If Hank Steinbrenner...

... is serious about becoming the Bigger Stein -- and every headline grab he's made this spring sends the signal that he is setting out to make his father the Ursa Minor of the Yankee universe -- then I hope he's already planning how to pluck David Price from the Tampa Bay Rays as soon as Mr. Price is available. Tomorrow would be nice.

There will be all kinds of qualifications about Price's 'major league (sort of) debut," and every qualification will be dead-on accurate. One late inning in a meaningless spring training game is, well, meaningless. But Price displayed every aspect of a future star - a future intimidating star -- with the way he plowed through the four Yankee batters he faced on Saturday.

Yankee reserve catcher Francisco Cervelli will certainly never forget Saturday's game, but when he looks back on it on some distant future afternoon he will likely remember it more as "the day David Price plunked me on the elbow" than he will as the day Elliot (Who's he, Grandpa?) Johnson bowled him over in a debatably bush-league play at the plate in the ninth inning. Earlier, in the seventh inning, Cervelli became the first professional victim of a Price(less?) inside fastball. The sound of the impact must have been wince-inducing for fans at Legends Field. For those of us watching through the television, it was sickening enough to hear.

What most impressed about Price was the tenacity he showed by going right back inside -- with another 98-mph heater, if memory serves -- on the first pitch, the very next pitch, to Shelley Duncan. Not every rookie would have had the guts to go back in there. Price, as everyone will recall, proceeded to cut down Duncan, Jason Lane, and Wilson Betemit in quick fashion. Every pitch seemed more impressive, and more authoritative, than the last.

Because he has a major league contract, the Rays are obliged to move Price to the big club before the end of his third professional season. If not, Price would be eligible for waivers. On Saturday's YES Network broadcast, Michael Kay said he is hearing that Price has a ticket already punched and will be in Tampa by sometime later this season. Yankee fans can only hope that if they see Price again this season there will be no repeat of Saturday's (qualified) performance. If there is, then all the qualifiers in the world won't change the fact that Price seems more than worth the money.

Personally, I like to leave the good old Yankees days of "spend, spend, spend for free agents" where they belong, in the past. Growing our own crop of young stars over the last decade has given Yankee fans infinitely more pride in the team that takes the field today. But if Price shows the ability to match the potential on display yesterday, then what Yankee fan wouldn't want to see him join the Joba-Hughes-Kennedy rotation?