Yankees' Levine dislikes 'Steinbrenner' documentary

Yankees president Randy Levine gave an emphatic thumbs-down Wednesday to the ESPN documentary "The House of Steinbrenner,'' set to premiere Sept. 21.

"I think Barbara [Kopple] is a great filmmaker, but unfortunately I think she swung and missed on this one," he said, referring to the Oscar-winning director behind the project, part of the network's "30 for 30" series.

The film focuses on the transitions from old to new Yankee Stadium and from George Steinbrenner to a new generation of ownership.

"Except for the interview with Hal [Steinbrenner], which I thought was exceptional and really should have been expanded," Levine said, "the rest of the documentary is really old, regurgitated stuff, much of it found on the News at 6, and the message of what it was trying to convey I thought was very confusing.''

Kopple let Yankees officials view the film in advance of its first public screening Tuesday.

After the screening, Daily News sports cartoonist Bill Gallo said the Yankees asked him to have a portion of his interview in which he discussed Hank and Hal Steinbrenner removed. He said he agreed it could have been misinterpreted and asked Kopple to delete it, and she agreed.

"We brought Randy in," Kopple said, "and he was making comments to the film as he was watching it and at the end of the film he said, 'Why aren't I in the film?' We said, 'We tried. We sent many, many requests for you and for Mr. [Brian] Cashman,' and we sent him those requests."

Kopple objected to Levine's assertion there was nothing new in the film.

"I think some of the feelings that he has are too bad, because none of this is regurgitated from the news," she said. "We got very beautiful, one-time material from people during the last weekend of the [old] stadium closing and we filmed people you've never seen before.''

The film includes interviews with fans who complain about high ticket prices and obstructed views, but the majority of it reflects positively on the team.

"I'm very sad," Kopple said. "I really wanted [Levine] to like it.''