Buster Olney writes a book.

Guess what? It's anti-Yankee and anti-Steinbrenner.

After reading his insightful baseball articles on ESPN, who'd have thunk it?

I know it's just the publisher's notes, but it still has to crack you up: "With unparalleled knowledge of the game, he also advances a compelling argument that the philosophy that made the Yankees great was inherently unsustainable and ultimately harmful to the sport."

As for the "unparalleled knowledge of the game," all you have to do is read his articles to see that his baseball knowledge is, at the very least, ummm, "paralleled." I knew more about the game when I was ten years old. I don't have the time or energy to go back through the ESPN archives and link to all the stupid Olney articles. Just pick any of them and it's likely to demonstrate very little of that "unparalleled knowledge."

Whatever Yankees greatness was "unsustainable," maybe Olney should at least wait until they win less than 100 games in a season. Ask the Diamondbacks or Mariners about unsustainable greatness, the Yankees are cruising to their third straight 100-win season, thank you very much. I don't know why the 2001 team wasn't great when then came within 2 outs of a fourth-straight title. I also thought last year's team was great -- 103 wins, beating the Twins and Red Sox, missing another title by just two games. I also think the 2004 team is pretty great, easily the best record in the league and about to become the first Yankee team ever to win 100 games for three straight seasons. So I suppose it depends on what you mean by "great" and by "sustainable." Unless Olney would only have been satisfied with seven straight World Series titles.

As for the "harmful to the sport" stuff, his next article is probably going to be how Baseball is Back ten years after The Strike. I don't know how attendance records = Harm, but maybe you'll have to read the book and let me know. Probably because of the decline in Productive Outs, or something. Maybe the lack of Clubhouse Chemistry that is sweeping through major-league baseball like a cancer.

Am I the only person who thinks this kind of hurts this man's questionable credibility? When he writes that the Yankees are in trouble, is he trying to sell books? Or is his opinion merely clouded by his anti-Steinbrenner bias? Eventually, the Yankees will have a disappointing season and lose the AL East. Then Olney will proclaim victory because he's been predicting it for ten straight seasons.

But perhaps the most damning indictment is the following praise, found at amazon.com: "A wonderful story about money, power, and baseball that will keep you reading until the bottom of the 9th." That effusive praise is by none other than Mr. "Summer of '98" Himself, Mike Lupica.

Why don't they get a real journalist to review his book? At least KJ got less one-star reviews than Lupica.