There wasn't much anguish expressed when Jorge Posada got the bad news this weekend.
There weren't shouts that Joe Girardi was acting unfairly when he told Posada that he was out as the regular designated hitter for the rest of the season.
No one found it the least bit harsh that Girardi spelled out clearly that the Yankees are a better team when Posada isn't in the lineup.
The lack of a reaction includes Posada. He said he wasn't happy, but he didn't put up much of a fight in front of the media when he was asked about the conversation with Girardi.
That's a sharp contrast from what happened back in May when a tempest formed after Girardi dared to move Posada to the ninth spot in the batting order. It was disrespectful of the Yankees or Posada was insubordinate or maybe it was some combination, but everyone had an opinion and they shared it loudly.
You could hear a pin drop this time around, however. There was a collective shoulder shrug that tells the world that Posada pretty well deserves this fate thanks to a terrible season at the plate.
Will the same lack of passion accompany the next step in this play, the one where the Yankees announce Posada won't be on the postseason roster? Or will there be howls that the Yankees are being disrespectful and unappreciative of a man who has helped them taste so much glory in the past?
Let's hope so because Posada has gotten the only thing a man can ask for in baseball or in life. He got a chance, more than one, and he failed to make the most of it.
Local
This Yankee team needs more flexibility and athleticism off the bench than Posada can provide. It is nice to imagine that he comes up in a big spot against the Red Sox in the ALCS and delivers one more memory with his once potent bat, but we all know that Eduardo Nunez is a lot more likely to deliver that blow at this point in time.
Good endings are rare in books and movies, but they are even rarer in baseball. Players, even the greatest of the great, hit a point where they can't do their jobs any longer and Posada is no exception to this rule.
You can feel bad about Posada being in a place where he must face the realities of time marching forward. You just can't feel like he didn't get a fair shake from the Yankees when it came to the 2011 season.
If he played for any other AL team, he would have been released a long time ago. If he played for the Yankees without a resume that gets you a huge Old-Timer's Day ovation, he would have been released a long time ago.
He earned his repeated shots this year because he was a part of so much winning during his Yankees career. The Yankees honored that long enough, now it is time to focus on adding another title above all else.
Josh Alper is a writer living in New York City. You can follow him on Twitter and he is also a contributor to Pro Football Talk.
