Your first “Cliff Lee wasn’t cut out for New York” article of the day

It’s one thing for Cliff Lee to decide that he’s not cut out for New York. Or for him to think that he’s simply better-cut-out for someplace else. It’s another thing altogether for people who don’t know a thing about the guy to assume they know that. Guys like George Vecsey of the New York Times:

The Yankees, who had dreamed of throwing C. C. Sabathia and Lee as twin aces, always expect to get their man. Big Bronx bucks are almost always enough to bring anybody to the Bronx. Some of them thrive — Mark Teixeira, Sabathia, Hideki Matsui, David Cone,Paul O’Neill, and even Alex Rodriguez, in his diva way. But there is a whole history of players who have not thrived in New York, for one reason or another: Johnson, Brown, Pavano. It’s not for everybody. And presumably not for Cliff Lee from Arkansas.

Or, as we noted this morning, maybe Lee thinks he’s so awesome that he’s willing to gamble the greater guaranteed dollars the Yankees offered him for the chance at the greater money the Phillies will pay him if his 2016 option vests. Maybe New York was too timid for him.

In all seriousness though, it seems inevitable that certain Yankees fans and certain New York writers will rush to make what is a baseball personnel matter into a referendum on the player’s guts or character. To make it the presumption that New York is where everyone wants to be and, if it doesn’t work out that way, it was the player’s issues, not their own. I can’t express to you how grating I find that to be.

I’m not predisposed to like giant cities. I was also once offered a job in New York. My decision not to take the job had nothing to do with my taste for giant cities and everything to do with the money and the employer and the job and all of that. If it was a close call, yeah, then lifestyle and stuff would have been important, but it didn’t get that far. A lot of people are like that, I imagine.

Some people would simply rather play for the Philadelphia Phillies, ya know?