Blame for Yanks' failures falls on owner, not A-Rod

	Letting Andy Pettitte get away -- not Alex Rodriguez -- is the reason for the Yanks' postseason woes. Brian Bahr/Getty Images

Keep blaming Alex Rodriguez, Yankees fans. Sure, he's the reason you lost to the Angels. Forget for a moment that he hit .321 with 48 home runs and 130 RBIs during the regular season. Forget that he had 19 home runs that either tied the game or gave your team the lead in 2005. Forget that your pinstripe heroes don't smell the postseason without his MVP year. Go ahead and judge the man on his 15 at-bats during the playoffs. Was A-Rod lousy? Duh. He hit .133. and drove in as many runs (0) as Paris Hilton. His slugging percentage (.200) nearly matched his body weight (225).

But look no further than the Astros-Cardinals series to see where the blame really lies: George Michael Steinbrenner. Big George's stubborn failure to re-sign homegrown pitcher Andy Pettitte two Novembers ago is the Montezuma's Revenge of baseball transactions. It haunted the Yankees this postseason and will haunt them for years to come. The Yankees failed to offer Pettitte a contract extension, then low-balled him over concerns with his elbow, and ultimately lost him when he signed a three-year, $31.5-million deal with Houston. Here's what they let go: a left-handed pitcher with a 14-8 record in the postseason, the second-most playoff wins in baseball history. And here's what they've brought in since Pettitte went Lone Star on them: Kevin Brown, Javier Vazquez, Carl Pavano, Jaret Wright and Randy Johnson. When Pettitte left, one of the pitcher's agents, Randy Hendricks, wrote an prescient e-mail to the New York Daily News: "I believe the Yankees more highly valued Kevin Brown and Javier Vazquez than Andy," Hendricks wrote. "Time will tell if the Yankees are correct in those evaluations." Brown, Johnson, Pavano and Wright combined for zero wins this postseason. Remember that, Yankees fans, when you're booing A-Rod at the start of the 2006 season.