“The Aspect Of Being Out There”

Maybe now that New York has caused the world’s entire economic system to collapse people think the city kind of sucks. And the Yankees’ inability to quickly sign superstar pitcher free agent C.C. Sabathia is the first sign of The End of New York:

On Friday, it will be three weeks since they barreled into the free-agent negotiating period with a six-year, $140 million offer to starter C.C. Sabathia. His response has been silence. Derek Jeter had already called Sabathia by then, and Alex Rodriguez has called him since. Yet the offer sits there, an anomaly in a depressed free-agent market, begging to be accepted but met with indifference.

. . .

Typically, the Yankees do not need to beg free agents to accept. The Yankees’ strategy is usually to identify their target, overwhelm him with an early offer, intimidate the competition and get their man. They have done the first three things, but Sabathia is still a free agent.

“If they went to Sabathia with $140 million, he could go back to them and say, ‘Give me $170 million and I’m there,'” said one major league general manager, who was granted anonymity so he could freely discuss another team’s plans. “He hasn’t done that. The Yankees aren’t his first choice. Why isn’t he jumping on their offer?”

The Yankees have continued to negotiate with Sabathia, and they would like to sign him next week. But they have not sensed the usual enthusiasm that accompanies a splashy Yankees offer.

Mike Mussina signed quickly after the 2000 season, and a year later, there was never much doubt about Jason Giambi’s intention. Both times, the Yankees had just been to the World Series. Both players wanted to be in New York — or in Mussina’s case, somewhere close to his Pennsylvania home — and both had a veteran agent, Arn Tellem.

Sabathia is a different case entirely, and the reason he is stalling, to those who know him, is just as the general manager suspected: his first choice is not New York. Sabathia is from Vallejo, Calif., near the Bay Area, and it is well known that his preference is to play for a team on the West Coast. But the money is elsewhere.

“It’s not that he doesn’t want to be a Yankee; that’s not it at all,” said a friend of Sabathia’s, who was granted anonymity because Sabathia had not authorized him to speak on his behalf. “It’s just the aspect of being out there, his family, that kind of stuff.”

Side note: Red Sox fans, probably still boiling about years of obnoxious “1918” chants from the right field bleachers at Old Yankee Stadium, should consider chanting some aspect of Prince’s “1999” to remind the Yankees of their last World Series win, as in, “Two-thousand zero zero party’s over it’s out of time . . . party like it’s 1999.” Red Sox fans are insufferable yahoos, but this would be funny.