Bronx Zoo ‘90: the season the New York Yankees hit a chaotic low

Championships, champagne and ticker tape parades – that’s the story of New York Yankees baseball, right? Not if you were on the team in 1990.

During that season the owner of the team’s flammable equipment was, George Steinbrenner was banned from baseball after making contact with gambler Howard Spira to discredit one of his own players, Dave Winfield. Outfielder Mel Hall brought two cougar cubs to the clubhouse and dated an underage high school student. On the field, the team was so bad that pitcher Andy Hawkins threw a no-hitter – and still lost. The Yankees finished last in the American League East. Their lowlight clip from the season 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 human drama in there, in a Goodfellas way,” says the film’s director, DJ Caruso. “I feel like this documentary, this docuseries, is for everyone. If you like true crime, you’ll like this documentary. If you like sports, you’ll love this documentary…I think there’s a very broad audience for this, and it’s not just a baseball documentary.”

If you’re longing for the late ’80s and early ’90s, prepare for some nostalgic moments, from Pac-Man to Mike Tyson’s sad loss to Buster Douglas to pre-gentrification New York City . There’s even Nelson Mandela visiting Yankee Stadium wearing a Yankees cap, plus the headlines from that era in all their glory: “Boss Answered Call of the Vile,” “One owner away from a championship.”

The idea to rewatch that season came during the outbreak of the Covid pandemic in 2020. With the world on lockdown and baseball on pause, New York Post sports columnist Joel Sherman was given permission to do a retrospective on the 1990 roster. Sherman was part of the story — at the time he was a second-year Yankees reporter for the Post. Now the series has been made into a movie, featuring interviews with many of the principals – including Spira and Hall, plus prosecutor Kim D’Avignon, who ultimately helped send the latter to prison.

As Sherman notes in the third and final episode, abnormal became the new normal in 1990.

Even before the year started there were seismic shocks. Sherman turned on the TV while hosting Christmas Eve dinner with his future wife and mother-in-law and heard that longtime Yankees manager Billy Martin had died that day in a car accident. It was rumored that Martin would return for a sixth stint as skipper to replace the embattled Bucky Dent.

‘I turned around [my family] – so no cell phones, no internet,” Sherman remembers. “I pointed to the landline and said, ‘In a minute that phone is going to ring and I have to disappear for the rest of the night.’ And 30 seconds later the phone rang, that was my editor.”

Spring training under Dent got off to an inauspicious start. The Yankees had signed free agent pitcher Pascual Perez to a big contract, but he postponed joining the team in Florida. When he finally arrived from his home in the Dominican Republic, an irate Steinbrenner had him give him a workout that evening. The docuseries shows that this hindered him in the coming season.

The Yankees had other talented players, including two-sport star Deion Sanders and mainstays Winfield and Don Mattingly. However, Sanders flopped, Donnie Baseball ended the year on the disabled list and Winfield’s contract proved to be a sore point with Steinbrenner – who, according to the docuseries, overlooked a cost of living increase. While owner and star argued, Steinbrenner found a solution: Spira and the dirt he offered to Winfield and his charitable foundation.

Winfield eventually left the Yankees in a trade to the Angels. That included Dent, who was fired during a game against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. Fenway was ironically the scene of his greatest exploits for New York; as an unknown player in 1978, he hit a go-ahead homer in a winner-take-all playoff game.

New manager Stump Merrill was left with a team burdened 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 some unexpected feline guests into the clubhouse and chained them to his locker, resulting in a stained carpet.

“I don’t think that would happen today,” Caruso said. “No one would have a couple of live cougars walking through a locker room.”

Even after Winfield left the roster, he continued to haunt New York. Baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent learned of Steinbrenner’s actions with Spira and issued a lifetime ban for the Yankees owner – news that was greeted with a standing ovation by fans at Yankee Stadium (the ban was later rescinded).

The docuseries compares Steinbrenner’s personality to that of another brash New Yorker of his era, Donald Trump, suggesting that The Donald modeled himself on The Boss, including a penchant for firing people. This time, however, it was Steinbrenner who got a pink slip.

“They weren’t impressive on the field, but they weren’t impressive off the field either,” Sherman said. “In 1990 that was the lowest possible level for the team.”

Early in the season, Hall pursued a relationship with high school student Chastity “Chaz” Easterly, whom he had first seen at a Yankees game. He convinced Easterly – and her family – and soon invited her to his Trump Tower apartment. (She says on camera that one day while shopping on West 57th Street, she encountered Trump, who asked if she was okay and if she needed help leaving her relationship with Hall.) The Yankees’ dysfunction at the time is highlighted by the fact that a photo of the two appeared in the team’s yearbook that season, showing Easterly wearing her prom dress.

The director interviewed Hall and Easterly for the docuseries. Hall speaks from a Texas prison, where he is now serving a 45-year sentence for raping a 12-year-old girl. Easterly’s testimony helped convict him; she has become a mother and voice for survivors of sexual violence.

“Chaz Easterly is a very remarkable woman,” Caruso said. “We have earned each other’s trust… It’s not easy to talk about these things.”

He adds: “Mel repeated this behavior over and over again in Texas, which is why he was eventually arrested and apprehended… I admire it [Easterly’s] courage, and I admire where she is now in her life, because she really turned something ugly into something very positive, and she’s doing everything she can to make sure it doesn’t happen to other girls.

As far as the Yankees were concerned, Steinbrenner’s banishment ultimately benefited the team.

A new general manager came in, Gene “Stick” Michael, who is credited with restoring the winning mentality to the club. Some newcomers helped: youngsters Mariano Rivera, draftees Andy Pettitte and Jorge Posada, and rising minor leaguer Bernie Williams, who is interviewed in the documentary. They would all play key roles in the Yankees’ four World Series winning streak from 1996 to 2000. By then, Steinbrenner was the Yankees’ owner again, after a successful PR campaign that included hosting Saturday Night Live and a cameo on Seinfeld. He died in 2010, a year after the Yankees’ most recent World Series title.

Since then, there have been near misses for almost a decade and a half. But at least no one brings big cats to the clubhouse anymore.

“This is the lowest moment for the franchise,” Sherman said of that season 34 years ago, “and yet we know what comes next.”