The New York Yankees are without a leader

Ken Davidoff says Yankee leadership is muddled at the top which won't likely change until the Steinbrenners sell the team:

• 10/2/08, "Cashman aims to win with dysfunctional Yankees," Newsday, Ken Davidoff (link inactive but posted elsewhere) (written after Cashman's renewal)

"But in their quest to regain the mantle as baseball's elite team, they still face a quandary that shows no sign of going away:

They're muddled at the top, above Cashman.

• From speaking to employees up and down the organizational food chain, you still get the sense that

• no one knows who's truly in charge.

Whereas George Steinbrenner ruled all in his prime, obsessing over both $189-million agreements with Derek Jeter and uncollected garbage on the practice field in Tampa, the

• organization lacks clarity today. The power flows, very unevenly, through these four outlets:

• 1. Hal Steinbrenner. He has worked hard in the last year to establish a relationship with Cashman and the baseball people, commuting to Yankee Stadium from his Tampa home nearly every week. But he is human, unlike his dad, in that he can't get his tentacles over everything.

• 2. Hank Steinbrenner. The "advisory-board" comments -- there will be no advisory board, Cashman confirmed Wednesday -- provide further proof that Hank is a highly entertaining fraud. As long as he's got his last name, however, Hank won't be ignored altogether.

• 3. Felix Lopez. The husband of George Steinbrenner's younger daughter Jessica, Lopez has
• exploited Hal's and Hank's limits to gain a surprising amount of power over
• the Tampa-based operations.
• Lopez is known as such a bully and a boor that he makes Hank Steinbrenner
• look like a gentleman and a scholar, in comparison.

• 4. Randy Levine. The head of everything in New York, including the Yankees' role in YES and the new Yankee Stadium, team president Levine used to be predictable in that he would carry out George Steinbrenner's wishes. Now, with The Boss largely resting in the background, Levine sits as more of a wild card.

From this, you have people wondering who really runs things. It's a question that, in reality, probably will fade only if, or when,

• the Steinbrenner family sells the team.

So in the interim, the Yankees will put forward their best words." from Ken Davidoff Newsday column, 10/2/08, "Cashman aims to win with dysfunctional Yankees"

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