Can the Yankees avoid complacency in 2010?

TAMPA, Fla. -- It bears repeating that in May 1999, the defending World Series champion Yankees called a players-only meeting in which the highest-paid player was called out for not running out ground balls.

Yeah, that Bernie Williams, love him now, but he occasionally could be spacey like that.

And what a self-policing group that was! You know who came up with the idea for the players-only get-together and who exhibited no fear in going after Bernie in front of everyone else?

Fella named Girardi.

This Yankees manager is intelligent enough to understand that dealing with complacency can be overstated and overrated, that it's nowhere as essential as keeping CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Andy Pettitte healthy after that trio led the charge to the 2009 title.

Yet Joe Girardi also knows from complacency. He has lived through a successful title defense in the Bronx, and saw that even those guys - their "tough" legacy now eternally secure - occasionally caught the bug.

The question that remains, and that can be answered only through time, is whether this Yankees team has enough Girardi types on the players' side to make life easy for Girardi the manager.

"I don't really consider it a big issue, because I know the people in the room. I think complacency comes down to character," Girardi said Wednesday at Steinbrenner Field, where pitchers and catchers will hold their first workout Thursday. "I really like the character of our club. I loved the character of our club last year, what they showed during the course of the season when we went through adversity.

" . . . Now, in saying that, it's something you will keep your eye out for, always. You never want to see a club become complacent."

How would complacency actually manifest itself on a team this talented? Perhaps a test will come during the regular season - say, May 7 through 23, when they play 17 games (14 of them against winning teams from '09) in 17 days. Or, maybe it'll be how well they play after completing that grind.

Girardi and David Cone were particularly adept verbally, back in the day. They led the charge, and if they couldn't get it done, well, no one wanted to encounter the infamous Joe Torre Death Stare.

These 2010 guys? On Tuesday, CC Sabathia expressed his confidence that the Core Four - Pettitte, Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera, of course - would do the policing. That could work out just fine; all four are leaders, if not necessarily the "air out a teammate in front of everyone" type. And then Girardi has to serve as the last line of defense.

Or maybe, as Girardi's former teammate Jeff Nelson suggested, other forces can help.

"I think playing in New York, when we were there, we couldn't let ourselves be complacent," Nelson, who now does radio commentary for multiple outlets, said in a telephone interview. "Pretty much the whole team was like, 'We're going back.' We weren't happy with just one. There was that expectation level .

"Everyone knew what it meant to play for Mr. Steinbrenner and to play in New York. It was unacceptable to win one year, and then roll the dice the next."

"To repeat," Posada said, "you have to have a good team, and we have a good team. So it's all up to us. It really is."

And if that mission includes a few hurt feelings along the way? That might just mean that someone is following the path established by Girardi the player. It might be crucial that someone does so.