New York Yankees: What to Make of Steinbrenners Selling Team Rumors
May 24, 2012 · Doug Rush · Jump to comments
Article Source: Bleacher Report - New York Yankees
For those who are just waking up, haven’t read a newspaper or turned on a TV or the radio, it’s been an eventful Thursday morning.
Here’s what the situation is.
Michael O’Keefe and Bill Madden of the New York Daily News reported that the Steinbrenners were considering selling the New York Yankees very soon.
After that story broke, Yankees principal owner Hal Steinbrenner released a statement through CNBC stating that the rumors were not true and has no intention of selling the team anytime soon.
Following Steinbrenner’s statement, Yankees COO Lon Trost was a guest of WFAN’s Boomer and Carton Show with Boomer Esiason and Craig Carton, stating the story was a complete fabrication and there was no truth to the rumors.
“I’m sure that no one can find any evidence about this. There are no discussions, there have never been any discussions. In fact, the story should really be in the New York Times’ schedule of fiction.”
To counter and defend the story, Madden himself also appeared as a guest on Boomer and Carton’s WFAN show on Thursday morning,
“We don’t just talk to people on the street,” Madden emphatically told Boomer and Carton during the show. “I talked to four or five extremely prominent, plugged-in baseball people.”
A big case of he said, he said here.
On one side, the New York Daily News and Madden are not backing down. Madden is a well-respected sports writer who has been around since 1978, when he first joined his paper. Madden has also written several books during his tenure too.
On the other side, the Yankees brass, lead by Steinbrenner and Tross, are denying any such report and attacked the publication for printing the story.
The potential of any sale of the Yankees came after the news of the Los Angeles Dodgers selling to a group lead by NBA legend Magic Johnson for $2.175 billion.
If the Yankees were ever to be sold in the future, they could go for as much as a record $3 billion. George Steinbrenner bought the team from CBS back in 1973 for $8.8 million.
From what it looks like, a lot of the story published by the New York Daily News was based off rumors and cited unnamed sources in it.
But, why would a well-respected and long-time writer like Madden publish something so controversial, especially if it is being based off rumors and won’t put sources on the record?
What if the Steinbrenners are, in fact, thinking of selling the team but weren’t ready to announce anything yet?
Mike Lupica of the New York Daily News wrote a story stating that if the Steinbrenners ever thought of selling, they would be crazy not to consider it given how much the Yankees are worth now.
It’ll be interesting to see where this story goes now, if there is in fact any truth to it whatsoever.
If the story ends up being false, then Madden and the New York Daily News have a lot of explaining to do.
But as of right now, it looks like the Steinbrenner family is not selling the Yankees in the near future.
Could that change in the future? Only time will tell.
Stay tuned, Yankees Universe.
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