Davey and George

Excuse me, George, you know that guy on your team named Winfield, the one you wanted to trade before the season started because he wrote a book about his days as a New York Yankee?

Well, George, he's shutting you up. He has stitched up your mouth, George. You've been unusually quiet these days. The papers aren't paying that much attention to you anymore. No more headlines, George.

There's a new show in town, George, and he is the player you wanted to trade.

Winfield has top billing for now. He's the smash new musical on Broadway. George is so off-Broadway now that he couldn't even sell his act for P.S. 8's third-grade musical revue on the four basic food groups.

"I am a carrot. (Long and angered pause.) Come on, kids, let's trade this guy to Alaska."

"Sorry, Mr. Steinbrenner. Dave's having too good a year."

Things are very quiet in the owner's box of Yankee Stadium.

Right field, however, has been booming. In New York's first 15 games, Winfield has hit over .400 and has driven in 24 runs. No one else in the major leagues has more than 17 RBI. Never before has Dave Winfield started off the season on such a tear. Never before have the Yankees started off a season so well.

Winfield has led this year's Yankee Chorus Line, a team that has averaged seven runs per game. So far this season, he has been the Fred Astaire of the Bronx.

But a month ago, Winfield could have been hitting the road faster than it takes James Brown to rant and rave about feeling good. All for The Book he wrote about being a Yankee.

The Book was published during the last days of spring training. Reports from the Yankee camp stated that some players were upset over Winfield's comments. But any first reactions gradually faded away. Don Mattingly was even quoted as saying that The Book was not going to disrupt the team. The Yankees at 12-3 have the best record in baseball, along with the Cleveland Indians.

But don't tell that to George. He wanted to disrupt the team like a kid who wasn't chosen to play in a pickup stickball game. He said that Winfield was wrong in publishing The Book. He said that it would hurt the Yankees. He said that Winfield had to be traded.

But why? Here was a player who consistently drove in runs for the Yankees ever since George signed him in 1981. Here was a player whom many baseball people call one of the finest defensive outfielders in the game today.

Maybe because Winfield portrayed George as a bumbling court jester. Winfield made George look stupid. And no one in New York can make George look stupid. Just ask Sparky Lyle, Yogi Berra, Bob Lemon, Billy Martin (at least four times), the New York Mets...

And for that reason, Winfield had to be traded. George didn't care for whom, as long as Winfield was gone before the season started. How about Baltimore's Fred Lynn? Or Houston's Kevin Bass? A swap for Jerry Mathers as the Beaver?

The deal for Bass was set, but Winfield held the trump card. Being a "five and 10 man" (a player who has played for one team for more than five years and has been in major league baseball for more than 10 years), Winfield had the option to veto his trade. He did just that. He wanted to stay in New York.

Then the season began. The fans forgot about arbitration, owner collusion and controversy, and turned their attention to stolen bases, opposite-field doubles and upper-deck jobs. Winfield left George's turf and started the season on a turf he is more familiar with--the outfield grass of Yankee Stadium.

He hasn't stopped talking yet, Talking with his bat, that is. Who's feeling good now?

And George tries to continue the controversy off the field. He says the Yankees will sue the Winfield Foundation for misappropriation of funds. George supposedly had agreed to donate money each year to the foundation. He has held back the money for the past couple of years, money that Winfield knows George owes him.

George won't give up. Once Winfield hits a slump, George will be the first person to criticize him. He'll probably say the early-season tear was all a fluke; it was just luck. George won't shut up forever, even though he can't say anything now.

That's the way to treat your team, George. Make them worry about what happens off the field instead of what happens during the game.

But George is quiet now, like a grizzly bear sleeping through the frosty month of January. All because Dave Winfield has shut him up with the kind of language the Yankee outfielder knows best--the language of scoring runs and winning baseball games.

Right now, Winfield has the audiences dancing in the aisles while George is out on the street selling hot pretzles for a dollar.

Who knows how long that will last?