection. "You'd be wrong," stressed one, "if you thought that George still didn't have friends in baseball and people didn't owe him favors." A compromise might require Hank Steinbrenner to bring in an experienced senior baseball official before the son is allowed to rise in the Bronx.

Vincent, who inherited the job as commissioner after the sudden death of Bart Giamatti last September, has endured one of the roughest baptisms by fire since Harry Truman became President. His sensitive handling of the earthquake- ravaged 1989 World Series and his role in saving the 1990 season by helping bring labor peace to baseball were collective endeavors. But by single- handedly orchestrating the abdication of King George, the commissioner has revived dreams of a final arbiter who cares more about the game than about profits and promotion. Vincent disagreed with his dear friend Giamatti on only one crucial matter: Giamatti rooted passionately for the Red Sox, while Vincent was a Yankee fan. Last week he proved it.

With reporting by Kathleen Brady/New York