NO JOY IN YANKEEVILLE

Mike Lupica joined the chorus of columnists (Peter Gammons and most recently Joel Sherman) who are convinced that there will be no joy in Yankeeville this season. In one of his better columns, Lupica chides Boss Steinbrenner for taking all the fun out of covering the Bronx Bombers:

Nobody wants to talk too much about this, the Yankees being the company in a company town, too many media people too often acting like a part of the company. But as the Yankees keep getting bigger, the way their payroll does, the whole culture of the Yankees becomes this: They are losers if they don't win the World Series. Which means their fans sometimes sound exactly like the owner of the team.

When they win, it is Steinbrenner and his wallet and his love for the fans and his passion to produce a winner that did it.

When they lose, it's somebody else's fault.

This is for all those who actually believe Steinbrenner has changed because the Yankees won four World Series in five years.

...There is even more pressure than the usual suffocating pressure on the Yankees to win it all this year, since the Yankees are the only team in all of sports who are supposed to win every single year, or else. You can see what an atmosphere of great joy this brings to the whole long season that begins any minute with pitchers and catchers.

It is imposible to believe Torre will manage the Yankees in 2004 if he doesn't win in '03; that he can survive going three straight years without a title even with four in the books already.

... All this money spent. All these starting pitchers. More pressure to win than ever. Torre and the rest of them always say they know what the deal is when they come here. Then they go a couple of years without winning it all. Not allowed. What a joy to be rich and a Yankee.

While I sympathize with Lupica's perspective, reading his column made me thankful that I'm a fan. Sure, the Yankees have created a culture where winning is the only thing that matters. That's Steinbrenner's M.O. And of course, there are many so-called Yankee fans that will look at anything less than a World Championship as an unmitigated failure. If that's the way they want to live life, it's a free country.

They're missing out, but I won't let them spoil my fun.

I know that I will find a lot of joy in watching the Yankees this year, because while I hope they put themselves in a position to win another title, my experience won't be ruined if they fail to win it all. Baseball is too screwy to guarantee, no matter how insistent Steinbrenner is. After all, part of being a Yankee fan is being able to block out Steinbrenner and concentrate on Joe Torre and his team between the lines. In fact, part of the Yankees annual struggle is not only against the rest of the league, but against the monster upstairs in the front office too.

I understand why George's bulldozer approach would sap all the fun out of the team for some reporters and even the fans too. In Ken Burns' "Baseball" documentary, the veteran baseball writer Roger Angell commented that when he used to visit Yankee Stadium [in the 1980s] he was troubled because he wanted to see the Yankees, and he felt like all he could see was George Steinbrenner. The Boss had somehow, irrevocably, come between the fan and the players.

In that sense, things haven't changed all that much for some observers. But I think Joe Torre's team has handled the Boss better than any of it's predecessors. But as Lupica suggests, that may all change if they don't capture another World Serious Ring before 2003 is all said and done.

John Harper added a Yankee Preview for the News yesterday as well. Here is an example of how far the Bronx Zoo has come:

There were several clubhouse issues last season, from Posada's fight with Orlando Hernandez to Derek Jeter's purloined glove. Then, while packing up his locker last October, Posada complained that some of his teammates weren't taking the loss to the Angels hard enough, which had some team executives bristling behind the scenes, saying Posada was showing off for Jeter.

You really have to reach to come up with some good dirt these days. Posada's fight with Duque? Please. Anyone who has followed the Yanks know that those two red-asses were in each other's business every time Hernandez pitched. This "incident" falls in the Boys-will-be-Boys category and was utter harmless. Rube Rivera, who vicked Jeter's glove, was sent packing before the tabliods hit the newsstand. And Posada popping off at the end of the playoffs? A lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.

Haper asked Yankee general manager Brian Cashman about the percieved loss of leadership in the Yankee clubhouse:

"I don't want to belittle leadership, but it goes hand-in-hand with performance. When performance deteriorates, it's like leadership gets the same haircut that Samson did.

"David Cone was a great leader in our clubhouse, but when his performance dropped (in 2000), he didn't carry as big a stick in our clubhouse, mainly because he had to worry about getting himself straightened out."

... "Leadership comes from a lot of places - the manager, the coaches, the players. We still have a lot of leaders. It's hard to replace guys like O'Neill; the leadership he can provide is rare. But we've had leaders come and go - (John) Wetteland, Chili Davis, Tim Raines, Luis Sojo, O'Neill.

"We won championships because we outperformed teams that year. Prior to '98, we had some of the same players. Were they less leaders in 1997 because we lost? Or 2001? No, we just lost to better teams.

"All the stuff on the topic of new guys [not being able to lead] is a bunch of bull."

Cashman was also asked about how the team would handle the massive press coverage Godzilla Matsui will recieve:

"That's life," Cashman said. "Do I think it'll distract? It shouldn't. Our guys are used to being the Beatles when they're on the road, any city we go to. Opposing team's media directors cringe when we come in. Our players are used to it.

"This is a big-stage town and if you're not prepared for the fish bowl, this is the wrong environment. What about when Jeter was dating Mariah Carey? You think there's going to be more requests for Matsui?

"Hey, we made the World Series when there was a media swarm on Hideki Irabu. And we made it with David Wells, where his off-the-field commitment was less than the other players. "It's all a bunch of hooey."

SORI GETS NAILED

If there is one Yankee that manages to convey a sense of joy while playing it's Alfonzo Soriano. But not everyone loves lil Sori after all. In the funniest story that I've read in a minute, former Met Lenny 'Nails' Dykstra had some pretty harsh words for the Yankee second-baseman in a recent Esquire magazine article:

"Everybody's blinded by this guy's offense. But watch him play. He's a hacksaw!"

Dykstra was watching on television when Soriano swung at the first pitch with the Yankees trailing late in Game 4 of the American League Division Series against the Angels. That was an intolerable sin to Dykstra, who was at Edison Field for Game 3. "When you're down, you don't swing on the first [bleeping] pitch, bro!" Dykstra continued. "You don't take that 30-percent chance of getting a hit or whatever it is and go with it. I can't take watching these guys [bleep] it up. I can't take it."

Contacted by The Post, Dykstra didn't back down from those comments. "Guy taking swings when the count's 2-0 and they're down by two runs with nobody on, that kills me," he said. "I can't believe people don't say anything about it."

As for Soriano, "He's a hacker," Dykstra said. "The thing about it is a lot of his hacks have good results. But he's a hacker."

Never mind that Soriano's wild hacks were more productive than Dykstra's hard-earned, base-on-balls, Lenny plays the bitter, ex-jock well, thank you very much. Is Soriano a hacker? Of course he is. Does he have a lot to learn about the game? He sure does. But he's also got the kind of innate talent that would make a scrapper like Nails blind with envy.

Anyhow, knowing that anything Soriano does right will burn a small hole in Dykstra's gut, will help me enjoy Sori's season all the more.

Nails also had a parting shot for Mike Mussina of all people:

"I know all about guys like him. College boys. Think they're better than everyone else." But he told The Post he really doesn't know much about Mussina other than, "I know he can pitch."

Dykstra is starting to sound like Dennis Quaid's "Mean ol' man Mike," from "Breaking Away."

Good shit.

5 QUESTIONS...

The Sunday Post ran brief previews for both the Mets and Yanks. Check em out.