Teflon Tartabull Always Diplomatic In Sticky Situations
The news that Danny Tartabull would not be conducting any interviews during the players’ strike was delivered to reporters through his agent.
Tartabull was supposedly perturbed with the New York news media because one columnist had suggested the outfielder might become a strikebreaker.
Tartabull upset? It sounded unlikely. He has rarely seemed angry while playing for the Yankees and has rarely displayed negative emotions.
In the usually chaotic, pressure-filled existence of playing in New York and for George Steinbrenner, Tartabull has adeptly maneuvered around the minefields. He has been the Teflon player.
There have been several opportunities for controversy. Tartabull was relegated from the cleanup spot to sixth in the batting order last year.
He delayed shoulder surgery last winter to take a European vacation. He is in the fourth year of a fiveyear, $25.5 million contract and is the highest-paid Yankee ever.
So scrutiny follows him. But through everything, he has emerged unscathed by satisfying himself first.
“I think that the person who is trying to do things to you with no reason or trying to bog you down is trying to do that to shake you up,” Tartabull said Sunday at Fort Lauderdale Stadium, speaking of his offseason distractions. “I refuse to let anybody get to me or have control over me.
No one should have control over another person. You have to be your own person.”
That, Tartaball is. There is no one like him in the Yankee clubhouse. As reporters expected, Tartabull has been typically jovial and greeted them warmly last Friday. George Steinbrenner could not rattle Tartabull two years ago when he challenged him to produce more, so there was no way that a newspaper column would unnerve him. He considers his way the professional approach and the proper approach for surviving in New York.
He ponders being in a movie with Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger. Tartabull, whose act in New York has been seamless and who considers himself a lock for 30 homers and 100 RBIs each season, is an actor off the field.
Maybe you saw him on television in “Seinfeld” or “Married … With Children,” or on the big screen in “Hellraiser” I or II. Tartabull, who took 14 weeks of acting lessons during the strike, said he has projects pending with the Fox Network and discusses acting as passionately as he describes an upper-deck home run.
“It’s truly a different world,” Tartabull said. “You’re told as a baseball player to put up walls. There’s an ego thing involved. You have to show how tough you are. In acting, it’s completely opposite. The walls have to come down and you have to convince them that the part you’re playing is real. To me, that’s hard.”
Tartabull works to let the walls come down in front of cameras, but he glides through his baseball life without worrying about them. Some Yankee officials whisper criticisms of Tartabull, but he has 75 homers and 254 RBI in less than three seasons with them and he stressed that his focus is winning a World Series ring this season. Was he acting?
Randy Johnson update
General manager Gene Michael said the Yankees had not come close to making a deal for Seattle’s Randy Johnson, a pitcher they have coveted for at least two years. Michael declined to say if he was still pursuing the 31-year-old left-hander, who is in the second year of a four-year, $20.25 million deal. “I know that they’re going to try and move some salary,” Michael said.
Woody Woodward, Seattle’s general manager, said: “There’s nothing going on with us. If Mr. Steinbrenner wants to put something together, he can come to me. But my preference is to keep my team the way it is,” with Johnson on it.