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All-Tabloid Yankees and Mets teams

By Pete Catapano, amNewYork managing editor | pcatapano@am-ny.com

July 15, 2008

Yankees All-Tabloid team: CF Mickey Mantle

With his all-American looks and charm, Mantle was a staple of New York City nightlife in the '50s and '60s. He was also on hand for the brawl in 1957 with Martin at the Copa, a usual Yankees haunt. Mantle's drinking ultimately cost him his life in 1995. (AP Photo)

Be it on the field, page one of the tabloids or a jail cell, New York has had a long line of baseball stars who can't seem to stay out of trouble or the headlines.

The reigning king of the gossip pages is Alex Rodriguez, who's mired in a nasty divorce. But whether it's the late Billy Martin's fisticuffs with fans or Darryl Strawberry's drug use, it seems New York baseball stars seems to court the limelight.

"A lot of times an athlete grows up in a small town and the nightlife and grandiosity is so overwhelming, it can be hard for them to overcome their impulses," said Dr. Jay P. Granat, sports psychologist and founder of stayinthezone.com, a Web site for athletes.

"Secondly they are so much in the limelight, they get so much adoration, they get hooked on that. They feel they are entitled to it, and there's a playground here."

Just in the last couple of years alone, New York's baseball stars have been getting more attention off the field than on.

Before the most recent A-Rod scandal, six-time Cy Young award winner and two-time Yankee Roger Clemens grabbed headlines -- and even the attention of Congress -- for his alleged steroid use, and later for his affair with country star Mindy McCready, reportedly going back to when she was just 15 years old.

The list of New York players getting into trouble is long, going back to Yankees' Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle and Martin and the Mets' Strawberry and Dwight Gooden in 1980s.

"These players give New York a bad rep! They should be setting examples. And sometimes it's like they're rewarded for screwing around, but they should be penalized," said Elizabeth Perez, 50, of Williamsburg.

While some may think the city's to blame for all the shenanigans, some psychologists say media attention could be equally to blame.

"My initial reaction is that it doesn't happen more in New York," said Dr. Michael Sachs, a kinesiology professor at Temple University and a sports psychologist. "It's that the media scrutiny in New York is more intense than elsewhere ... it gets magnified far more than in Milwaukee, St. Louis or Tampa, for example."

New Yorkers were mixed on how much the Big Apple could be a big, bad influence on players.

"It's the New York nightlife. You can go anywhere and pay for whatever you want," said Yovanne Chery, 32, of Harlem.

Richard Laman, 55, of the Upper West Side said: "I think if they want to misbehave they'll find a way to do it. Whether if it would be in the press as much if it happened somewhere else, I don't know."