Is Mike Luipca trying to bait George Steinbrenner?

Is it even possible that Lupica's inflated sense of self-importance has reached these levels? As if Steinbrenner is going to read Lupica's article and respond like a lunatic in order to get the back page of the Daily News? Lupica exhibiting some sort of infantile reverse psychology?

You see, after constantly predicting eruptions of Mount Steinbrenner, Lupica then criticizes Fonzbrenner for playing it cool: "Steinbrenner is still analyzed as some kind of loose cannon, as if he might do anything or say anything, as if he is still the big, bad, back-page Boss. Does anybody still believe that?"

What? Lupica himself just wrote 100 article about the obsessive back-page Boss that only existed in Lupica's imagination.

According to Lupica, Steinbrenner was going to erupt if ....

• the Yankees lose in the playoffs to the upstart Angels.
• the Yankees lose in the playoffs to the upstart Marlins.
• the Yankees lose in the playoffs to the Red Sox.
• the Mets sign Pedro Martinez.
• the Yankees get swept by the Mets, even in the regular season.

Lupica has fired Cashman on Steinbrenner's behalf about 100 times already.

Just a couple of weeks ago, Lupica was insisting that the Randy Johnson talks had heated up largely because the Yankees wanted to steal the back page from the Mets.

Gee, Lupica, "does anybody still believe that?"

Steinbrenner deserves his rep to some degree, but it's been a long, LONG time since he fired Dick Howser for losing in the playoffs and went nuts on Bobby Murcer for popping up a bunt in the World Series. He is still liable to confuse baseball with football or, even worse, the armed forces. He's still willing to mix it up with MLB and other owners with a well-timed press release. But this Mount Steinbrenner myth should have died a long time ago. It's only kept alive by lazy sportswriters. If Lupica is suddenly indicting the press for their "loose cannon" image, then he's the biggest culprit.


Now, as for Steinbrenner's idea of winning, I don't know how any Yankee fan could disagree with this Perfect World:

"And his idea of winning goes something like this: The Yankees win the World Series again, no matter how much it costs. If the Red Sox and Mets suffer along the way, all the better."