The New York Yankees have lost 15 of their last 19 games and look nothing like the team that was destroying the rest of Major League Baseball prior to the All-Star break. So it should be no surprise that fans weren’t thrilled to see their club’s owner on Sunday.
The Yankees were celebrating the career of team legend Paul O’Neill today, presenting him with a plaque to honor his No. 21 jersey. But when team owner Hal Steinbrenner approached O’Neill to shake his hand, Yankee Stadium started booing him.
Steinbrenner and O’Neill tried to play off the noise, but it was pretty audible as they tried to share a moment together.
The video of the ceremony and the accompanying booing has over 60,000 views and climbing. The tweet from Talkin’ Yanks has over 2,400 likes and 300 retweets.
The Yankees have been pretty down bad in recent weeks. Offensively they’ve been downright anemic, being held to three runs or less in 10 of their last 11 games.
Worse still, their once dominating lead for the top spot in the American League has been evaporating. They’re now only eight games ahead of the Toronto Blue Jays in the division race and nine ahead of the Cleveland Guardians.
There’s also the looming issue of the team potentially losing star slugger Aaron Judge to free agency after failing to reach terms of a new deal with him.
Does Hal Steinbrenner deserve the booing?