The folly of Yankees owner George Steinbrenner’s distancing of his baseball team from the (largely Hispanic) borough in which it plays has never been more obvious than during this post-season, this World Series, when the images of success have been the very ones he apparently wishes to run from. . . . You would think Steinbrenner might be catching on to an alternative future with all the focus on the south Florida market. But then, he never learned anything from the Dodgers’ pro-Hispanic formula in Los Angeles. Baseball owners better understand that they will not grow their game doing what basketball does, catering to the rich while telling the working class to sit home and watch. Four hours in summertime humidity is too long for beautiful people to keep the hair in place. Baseball’s appeal remains its Ripkenesque, men-at-work daily populism, its blue-collar roots.
