Hey Reggie, Shut Up and Leave

It's Rip Apart Reggie Day, so let's pile on. Reggie has advice for A-Rod. Via WasWatching:

“‘You deliver this message,’

said sternly to me. ‘You tell him to hit the damn ball and hit it when it counts,’” Jackson said. “Yes, that’s really the most important thing Alex can do at this stage. All the other conversations, they don’t matter. The more you talk, the more you have an opportunity to make a mistake or say something stupid or something you can go trace.

There is great irony in Reggie telling anyone to keep their mouth shut.  Consider these spoken gems from Mr. October:

"After

Jackie Robinson

the most important black in baseball history is

Reggie Jackson

, I really mean that."

"I am the best in baseball."

"I couldn't quit, because of all the kids, and the blacks, and the little people pulling for me. I represent both the underdog and the overdog in our society."

"I didn't come to New York to be a star, I brought my star with me."

And one of my favorite stupid lines by Reggie:

"The only reason I don't like playing in the World Series is I can't watch myself play."

Rob Neyer wrote about this story this morning and started his comments by saying, "This is the sort of thing that makes the Yankees so easy to despise." He's right, and it leads me to ask a question I've been wondering for quite a few years:  in what bizarro universe does it make the least bit of sense to have Reggie Jackson hanging around your ballclub dispensing advice?  Reggie carries the label of "Special Advisor," special in this case not meaning insightful or particularly relevant, but... out of the ordinary and wholly ignorable.  Reggie's words and presence bring little to the Yankees except having another Hall of Famer wandering around.  It even bothers me that they retired his number considering he only played five of his twenty-one seasons in New York. It's equally annoying when you watch Yankee games, especially in the post season.  There will be Reggie, hanging around the dugout, putting himself in the middle of a team that he has nothing to do with other than five good seasons that ended twenty-seven years ago.  It's an ego stroke for Reggie, as self-serving as anything he said or did as a player. It's telling that the message he was delivering came from Hank Steinbrenner and not Hal or Brian Cashman.  Reggie isn't allowed to hitch his cart to any of the horses that actually have an impact on the team.  One can assume Reggie stopped by Hank's office to say hello and found Hank trapped under a couch trying to get a peanut that had rolled underneath.  Desperate and hungry, Hank "sternly" blurted out his sage manifesto to help save A-Rod's season: hit the damn ball and hit it when it counts. What does Hank have going on that he wasn't able to deliver that message himself?  Maybe Hal has confined him to quarters while the media is in Tampa. Reggie, go home.  Enjoy your earnings.  Buy more diamonds.  Sign more balls.  Do whatever you have to do.  The Yankees have enough problems right now.  They don't need you in the middle of them.