Whether you celebrate Christmas (most of you, I am guessing), Hanukkah (some of you), Kwanzaa (a few of you), or just spend the holiday season being harassed by family, buying expensive gifts for others*, and wishing your list to Santa had been read more clearly** (all of us), I have a hunch that now that it's the 26th you're breathing a sigh of relief that the stress is finally over. Of course, the stress of BASEBALL is always with us - tis the burden the diehards bear - and regardless of the gifts you and I received during the holiday season, there are a lot of things left on the Yankees' wish list. With just a couple short months (!) left until the crew lands in Florida, there is not much time left for Big and Little Steins (oh yeah, and that dude the Cash Man that apparently has been locked in Hank's closet since October) to put the finishing touches on the team. Personally, I think the team is actually shaping up quite nicely (thank you, A-Rod, for not leaving us with a gaping hole in that 3rd-base-slash-power-hitter role after all), but I'm sure there were some things on Big Steins list to Santa that he did not receive. Lucky for you faithful readers/people that accidentally clicked on this while doing your Google search for "chicks that love Doug Mientkicantspellhisname", I happen to have a direct hotline to Big Stein's office, kind of like the one between the USSR and the US (sidenote: I have to say that I absolutely adore the fact that the "solution" to a decades long war was a telephone), and he dictated his Christmas list to me last week - along with some comments. He told me to keep it a secret, but I'm a bad secret keeper, so I'm going to share it with you!

Top Ten Gifts Big Stein Wanted For Christmas

10) Carl Pavano's head
9) Johan Santana (just give up everyone, I don't care)
8) George Costanza (he's not a real person?! But he was such a good assistant to the traveling secretary)
7) One of those beds Lindsay Wagner sells on the TV
6) The Florida Marlins (I will call them Yankees Junior)
5) The fine team of doctors over at BALCO... I have some work they can do.
4) That "farm system" Cashman made, so I can turn it into my own personal bank and sell it to the highest bidder in exchange for....
3) Raul Mondesi!
2) A DVD of that 2004 match-up between my team and the Red Sox... I never heard how it turned out
1) A ring for my 7th finger... no one knows about this deformity, but it is because of my freak hand that I am so unhappy with 6 World Championships in my tenure.


Read last week's Top Ten: Baseball Degenerates


* You're welcome, Dad
** YCLS (Yankees Chick little sis): This comment is not directed at you. You did damn good. In fact I am wearing one of the shirts you gave me at this very moment!