Hal's Salary Limit

With the recent indication from Brian Cashman that there isn't enough money in the budget for a DH, we at the RJG decided it was time to go over the GM to the man with the financial plan, Hal Steinbrenner. In this exclusive interview, Hal explains the reason for his salary limits, and why a DH will need to be sought through trades or within the organization.

RJG: Hal, thanks for taking the time to speak to us.

HS: Not a problem.

RJG: So as we're almost 2 weeks away from spring training, the Yankees largest need is a designated hitter. Why haven't the Yankees been more aggressive in trying to sign a player?

HS: The truth is, we've spent money for too long, we're trying to build smarter, not richer.

RJG: It sounds like you've decided to stick to a salary cap. How did you come to this decision?

HS: In order to explain how we came to this decision, I need to start from the very beginning.

RJG: The beginning being when you first took over the Yankees?

HS: No, I'm talking about High School.

RJG: Okay.

HS: You see, Back in my teenage years I felt alone, sad, exiled. I lived life in constant fear. At this point Skynet had just become self-aware and Terminators were quickly flooding the earth, enslaving humanity.

RJG: Skynet?

HS: Don't interupt. Everyone I knew had been killed by machines that were designed for massacring humans. I learned quickly to make explosives out of car mufflers, paperclips, duck tape, and copious amounts of dynamite. But what happened after that became rather disturbing. I found myself killing Terminators...and enjoying it, savoring every portion of their death, from the first electric spark to the final dimming and snuffing out of their red Terminator eyes. They used to beg me for mercy. Asking me to stop. But I couldn't stop. I developed serial killer tendencies, targeting certain traits in Terminators, mainly those with SKU numbers that began with 0485. The Terminators began sending out memo's asking other Terminators to walk in pairs at night, and lock their Terminator house doors when they powered down for the evening. There was one particular evening where I found myself repeatedly jabbing a magnet sharpened into a shank into a Terminator, when I realized, is this all there is to life? I went back to the human resistance to see if I could join them, but they rejected me. It was like high school all over again. They said all the same things my classmates used to “You're weird!”, “You're not welcome here!”, “Stop drinking the mercury in our thermometers!” Nothing had changed. In my desperation I turned to the only book I knew that would have all the answers: The Art of War by Sun Tzu. After power reading through it in its original language, I realized that I was getting no where. I needed something new. I still had the undesirable urge to murder Terminators with SKU numbers beginning with 0485, and the serial tendencies were evolving. I started dressing up the Terminators in blond wigs, and tangoing with them to show tunes, before killing them. I was really starting to lose it. Battling those urges, plus an addiction to mercury, I finally turned to the only other person who had answers: Oprah. I got a new minivan, and a subscription to O, but really no answers.

RJG: Hold on, what does any of this have to do with your budget?

HS: I'm getting there. Around that time, I remembered the saying so popular in post-apocalyptic human culture: “Its always darkest before the dawn.” Attempting to test this statement, I stayed up all night and measured darkness levels before dawn.

RJG: How do you measure darkness levels?

HS: You hold up a glass of Guinness to the sky, and compare them side-to-side. Anyways, while I was taking my scientific measurements, I realized that maybe Billy Beane was right. You can't buy championships. Nevermind that we've done it since the 1920's, maybe we can build a winning team with a payroll under $200 million. So you see, there is more to life than serial killing terminators.

RJG: (Silence)

HS: (Content Smile)

-Transcript Over-