XM MLB Chat: Randy Levine "gloating" over Chien-Ming Wang-- Dave Buscema, Times Herald Record

"Finally, the Yankees have something to celebrate after one of the roughest offseasons in club history.

Finally, after a winter filled with losses — from the bitter departure of a legendary manager to the reputations of a pair of iconic pitchers — the Yankees notched a win so significant team president Randy Levine dashed off a crowing press release the moment it had been recorded.

Even though the victory came against the team's own pitcher, Chien-Ming Wang.

In an arbitration case both sides could have avoided.

You can't make this stuff up.

Especially when it comes from the mind of Levine, who provided the latest example of how the proudest franchise in sports can look so utterly shameless lately.

Who was to blame for the failure to split a $600,000 difference can be debated — as it was by Nero and GM Brian Cashman in interviews with the Times Herald-Record.

Either way, most arbitration cases are settled so a club doesn't have to go through the unseemly process of attacking its own player in a hearing that he attends.

So it certainly isn't something that should be boasted about. Such bragging could not only make players in the Yankees' clubhouse roll their eyes — it could eventually make free agents scratch their heads a little more about coming here.

Is that likely? Of course not. But if times change and winning is harder to come by, these types of moments — along with all those lovely Hank Steinbrenner sound bytes — could eventually matter.

A checkbook alone will not solve that problem — just ask teams like the Orioles, who couldn't counter their egotistical owner, Peter Angelos, in the late '90s, even when he was trying to throw cash away.

And with a slew of young prospects the Yankees are banking on for the present and future the Yankees might want to stop setting precedents of challenging their best players to fight for every dime.

Especially since they usually end up paying more later anyway....

And Wang said he would ignore the Yankees' arbitration complaints that he didn't strike out enough people and "stay the same."

That's good since his game is getting doubleplays.....

Again, you can debate whose fault it was the Yankees even ended up in arbitration with Wang over a mere $600,000, paying him $4 million instead of $4.6....

Such disagreements surely led to Levine's gloating, which sounded like one of the confetti-laced statements the Yankees used to reserve for World Series titles around here.

And added to the list of classless moves he's made that have turned off Yankees fans.

Last fall, he alienated fans as the face of the Joe Torre debacle.

Nearly four years ago, he alienated anyone with a working heartbeat and common sense when he called for the Devil Rays to forfeit a game because-