Yankee beat reporters need to start asking Hal Steinbrenner where all the money is going?

Ever receive a slight tap in the billiards, just enough to wonder if it'll hurt? So you wait a few seconds and think - nope, false alarm! - and then the pain slowly engulfs your soul?

This week, the Yankees gave their fans just such a love tap.

While Boston and Arizona - two franchises that historically hate us - were signing David Price and Zach Greinke, the "Evil Empire" - (what a joke) - signed a Brendan Ryan clone named Pete Kozma.

Now, I've nothing against Kozma, or against signing spare parts, because it may be Brian Cashman's greatest skill - his relentless ability to roam the scrapyard and find a used scraper for his gas grill. But the move symbolized Hal "I'm Not Cheap" Steinbrenner's plan: While others seek to improve, he sits back with a hand in his pocket, jiggling his coins. Much of the Yankiverse has become so accepting of this strategy that it rehashes the bla-bla reasoning why the team cannot do anything - those consarn players make so much money - sounding like diaper-crapping retirees in the rec room, awaiting the next Lawrence Welk fund-raiser on PBS.

I have yet to see a sportswriter ask Hal to lay out the Yankee budget. We accept that our players have huge contracts, and that they got old - and, thus, it's their fault. Last time I looked, the Yankees were sitting on the most lucrative market in American sports. They sit on the biggest TV money machine, playing in a new stadium financed by taxpayer money and blind fan loyalty, hardwired by a generational legacy must older than Hal. In fact, the owner sits atop an unprecedented volcano of revenues. If I'm wrong about this, I'm Not Cheap should explain to everyone why the Yankees cannot afford players - that we must wait until contracts "come off the books" to do anything.

I get it that MLB owners - the most ruthless capitalists on the planet - established a communistic system to run the sport. They set up a de facto salary cap, in the form of luxury taxes. But where is all the extra money going? Will Yankee employees get bonuses? (I'd be happy to think it means parking lot attendants get a bump, but I don't see that happening.) If Hal cannot spend on players, where is the money going? To horses? To stake holders? To politicians? Where?

I can scream this question, but I'm Not Cheap will play deaf. It's time for sportswriters - I'm talking to you - NY Times, NY Post, NY Daily News - and bloggers - I'm talking to you, Lohud, River Ave, all of you - to ask a simple question. And it's not, who will play 2B.

This winter, one question roils the Yankiverse:

Where the hell is all that money going?