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From:realgm
From:ESPN.comYankees co-chairman Hank Steinbrenner took a not-so-subtle shot at shortstop Derek Jeter on Monday.
He believes the team's celebration of their 2009 World Series win carried over into last season.
"I think, maybe, they celebrated too much last year," Steinbrenner said. "Some of the players, too busy building mansions and doing other things and not concentrating on winning. I have no problem saying that."
Jeter built a large multi-million dollar home in Tampa last year, but Steinbrenner said he wasn't singling out any individual.
"I was just saying, maybe they were riding the wave of '09 a little too much, and it happens sometimes," Steinbrenner said. "This year in spring so far, from what I've seen and what I've been told, they've come in with a real, new drive and determination -- the kind they had in '09."
New York lost to Texas in the ALCS in 2010.
Jeter shrugs off Steinbrenner talk
TAMPA, Fla. -- Who, me?
That, essentially, was Derek Jeter's reaction when asked to respond to comments made by Hank Steinbrenner on Monday that the 2010 New York Yankees may have spent too much time celebrating their 2009 world championship and not enough time concentrating on baseball.
Derek Jeter responds to Hank Steinbrenner comments by mostly laughing and feigning they weren't about him.
Steinbrenner, the co-chairman of the team, also said some players were "too busy building mansions," a remark widely interpreted as aimed at Jeter, who recently moved into a 30,000-square foot estate in an exclusive section of Tampa. Steinbrenner did add, though: "I'm not singling out any individual."
"I don't think my name came out of his mouth," said Jeter, who laughed off the subject during a 12-minute interview at his locker at George M. Steinbrenner Field early Tuesday. "So it was not directed at me. Plural, I think it was. This was a plural thing."
When it was pointed out that he was the only Yankee known to be building "a mansion" last season, Jeter said: "You don't think anyone else here? You're probably wrong, buddy."
Jeter did take issue, however, with Steinbrenner's contention that the Yankees lacked the hunger to win last year.
"I think every time it seems like you don't win, people say that you don't have the hunger," Jeter said. "We got beat by a team that was better than us in that series, that was the bottom line. I wouldn't say there was a lack of hunger. I just think we didn't play as well. That's why we lost. But any time teams lose you always hear that."
Jeter was careful to emphasize several times that he had "no problem" with Steinbrenner. "Owners can say anything they want to say," Jeter said. "They're owners. They're entitled to their opinion. You don't have to necessarily agree with their opinion but they can say what they want to say. I have no problem with it."
In 2003, George Steinbrenner famously criticized Jeter publicly for staying out too late at a birthday party, a dispute the two later spoofed in a credit-card commercial.
Asked if he thought another commercial with an owner named Steinbrenner was in his future, Jeter said: "I really don't know what there is to be fixed. I'm not upset. It doesn't bother me. I mean, I don't know what else I can give you. I'm not moving, so we won't be talking about this again."
Although Jeter shrugged it off, it seems as if he has been the target of more darts from ownership and the front office since the contentious negotiations that resulted in him signing a new three-year, $51 million contract in December.
"I don't feel that way," he said. "But I have no problems. Don't make it like I have a problem with Hank. I try to look at the positive. He didn't say me, did he?"