Championships, champagne and parades – that’s the story of New York Yankees baseball, right? Not if you were on the team in 1990.
During that season, the team’s fuel owner George Steinbrenner, was banned from baseball after connecting with player Howard Spira to discredit one of his own players, Dave Winfield. Outfielder Mel Hall brought two cougar cubs into the clubhouse and had a relationship with an underage student. On the field, the team was so bad that pitcher Andy Hawkins threw a no-hitter – and still lost. The Yankees came in last place in the American League East. The season’s weakest film gets a second look in a new documentary on Peacock in the US – Bronx Zoo ’90: Crime, Chaos and Baseball.
“There’s a bit of Goodfellas-style human drama,” says the film’s director, DJ Caruso. “I feel like this documentary, this docuseries, is for everyone. If you like true crime, you will like this documentary. If you like sports, you’ll love this documentary… I think there’s a really broad audience for this, and it’s not just a baseball documentary.”
If you long for the late 1980s and early ’90s, get ready for some nostalgic moments, from Pac-Man to Mike Tyson’s loss to Buster Douglas to pre-gentrification New York City. There’s even Nelson Mandela visiting Yankee Stadium and wearing a Yankees cap, plus the tabloid headlines of the era in all their glory – “Boss Answered Call of the Vile”, “One Owner Away From a Championship”.
The idea to revisit that season came about during the start of the Covid pandemic in 2020. With the world on lockdown and baseball on hiatus, New York Post sports columnist Joel Sherman was given permission to take a look back at the team. 1990. Sherman was part of the story — back then, he was a second-year Yankees reporter at the Post. Now the series has been adapted for film, featuring interviews with many of the directors – including Spira and Hall, as well as prosecutor Kim D’Avignon, who ended up helping send the latter to prison.
As Sherman notes in the third and final episode, abnormal became the new normal in 1990.
Even before the beginning of the year there were seismic shocks. Sherman turned on the TV while organizing Christmas Eve dinner with his future wife and mother-in-law and learned that longtime Yankees manager Billy Martin died in a car accident that day. There were rumors that Martin would return for a sixth stint as captain to replace the embattled Bucky Dent.
“I turned to [my family] – no cell phones, no internet,” recalls Sherman. “I pointed to the landline and said, ‘In the next minute that phone is going to ring and I’m going to have to disappear for the rest of the night.’ And 30 seconds later, the phone rang, it was my editor.”
Spring training under Dent got off to an inauspicious start. The Yankees signed free agent pitcher Pascual Perez to a big contract, but he delayed joining the team in Florida. When he finally arrived from his home in the Dominican Republic, an outraged Steinbrenner forced him to train that night. The docu-series suggests this held him back in the upcoming season.
The Yankees had other talented players, including All-Star Deion Sanders and cornerstones Winfield and Don Mattingly. However, Sanders fizzled, Donnie Baseball ended the year on the disabled list, and Winfield’s contract proved to be a sore point for Steinbrenner – who, according to the documentation, had overlooked a cost-of-living increase. While owner and star fought, Steinbrenner found a solution – Spira and the dirt he offered in Winfield and his charitable foundation.
Winfield ultimately left the Yankees via trade with the Angels. The same happened to Dent – who was fired during a game against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. Fenway, ironically, was the scene of his greatest heroics for New York; As an unknown player in 1978, he hit a home run in a winner-take-all playoff game.
New coach Stump Merrill was left with a team weighed down by injuries and underperforming players. There was a bright spot in rookie Kevin Maas; Female fans showed their appreciation for his home runs in a way that wasn’t exactly G-rated. And one day Hall brought two unexpected feline guests into the clubhouse and chained them to his closet, resulting in a stained carpet.
“I don’t think that would happen today,” says Caruso. “Nobody would have a pair of live cougars walking around a locker room.”
Even after Winfield’s departure from the cast, he continued to haunt New York. Baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent learned of Steinbrenner’s actions with Spira and banned the owner from the Yankees for life—news that was met with a standing ovation from fans at Yankee Stadium (the ban was later rescinded).
The docu-series compares Steinbrenner’s personality to that of another brash New Yorker of his era, Donald Trump, suggesting that The Donald took inspiration from The Boss, including a penchant for firing people. This time, however, it was Steinbrenner who received a pink slip.
“They were very unimpressive on the field and off the field as well,” says Sherman. “In 1990, this was the lowest level the team could reach.”
Early in the season, Hall pursued a relationship with high school student Chastity “Chaz” Easterly, whom he first saw during a Yankees game. He won over Easterly – and her family – and soon invited her to her apartment in Trump Tower. (She says on camera that one day, while shopping on West 57th Street, she ran into Trump, who asked her if she was OK and if she needed help moving on from her relationship with Hall.) The Yankees’ dysfunction at the time is highlighted by the fact of the two appearing in that season’s team yearbook, with Easterly wearing her prom dress.
The director interviewed Hall and Easterly for the documentary series. Hall speaks from a prison in Texas, where he is now serving a 45-year sentence for raping a 12-year-old girl. Easterly’s testimony helped convict him; she became a mother and voice for survivors of sexual violence.
“Chaz Easterly is a truly remarkable woman,” says Caruso. “We gained each other’s trust… It’s not easy to talk about these things.”
He adds: “Mel repeated this behavior countless times in Texas, which is why he ended up being arrested and captured… I admire [Easterly’s] courage, and I admire where she is in her life right now, because she really turned something ugly into something really positive, and she’s working to make sure that doesn’t happen to other girls.”
As for the Yankees, Steinbrenner’s ban ended up benefiting the team.
A new GM arrived, Gene “Stick” Michael, who is credited with restoring a winning mentality at the club. Some newcomers helped – youngster Mariano Rivera, draftees Andy Pettitte and Jorge Posada, and promising minor leaguer Bernie Williams, who is interviewed in the documentary. All would play important roles in the Yankees winning four World Series from 1996 to 2000. By that time, Steinbrenner was owner of the Yankees again, following a successful public relations campaign that included hosting Saturday Night Live and a guest appearance on Seinfeld. He died in 2010, a year after the Yankees’ most recent World Series title.
It’s been almost a decade and a half of near misses since then. But at least no one is bringing big cats into the clubhouse anymore.
“This is the lowest point for the franchise,” Sherman says of that season 34 years ago, “and yet we know what comes next.”
