Even More From Hank

From Bill Madden:

This is what the new "Hammerin' Hank" had to say to me Wednesday when I reached him in Tampa with the greeting: "How 'bout those Rays!":

"They're a great story down here right now," he said, "although it's terrible that they're only drawing only 16,000 a game. They're playing a lot better than us, that's for sure. I know we're gonna come on at some point in this season, but right now, other than (Chien-Ming) Wang, (Mariano) Rivera, (Derek) Jeter, (Hideki) Matsui, (Johnny) Damon and (Mike) Mussina, after I got on him a little, we're not doing jack (bleep).

"What bothers me is that these guys are all working for me and my brother and they're all making more money than we are. That's what makes me mad. But while I'm confident they'll come around, we'll just have to wait and see what happens this year. And if they don't come around then changes will have to be made. I've just got to clean up the mistakes of the last five years and make us what we should be."

OK Hank, I defended you're frustration comments yesterday but this is just ridiculous. you and you're brother own the Yankees, or at least will own a good portion of it eventually. I'm sure you will make more money than the players whose salaries YOU pay for.

Moving on, I agree that there have been mistakes over the past five seasons, but he's starting to sound too much like his father did in the late 70's and 80's. Stop passing off blame for for everything that goes wrong, and taking credit for everything that goes right (and Mike Mussina, after I got on him a little).

And enough of the "if they don't come around changes will be made," we all know you're going to fire people Hank, you wouldn't be a Stienbrenner if you didn't. Now stop saying it everyday.

He also had this to say about Andy Pettitte's recent struggles:

"I don't know what's wrong with Pettitte," Hank said. "I think he still has his confidence - he's even talked about coming back next year. Right now, I'm really concerned about the whole team."

Andy will be fine, he's had several rough outings before, it happens.