Mike Celizic

It’s been a long time since the New York Yankees were led with as much decisiveness and common sense as has been exhibited around the Tampa bunker in the past month or so. Things have been so sane, in fact, it’s hard to believe that a guy named Steinbrenner is responsible for it.

Hank Steinbrenner, who took over the baseball operations and the role as front man in the organization, has not helped win a game yet, but he’s done enough to give a good hint of what kind of leader he’s going to be.

He’s a Steinbrenner, no question about it. He’s tough and determined and talkative, just like his father. But he differs from the Mad Shipbuilder in as many ways as he resembles him. He’s not the impulsive sort who would fire a secretary for messing up a lunch order, nor is he flamboyant. He also so far has shown none of his dad’s ability to poke fun at himself.

Most important, unlike his father, he has a logical plan to restore the franchise and has said he has the patience to even — horrors! — miss the playoffs for a year to see it through.

But if the past month has been marked by cold efficiency, Hank Steinbrenner almost blew it all at the very beginning of his reign as his famous father’s successor as head of baseball. Instead of giving popular manager Joe Torre the essentially inviting manager Joe Torre to fire himself rather than accept a big pay cut and a one-year deal. The way Hank threw Torre under the bus and then backed over him two or three times was roundly booed in the local media, and rightly so. The Son of Steinbrenner came off looking mean and just as sadistic as the old man.

But since then, Hank’s been a master tactician, one smooth and controversy-free decision following another, and each one building hope in the hearts of the Yankee faithful that things are again headed for glory.

He stared down uberagent Scot Boras and settled what could have been an ugly mess with Alex Rodriguez with dispatch and smiles all around. He wasted no time in re-signing Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera, then quickly convinced Andy Pettitte to put off his retirement plans for another year.

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Through it all, not one of the players complained of how he was treated, and Hank didn’t call a writer to volunteer an unkind comment about any of the players. Nor, when the players were signed for prodigious amounts of money, did he whine that now that they had these big contracts, they’d better perform or there’d be hell to pay. Not once has he used the phrase “spit the bit.”

Even the recent effort to trade for Minnesota’s great starter, Johan Santana, which ended with the Yankees declaring the Twins’ asking price too high, was a model of efficiency. The Yankees made their offer, set a deadline, made a decision based on a long-term plan, and moved on, leaving the back door open to re-open talks if the Twins reconsider their asking price.

And through it all, the team has spoken with one voice — Hank Steinbrenner’s. The deafening silence that had been coming from headquarters during George Steinbrenner’s last several years has been replaced by regular progress reports. There are no leaks coming out of the front office, no warring factions pursuing conflicting ends, no greedy grasping at every bright and sparkly bauble that comes into view.

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It’s been rough on the local papers, which have never had to deal with the concept of a rational Steinbrenner running the Yankees. They’d like to find something to criticize about the way George Steinbrenner’s eldest son is running the baseball end of the franchise. But they’re not having a lot of success.

The best anyone’s been able to come up with is that Hank Steinbrenner has taken over team spokesman duties from long-time general manager Brian Cashman, leaving Cashman with no public voice. Some have tried to suggest that Hank is also taking the decision-making out of Cashman’s hands, but the Santana negotiations followed Cashman’s master plan to develop home-grown pitchers — notably Philip Hughes, Ian Kennedy and Joba Chamberlain — and build the organization through the farm system instead of through expensive free agents.

According to most accounts, Hank may be doing all the talking, but he’s still letting Cashman do his job. And for the first time in the Steinbrenner era, Hank is also using the word “patience” in the way the team rebuilds. When he hired Joe Girardi to replace Torre, instead quoting his father and saying that only winning the World Series is a success, Hank said it might take a year or two to return to the top and he was willing to accept that.

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