OPEN LETTER TO AN IDIOT . . .

Dear Mr. Steinbrenner,

I am a New York Yankee fan, and have been since the age of 2, when my dad took me to my first Yankee game. In fact, my dad was a Yankee fan before he even immigrated to this country, following the team by reading the stories printed in the Korean newspapers in Seoul, where he grew up. My whole family, even my mom, supports the Yankees, year-round. Heck, my girlfriends and I have even traveled to Tampa to stalk ... I mean, watch, the team during Spring Training.

That is why it pains me to see what you're doing to the team now. Mr. Steinbrenner, I hate to say it, but ... you are not a very smart man. In fact, you're an idiot, you are selfish, you are greedy, you are thoughtless, you are a bad businessman, you waste money, and you have no baseball foresight whatsoever. You demand instant gratification to the detriment of team-building and fans' loyalty. Frankly, you annoy me.

Why did you sacrifice Andy Pettitte -- a young, loyal and eminently capable pitcher -- and spend all your time negotiating a piddly one-year deal with David Wells? In case you haven't noticed, Wells is a crybaby -- remember "Oh, my back hurts and I don't feel like pitching in the World Series anymore!" -- and a bully who likes to pitch big games hungover. He also just had back surgery, for crying out loud! And as if all that isn't bad enough, his uniform is always baggy and untucked! What the heck kind of Yankee is he?!

Why did you sacrifice Andy Pettitte -- a valuable, humble and respected team-member -- for Gary Sheffield, an aging pissy-pants? Sheff is going to be more headache than he's worth -- he's causing you and all of us agita even now, and he's not even IN pinstripes yet! If he ever ends up on the team, he could be our equivalent of that evil Manny Ramirez, but without the hitting power. Bad move, Mr. Steinbrenner, baaad move.

Why did you sacrifice Andy Pettitte -- a gentle and steady guy who uncomplainingly gave you the first nine years of his life in the major leagues -- with an eye on Kevin Brown? Please, could that guy be more injured at any given moment? And no offense to anyone above a certain age, but ... he's OLD. In baseball years, Brown is about 83. Did you even think about that, or about the long-term health and goals of this team you own but apparently care so little about? I mean, you practically drove Pettitte to Houston yourself, you silly little twit!

Yankee fans are becoming disgruntled and very, very displeased with you, Mr. Steinbrenner. It's one thing when we go up against a really good team and have to fight to the bitter end, only to lose a championship. It's a whole different story when you CREATE a bad team, when you CONTRIBUTE to the discontent among the teammates, when you DRIVE AWAY the loyal-to-the-death fans with your unwise and rash decisions. If you care about us fans at all, if you are able to look above your mock turtleneck and consider the overall atmosphere of the clubhouse and the mesh-ablity of the team at all, if you claim to have any baseball knowledge or sense or hope for future World Series rings, then I plead you to rethink your ways.

In fact, Mr. Steinbrenner, I have an astonishing proposition for you. BUILD A TEAM. Don't just take all your pens and sign off on humongous checks to a bunch of people with big names but lessening skills and increasing injuries. I never thought I would ever, ever say this, but ... I am willing to sacrifice a year or two of championship rings, if it means that we'll be building an EXCELLENT team, one that will roar back with a vengeance, chock full of young, but trained and capable players. Go after those young players, you fool! You can't stock the Yankees with 38-year-olds forever. There is true value in taking some green guys, pulling them up through the farm system, spending time and money on them and focusing on their development, teaching them to play major league baseball, training them to play under pressure in the greatest baseball city in the country. So what if you don't win a couple of World Series rings? Give it a few years, and once again, you will have a dynasty of players worthy of comparison to the championship teams of the late 1990s, players who are pumped and excited to play Yankee baseball ... not a bunch of jaded has-beens crying about their entitlements and flashing their overrated selves about town. So take your greed and overwhelmingly selfish desire for a pennant, Mr. Steinbrenner, and channel it wisely. Think AHEAD, and stop trying to instantly gratify yourself.

Vasquez, Mussina, Contreras, Wells, Lieber ... eh, they'll suffice. Will they get you that Ultimate Win that you so covet year after year? Next year, I don't think so. And before you call me a nay-sayer, a pessimist, a disloyal fan, consider your own actions first. You, Mr. Steinbrenner, had a real chance to maintain a worthy and formidable line-up, and you basically cut that worthiness and formidability in half by ignoring Andy Pettitte and giving him a wide-open door through which to hie himself back to Houston. Yes, Andy wanted to be with his family and he could have trotted out of New York DAYS ago, but he waited -- WAITED -- for you to ask him to stay, and you flaked on him. In fact, in all your off-season choices, you had the opportunity to make some wise long-term investments and show your commitment to baseball, to the Yankees, to the fans. In addition to soooo wanting (and needing!) Pettitte to stay with us, we also would have been willing to be patient with fresh young blood: kids who are fired up to play ball and who are passionate about learning how to play it well and who are open to being trained and cultivated and molded into a true Yankee, without whining or complaining or throwing big-name-type hissy fits. But you chucked Mr. Reliable and all that potential for I don't know what -- your own vanity? Your own misguided sense of wise business decision-making? Your own bizarre desire to play stupid games with the Boston organization?

Eh, this is useless. Your reputation precedes you, and I know that even if you read this letter, you wouldn't care. That makes me sad -- what fan wants to think that his or her loyalty to the team is for naught? But that's how you are, that's who you are. I don't have to like you, but I suppose I can't judge you either. Your tiny little brain probably thinks you are doing the right thing, and you just don't know any better. However, I would just encourage you to be mindful of your attitude right now, your misplaced priorities, your actions in recent days, and remember all this next year when our team isn't doing as well as you'd hoped, when we're getting spanked by the Red Sox, when Sheff is throwing another hissy and Wells is taking another nap to soothe his bad back. I'll be there. I'll be at those games because Bernie, Derek, Jorge and the other true Yankee gentlemen will be drawing me back. And I will soooo look forward to the moment when you wake up and smell the chewing tobacco and realize that you should have listened to me all along.

Thank you for your consideration, and Happy Holidays.

A Yankee F��