How the Yankees boosted my status
With the Yankees qualifying for the World Series this weekend for the first time in 15 years - I was a beat reporter covering the Yankees for Newsday when that season began - a book I just finished had me reflecting on how certain positive actions by core members of the Yankees organization boosted my status in others’ eyes and enabled me to be more successful in my job. The book is Likeable Badass: How Women Get the Success They Deserve by Alison Fragale, PhD.*
The book discusses gaining power and status. Power, as she states it, is your control over resources (money, authority, a seat at decision-making table). Status, on the other hand, is the way others see you - specifically, how much you’re respected, admired, and valued. I tend to think of pursuit of status as crass and shallow, but this is a different framing. So how did the Yankees elevate my status, at a time I was the youngest beat reporter, new to NYC and the only woman?
I started covering the Yankees in February 2007, after spring training had already started, having just moved to NYC for this job after previously covering the Texas Rangers for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. It certainly helped that I had been covering Major League Baseball for several years previously and many reporters knew me and many players and team executives around the league at least might recognize me or my name.
Joe Torre was the manager - then entering his 12th season as Yankees manager, with 4 World Series Championships in that time. He had a habit of being polite and friendly to reporters, but in group settings rarely called reporters by name - exceptions were columnists (opinion involved) and media who worked for the Yankees. When he did use one’s name, it was an extra signal of respect.
Within a couple of weeks, in a reporter scrum in the dugout, Torre answered my question with a: “Well, Kat …” - not even perceptible to those not in the know, but to those around Torre regularly, a big nod of respect. He did this semi-regularly, and I even remember him saying my name during a large November press conference in Rye after he had been fired as manager.
Among players, the Core Four from the Yankees dynasty of 1996-2000 – Mariano Rivera, Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada and Andy Pettitte remained, or had returned in Pettitte’s case. These respected veterans recognized I strived to be fair and I was tough enough to survive on this highly competitive beat, and they treated me with dignity. In those first weeks in spring training, I recall Jeter calling over to me once, which let others know he knew who I was and thought I was worth talking to, and also joking with me in a friendly fashion, a sign of familiarity. Posada and his wife, Laura, both spoke to me at length for a piece on their son’s medical challenges. Rivera, meanwhile, would call me “Catalina” since we often spoke in Spanish, and when I left the beat to pursue my MBA in mid-2009, he came into then-manager Joe Girardi’s office while I was saying goodbye to Girardi, to tell me that I was going to do great things in my career (who knows what he would think on how I am faring?). All four players’ actions and words gave a signal to others to treat me with esteem.
General manager Brian Cashman is someone I’ve never seen treat people anything but fairly. You earned your respect and he showed it back to you. I wouldn’t have expected anything but fair treatment from him. Nevertheless, on an unfortunate occasion when I dealt with some inappropriate sexual remarks from a player, he heard about it and made clear the organization wouldn’t tolerate that.
Last but not least, Yankees ownership also responded to my fair, diligent reporting by facilitating access for interviews. When I joined the beat, George Steinbrenner was still alive but in ailing health, and sons Hal and Hank were co-leading the team. Hank, who died in 2020, regularly returned my phone calls for information about trades and signings. Hal, now the managing general partner, had been famously reticent about media, and I was grateful to get the first newspaper interview with him in years (he had done one interview with the New York Times Magazine) after pursuing the interview for months.
All of these Yankees figures - players, manager, general manager and owners - put me in position to succeed as a reporter. I’m reflecting on that now and thinking about how I can help boost other peoples’ status. If Mariano Rivera, Derek Jeter and Joe Torre could make that effort, I certainly can.
*While the title indicates it’s just for women, I think the insights within would be valuable for anybody. That said, people react differently in general to women in leadership and women being assertive; plus women are socialized to behave differently (which doesn’t mean all women do) than men are, so I do think it’s particularly relevant for women. Also at the time, only a low single digit percentage of baseball reporters were women.
Kat, thanks for the shout out about my book and for these great examples of how others can boost our status!!