'NYT' Still Tiptoeing Around Steinbrenner Story

The obsequiousness of sportswriters, their never-bite-the-hand-that-feeds-you politesse, is what allowed Portfolio to scoop them all with firsthand evidence of George Steinbrenner's advanced mental deterioration.

Now that the cat's out of the bag, will the sports beat guys acknowledge the obvious? I read today's D1 story in The New York Times, "Big Questions for Yankees: Steinbrenner's Role," wondering that, only to be disappointed. It looks like the "don't ask, don't tell" rule is still in effect.

Tyler Kepner edges up to the main issue when he notes uncertainty "whether [Steinbrenner] can still make decisions," but then backs away, letting that remark hang out there more or less unexplained. The closest he comes to justifying it is when he cites a recent article in "Conde Nast Profile" that portrayed Steinbrenner as "all but incoherent."

(Damn, I guess we were scooped, too -- and by an in-house rival, no less! I say we challenge those Profile guys to softball.)

Otherwise, we're told, while The Boss "does not act unilaterally anymore," he "makes the final call but seeks consensus."

And thus one jock-sniffer was granted another year of access to Yankees management, at the expense of being honest with his readers.