Scott Ostler: Harbaugh’s failures, large and small

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What did Jim Harbaugh do that was so intolerable to Jed York, other than fail to bring home Super Bowl trophies, to which York believes he is entitled because he is Jed Super Bowl York?

The 49ers’ high-level leakers don’t leak to me, but here’s a possible example of the kind of stuff that caused York to pound fists on desk:

In the new stadium there is a VVIP club under the stands behind each team bench. Stadium plans called for the players on each team, going from locker room to field, to file smack-dab through the middle of the clubs, their stampeding hooves causing olives to bob in martini glasses.

This idea, the swells rubbing shoulder pads with the snorting gladiators, was stolen from the Dallas Cowboys. It’s the kind of backstage-pass access rich folks adore, and pay for. Un-rich folks adore it, too, but haven’t earned it.

Problem: The 49ers’ locker room is on the stadium’s east side, but that’s the sunny side of the field. No shade on hot days, and the sun slants directly into your eyes.

Harbaugh requested (demanded? wheedled?) that the 49ers switch benches and take the west sideline. But in that case, the 49ers couldn’t run through the east-side club, because they would emerge behind the visitors’ bench, and vice versa.

(Why not switch locker rooms? Because the 49ers’ locker room is adjacent to team headquarters and practice fields.)

If York objected to Harbaugh’s request to switch benches, it’s easy to imagine the coach, no great conciliator, telling his boss, “If I want my players to mingle with the fans, I’ll invite fans into the locker room to get their ankles taped.”

Harbaugh got his way. The VVIP stampede was canceled.

So it is that the two teams enter the field via tunnels near each goal post, while the rich folk brood in their hip yet lonely enclaves.

It’s all part of the Jim Harbaugh scorched-earth modus operandi. Sure, his teams win a lot of games, but at such a cost! Super Bowl York believes he can have his Lombardi trophies and his stampedes, too.

We’ll see.

Scott Ostler is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. E-mail: sostler@sfchronicle.com, Twitter @scottostler