Baseball Analysis; And Exactly What Were They Thinking?Andy Pettitte recently asked his father, Tom, whether he should sign his next contract with the Yankees or with the Houston Astros.
Tom Pettitte did not offer an opinion, and instead suggested that his son take a simple approach in addressing the issue. Put the pluses and minuses about the Yankees on paper and then do the same for the Astros. The list should make things clearer, he said.
That Andy Pettitte even came to the point where he needed to write down his thoughts about the Yankees, and about a future that the Yankees allowed to remain fuzzy for far too long, is a development that could haunt George Steinbrenner for years. For last night the Yankees were on the verge of losing a talented, low-maintenance pitcher who has been one of their pillars for nine years, a notion that seemed implausible to Pettitte's father just two days ago.
Still, if Pettitte did take his father's advice and drew up the list, the positives and negatives it contained might be revealing.
While Steinbrenner has been negotiating a contract with Gary Sheffield, a malcontent for multiple teams, Pettitte, as affable and honest as any Yankee, waited for an offer that approached market value. You can figure Pettitte listed that as a minus.[
www.nytimes.com]
