During Juan Soto's meetings with the New York Yankees last month, one of the Yankees' goals was to give Soto a chance to get to know owner Hal Steinbrenner a little more. Hal Steinbrenner is known among his employees as respectful and deferential -- a far cry from his father, George Steinbrenner. Hal explained to Soto that part of the reason he hadn't spent much time with the slugger was because he didn't want to be something of a distraction for a player working in New York for the first time.
General manager Brian Cashman said at the time he traded for Soto a year ago that he understood it was a one-year rental and that Soto might leave for another team as a free agent. Now that reality is here, and it happened in nightmare fashion for fans in the Bronx: Hal Steinbrenner offered Soto more than double what they paid to retain Aaron Judge two winters ago, and Soto turned them down. For the New York Mets.
When George Steinbrenner ran the team, he never had any problem foisting himself on the players -- to the degree, of course, that his relationships with players often gummed up the work of his general managers and managers. George was used to getting his way, and he was willing to do whatever it took to make that happen. Now, that's a reputation held not by his son, but by the Mets' Steve Cohen, the wealthiest owner in the sport.
Over the course of the past six weeks, the Yankees seem to have ceded their standing as the game's evil empire: outplayed by the star-laden Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series, outbid by the crosstown Mets for one of the greatest hitters in baseball history.