Mike Celizic

No matter how well the Yankees were playing, no matter how many home runs flew out of their new building, no matter much fun they had in the clubhouse, no matter how smoothly their season was going, there was something missing.

You felt it in April and May, when the team was struggling to establish a rhythm. You felt it in June when things started to gel and the players began engaging in such un-Yankee-like behavior as enjoying their days at the ballpark. And you’ve felt it in July, as the team has charged into a first-place tie with the Red Sox.

Maybe you didn’t consciously think of it, but it was in the back of your mind. You couldn’t quite put your finger on what it was.

And then like a gift from a passing pigeon, it hit you splat on the head: a blustering Steinbrenner. That’s what was missing.

Until Hal Steinbrenner showed up in New York this week to disgorge his opinion of the team he and his brother, Hank, inherited from their father, I’d actually forgotten how vital a meddling owner is to the Yankee experience. Without a blustering Steinbrenner, the Yankees are like a trailer park without a tornado. Sure, it's a more pleasant place, but not nearly as exciting.

Oddly enough, Hank and Hal tried to begin their stewardship with something utterly foreign to the Steinbrenner DNA — patience.

But thank the gods of baseball that nonsense is over. And thank the ever-vigilant New York tabloid media for rushing to print the instant Hal Steinbrenner showed up this week to deliver his opinion of his team.

“I believe we have a team that can win the championship," he opined.

We can only imagine editors tearing their pages apart to report this epic pronouncement from the mountaintop. Steinbrenner says the team can win a championship! Stop the bloody presses! (Do we even still have presses to stop?)

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This is what I love about the Yankees. There is nothing so banal and insignificant that it can’t be turned into a major headline. It just needs to issue from a Steinbrenner's mouth and it takes on the gravitas of a papal encyclical.

As statements go, this is the equivalent of the Admiral of the Navy declaring that his brand-new aircraft carrier is capable of floating. It’s as if after spending billions to build it, that’s a revelation.

It’s the same with the Yankees. The Steinbrenners have more than $200 million invested in this team, which towers above any other franchise. At those prices, it should be obvious that the team can win a championship. If it can’t, what are they spending all that money for? The news would be if it weren’t a team that could win a title.

And yet, when Hal Steinbrenner declares that his first-place team that’s rolling along like a tank through a strawberry patch can win a championship, we’re all over it. Did you hear what he said? Oh, boy, the pressure’s on now. Give ‘em hell, Hal.

Prince Hal didn’t neglect to remind reporters that manager Joe Girardi, who is in the middle of a three-year contract, is also on the line.

Son of George didn’t issue any threats or spew bile around the team’s spiffy new offices. He didn’t have to. It is enough in the Bronx that a Steinbrenner showed up to show that he still has a firm grasp of the obvious and isn’t afraid to let all of us know it.

“Right now, all I know is the team's in good spirits, they're motivated and we're playing well. We hope it continues,” Hal Steinbrenner told reporters.

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Let’s be honest here. In Kansas City, this would be meaningless. It would hardly draw a raised eyebrow even in Boston, where folks take their baseball more seriously than they do anywhere on earth. In Cleveland, it wouldn’t make any sense — none at all.

But in New York, when a Steinbrenner speaks, everybody listens. We jot it down, print it out, weigh it, parse it, run it through a decoder to look for hidden meaning. And when we find none, it doesn’t matter, just as long as it seems that a Steinbrenner is rattling a pinstriped cage, no matter how gently.

We need these things in New York. Yankee fans need them. The newspapers need them. They’re a comforting connection to the past, a sign that Steinbrenners still walk the land and they demand victory.

It’s a $200-million team, and it can win a championship. Thanks, Hal, for pointing that out.

Don’t know what we’d do without you. Don’t know what baseball would do without that irreplaceable Steinbrenner touch.

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