"A different team"

Finally found the actual quote from Jeter on his reaction to a question about the team's pattern of success.

Derek Jeter's tone was measured but rage sparked in his eyes as he spoke to a crowd of reporters early yesterday morning, after the Yankees squandered their legacy of domination over the Boston Red Sox. Jeter, the shortstop, tersely cut off a soft question about the Yankees' many successes, saying that this is "a different team."

With that, Jeter drew a sharp distinction between the Yankees of today and those of the Paul O'Neill-Tino Martinez era, who won world championships, four in six years, from 1996 to 2001.

Buster Olney explains why.

In August 1990 George Steinbrenner was forced by Fay Vincent to resign from the Yankees' day to day operations because Steinbrenner had been found to have associated with a known gambler. His absence for the next 30 months allowed Gene Michaels to stop pursuing the free agent of the year every winter, and to instead build a farm system that produced Jeter, Bernie Williams, Rivera, Posada, and Andy Pettitte.

Now, I thought Sheffield was terrific all season, I was impressed with A-Rod, and to me, Matsui has become a true Yankee. But the collapse of this team would not likely have happened during the '96-'01 run -- in those year's, it was the Yankees who came back from 0-2 series. In the last two games, Rodriguez and Sheffield obviously wanted to prove they were the great talents they are and tried to hit 2-run homoers with each at bat, despite no one on base. They got frustrated and panicked. The big stars come here to be part of the Yankee mystique. They are expected to win, and they come here expecting to get a ring. They handled it well early in the season when the team was struggling, but they didn't handle adversity well when the momentum shifted after Game Three.

And I'll be amazed if Kevin Brown ever appears in a Yankee uniform again, $15 million salary or not.