Hal Steinbrenner to Yankees fans: 'I apologize'

New York Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner took some of the blame for his team's disappointing performance this season during an interview with Michael Kay of ESPN New York on Wednesday.

"I apologize," Steinbrenner said when asked what his message was to Yankees fans. "We did not do the job this year. We know what you expect of us and we expect the same thing of ourselves."

The Yankees cobbled together an 84-78 record in 2014 with an injury-ravaged rotation and an offense that averaged 3.91 runs per game, tying them for the third-worst mark in the American League. George Steinbrenner, the club's erstwhile owner, likely would've fired people in the wake of such a disappointing finish, but Hal distinguished his management style from that of his notoriously volatile father.

"I don't think it is a news flash that I am different than George in a lot of ways," Steinbrenner said. "He was better in many things than me, but I do tend to be a little less rash when it comes to firing people. I want to make sure that what went wrong was for a reason. It was wrong because of that one individual or two individuals or whatever, I will get through that process before anything like that as opposed to any kind of knee jerk reactions."