So, the buzz from the Grapefruit circuit yesterday was Hank Steinbrenner's thinly veiled shot at Derek Jeter and his "building mansions" instead of concentrating on the God-given mandate of having the Yankees winning the World Series last year.Now, I am no big Yankees fan, but for those of you who are, I would be interested in hearing from you on this proclamation from the Little Stein. It seems like the very last guy that the front office should be dissing is Derek Jeter, starting with their low balling him in this winter's contract negotiations.
A couple of questions from me on this:
- Is it true that it is Hal Steinbrenner, and not Hank, who is really running the Yankees, and that he, Hal, basically told Hank to shut his pie hole over this Building Mansions nonsense?
- Does Hank hang around with Rex Ryan up there in Gotham? They seem to have so much in common.
- I hear that the house Jeter is building, or has built, in Tampa has 30,000 square feet. THIRTY THOUSAND SQUARE FEET!!!! Good God, has anyone seen pictures of this place? It must be as big as a Giant Eagle.
It is Hal, not Hank who is the managing general partner. And, Hal is considerably younger than Hank. Although it can't be proven, the general opinion is that Hank has been told to keep his trap shut. Hank is not a bragger like Rex Ryan but he is a bull in a china shop. The press loves to to to extract comments from him because it almost guaranteed that he'll say something that will create headlines, like the comment about players more concerned with building mansions than winning championships. The remark was obviously aimed at Jeter because the media quickly researched and found that Jeter is the only Yankee who was in the process of having a house/mansion built. As for the house, it is a unbelievable. It has been christened "St. Jetersberg" in the Tampa Bay area. I think if you Google "Jeter's house" you'll probably find some pictures. The NY Post ran several photos of it on February 22nd. If you go the NT Post web-site you will find a spot called "Post covers" If you click on that it provides a all previous front and back pages. Click on Feb 22 and the house is on the front page of that issue. I think the house is atrocious. If my memory serves me it has nine bathrooms, eight bedrooms, two 3 car garages, an infinity swimming pool, a memorabilia room (whatever that is), a ball room and several kitchens. I've read quite a bit about this house over the years as it was being built and apparently the residents in the neighborhood are quite upset over this monstrosity. Jeter had to obtain several variances from the building code including the height of the fence that surrounds the grounds. It covers three lots and the land alone cost $7.5 million. The construction costs have to added to the $7.5 million. The house was just completed in January 2011.
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