OZ comes out from behind the curtain: Randy Levine

"For years, (Randy) Levine has been Oz, thought to have an enormous amount of influence. This week, the curtain was officially drawn back. This week, we know what we've suspected all along."

• (By hanging around dressing rooms waiting for meaningless quotes from players, baseball reporters avoided the most crucial story of the past few years--that Levine had become Steinbrenner. Many knew it was going on and said nothing about it). sm

(Vaccaro) "What Torre wasn't able to handle, and what was destined to be his Waterloo even if he opted to accept this transparent and temporary stay, was the new way the Yankees are run, the passive/aggressive obstacle course that now passes for the organizational flow chart.

Now the Yankees are run by a tangle of titles, by a couple of Steinbrenner sons and a gaggle of in-laws and headed by a professional politician named Randy Levine who never has made any pretense about the fact he is unconvinced that Torre personally hung the moon in the night sky.

• Torre always believed the harshest postgame questions asked by the Yankees' own state-run network originated in Levine's office. Whether that was true or not, it certainly tells you they weren't destined to be bridge partners, and it tells you the man who ran the team on the field wasn't necessarily prepared to share a foxhole with the man who ultimately ran it off the field.

And the man who, ultimately, ran him off the field.

• So Levine officially assumes a new role for himself as the crowds disperse from the gallows from which Torre has hung the past two weeks, although it is a perfectly familiar role for anyone who has followed the Yankees for more than a couple of minutes. Levine has thrust himself into position to be what Steinbrenner used to be, if this coup d'etat doesn't work out the way everyone on Thursday's conference call solemnly promised it would."
• From NY Post article by Mike Vaccaro, "Empire Gets a New Face of Evil," 10/20/07

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