It was the (only sometimes) unspoken question always in the background for the first season of the new Yankee Stadium, and it increasingly became the undertone as the post-season accelerated.

Even this afternoon, as the minions of the nation's media capital tried to out-do each other with more and more speculative coverage of the victory parade, a reporter who has been on the radio here for nearly half a century insisted that the highlight of the day would be the "emotional moment" when Steinbrenner accepted his key to the city. A less-senior and far more skeptical colleague asked if this was actually going to happen. The veteran's answer: "It's right here in the program for the ceremony!"

This is, of course, the impression the Yankees continue to give: that all is not necessarily well with their venerable owner, but that he's still frequently involved. There was even a very sad effort just last Saturday by The New York Post to palm off a series of e-mailed answers from infamous mega-flak Howard Rubinstein as an "exclusive interview" with George Steinbrenner. To paraphrase Churchill, the answers contained every cliche except "prepare to meet thy maker," and "employees must wash hands."

I have seen The Boss, with whom I have had a surprisingly warm and even conspiratorial relationship since I was a teenager, only twice this year, and the information gleaned from each encounter was directly self-contradictory. In March, David Cone and I were leaving the press box at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa when the place was frozen by security - it was George on his way out and they cleared the route for him. He was in a wheelchair and looked just this side of robust - twinkly-eyed and neither gaunt nor puffy. Cone whispered that he just had to say hello, and hoped he'd get a hello back.

This is what I heard:

Cone: (mumbled greeting)

Steinbrenner: Of course I know it's you, David. Jesus! We could've used you pitching out there today. Who were those kids? Are any of them ready?

So much for Cone's fear (and mine - to this day I think of George less for the chaos of the '70s and '80s and more for the letter he wrote to ESPN management praising my work on the 1992 Expansion Draft, in which I roundly criticized how his team handled the non-protection of its younger prospects, or the day he spent twenty minutes recounting to Bill Clinton, of all people, virtually every encounter he and I had had since 1973, right down to the story of my mother getting hit by the Knoblauch ball and refusing to ever go back to Shea Stadium even though the Yanks were playing World Series games there).

But just weeks later, during another lockdown, I saw Steinbrenner carted through the bowels of the new ballpark in the Bronx and lifted - not helped, but moved by a guy at each end - into a wheelchair.

Over the last few years, as his health has gotten intermittent, the volume of even rumors and whispers around the Bronx about how he is has declined. When the Yankees traded for Jeff Weaver, Steinbrenner poked his head in to the press conference and asked me "What do you think? How clear-headed does he sound? Is he going to be able to handle this?" - prescient questions, as it proved. A year later I was told that everybody knew there were "awareness problems" but that to my source's knowledge, nobody in the Yankee organization had ever heard a diagnosis, a prognosis, or even a vaguely medical-sounding term. A year after that, when he recited our history to Clinton, his memory was so sharp as to include some stories that I had forgotten - but each time he tried to say my name, all he could come up with was "uhh... this young man." After the 2007 season, there is no question that, to some degree great or small, he was behind the nightmarish, take-it-or-leave-it dethroning of Joe Torre as manager.

There are fewer such reports these days, and not even that level of source information. There's a lot to be said against George Steinbrenner and lord knows I've said much of it. But something made me feel very sad today at that Yankee ceremony: contrary to what it said "right here on the program for the ceremony!," The Boss was indeed not there to accept the keys to the city.

 

I don't know anybody in baseball who hates Mariano Rivera. When the Red Sox fans derisively cheered him on Ring Day in 2005 in an attempt to remind him of his part in making that day possible, he tipped his cap - and instantly, if anybody in Boston truly despised him, that evaporated.

Fascinating subtext to Hideki Matsui's five-RBI night and Johnny Damon's MVP-caliber performance over the first five games. They are in essence competing for the sane job on the 2010 Yankees. It is unlikely New York wants to trust either in leftfield next year, certainly not at these prices. But either would make - as Matsui already has proven - a top-of-the-line DH.

Pedro Martinez, out after just 77 pitches, for the overworked Chad Durbin in the fifth? Two hits, a walk, and a run later, exit Durban, enter the ubderappreciated J.A. Happ. Not Shown In Your Picture: Andy Pettitte, after some close pitches and two walks in the fourth, animatedly discussing it with home plate umpire Joe West as the teams changed sides. Joe Girardi came out to protect him, but whatever he said, Pettitte left West laughing.

Pedro Martinez, out after just 77 pitches, for the overworked Chad Durbin in the fifth? Two hits, a walk, and a run later, exit Durban, enter the ubderappreciated J.A. Happ. Not Shown In Your Picture: Andy Pettitte, after some close pitches and two walks in the fourth, animatedly discussing it with home plate umpire Joe West as the teams changed sides. Joe Girardi came out to protect him, but whatever he said, Pettitte left West laughing.

Pedro Martinez, out after just 77 pitches, for the overworked Chad Durbin in the fifth? Two hits, a walk, and a run later, exit Durban, enter the ubderappreciated J.A. Happ. Not Shown In Your Picture: Andy Pettitte, after some close pitches and two walks in the fourth, animatedly discussing it with home plate umpire Joe West as the teams changed sides. Joe Girardi came out to protect him, but whatever he said, Pettitte left West laughing.

Passing by almost without notice here in the Stadium that Johnny Damon just exited after a not-so-vigorous race from second to score the Yankees' fourth run. There was no delay or dither about this; Joe Girardi bounded out of the dugout at inning's end to tell Joe West about the change, apparently the result of a calf strain. One wonders if one of the Series' previous hurts keyed the New York rally: Shane Victorino not only badly misread Derek Jeter's fly, but seemed a little hesitant to dive for it (although obviously he was not leading with the hand hurt by the Burnett Hit By Pitch on Monday). And to prove not everybody gets it, even at Game Six of the World Series, when Pedro Martinez plunked Mark Teixeira to load the bases ahead of Rodriguez and Matsui, much of the crowd here booed. The way Teixeira hasn't hit in this Series, if he doesn't hurt him, Girardi would be happy to carry him to first base on his back if Martinez will keep hitting Teixeira all night.

Passing by almost without notice here in the Stadium that Johnny Damon just exited after a not-so-vigorous race from second to score the Yankees' fourth run. There was no delay or dither about this; Joe Girardi bounded out of the dugout at inning's end to tell Joe West about the change, apparently the result of a calf strain. One wonders if one of the Series' previous hurts keyed the New York rally: Shane Victorino not only badly misread Derek Jeter's fly, but seemed a little hesitant to dive for it (although obviously he was not leading with the hand hurt by the Burnett Hit By Pitch on Monday). And to prove not everybody gets it, even at Game Six of the World Series, when Pedro Martinez plunked Mark Teixeira to load the bases ahead of Rodriguez and Matsui, much of the crowd here booed. The way Teixeira hasn't hit in this Series, if he doesn't hurt him, Girardi would be happy to carry him to first base on his back if Martinez will keep hitting Teixeira all night.

It is not nearly as cold as advertised - winds largely calm, conditions brisk but pleasant. Pregame comment from Johnny Damon on his status atop the list here if The Smartest Plays in Series History: "Me?" (Points at self, makes face, laughs) "Smartest?". Pre-game comment from Reggie Jackson on Chase Utley's homer surge: "Great hitter. Great accomplishment. Remind him that the last homer I hit here in '77 wouldve hit where the restaurant is now in center."

Two things popped into my Big Empty Head in route: anybody remember George Steinbrenner's last great personnel gasp? His insistence that the Yankees trade Andy Pettitte because he just wasn't tough enough in the critical games? This, as I recall, was in. 1999 and the deal was supposed to send him to...the Phillies. The other thought: what became of the four teams that really did blow 3-1 leads in the Series? The 1985 Cards fell below .500 in 1986 but made it back to the Series in '87 and it was five years until manager Whitey Herzog left the job. The '68 Cards never recovered but skipper Red Schoendienst lasted until 1976. But the 1958 Braves would stagger into another crisis - a tie for what wouldve been a third straight pennant in 1959. But after a disturbing playoff loss to the Dodgers, manager Fred Haney was fired, Milwaukee never again seriously contended, and within seven years the franchise was moving to Atlanta. The 1925 Senators weren't competitive again until 1933 and player-manager Bucky Harris was out by '28.