NEW YORK \u2014 Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner defended manager Aaron Boone and general manager Brian Cashman following New York\u2019s failure to win the World Series and blamed the players for the lack of success.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought Boone managed a good season, especially with the pitching staff,\u201d Steinbrenner said Wednesday. \u201cThe bottom line is the players didn\u2019t live up to their end of the bargain in the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n
New York has gone 17 seasons without a World Series title. That matches the Yankees\u2019 longest drought since winning their first championship in 1923, a gap between titles in 1978 and \u201996.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we don\u2019t win a championship while I\u2019m here, I\u2019m sure that will be a frontline story of it all and how people think of me and how a fanbase reacts,\u201d Boone said. \u201cI understand that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Steinbrenner spoke alongside Cashman during a joint Zoom news conference from team\u2019s spring training ballpark in Tampa, Florida, and Boone followed with a video news conference from Yankee Stadium.<\/p>\n
New York went 93-68 and finished second in the AL East to Tampa Bay. After sweeping Boston 2-0 in an AL Wild Card Series, the Yankees were swept 3-0 by the Rays in a Division Series.<\/p>\n
Boone finished his ninth season as manager and has one season left on a two-year contract extension agreed to in February 2025. The 53-year-old former third baseman has led New York to a 790-565 regular-season record and three first-place finishes in the AL East but a 27-30 postseason mark.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, we haven\u2019t won a championship with me at the helm,\u201d he said. \u201cUltimately that\u2019s what has to happen to satisfy certainly myself \u2014 that\u2019s why I\u2019m doing this \u2014 but to answer those questions ultimately.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boone defended not calling out players publicly for mistakes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is probably a time and place for that, but generally speaking to me that\u2019s not leadership,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s me giving red meat to people that want to be upset with somebody.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cashman, who turns 60 in July, said he and the team have agreed to a new contract and are working on minor details. He became general manager in February 1998 and is the most senior head of baseball operations in the major leagues \u2014 San Diego\u2019s A.J. Preller, hired in August 2014, is second.<\/p>\n
When Cashman took over from Bob Watson in 1998, it was the 15th change at GM since George Steinbrenner bought the Yankees in January 1973. Cashman has been the only GM under Hal Steinbrenner, who succeeded his father as controlling owner in November 2008.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2014 Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner defended manager Aaron Boone and general manager Brian Cashman following New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[3817,110,202,204,203,199,201,200,77903],"class_list":["post-434287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-mlb","tag-sports","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-top-stories-trt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}