Manhattan prosecutors have subpoenaed Yankee general manger Brian Cashman’s bank records—which sources say include evidence that he coughed up as much as $20,000 to accused extortionist and purported mistress Louise Meanwell as far back as April, The Post has learned.

Those alleged payments raise the question of whether Meanwell was shaking Cashman down for nearly 10 months — or whether the big bucks were legitimate gifts as part of an affair, as she claims.

Cashman made “several” cash deposits in the range of $4,000 each into the British-born woman’s bank accounts over the last 10 months, a source close to the case told The Post.

Meanwell herself claims she received between $18,000 and $20,000 in the same time frame.

The records sought include handwritten deposit slips Cashman used to personally funnel money into Meanwell’s account.

“His handwriting is on those deposit slips, so there’s no way he can claim he wasn’t giving her this money,” said the source.

Meanwell’s bank records have also been subpoenaed.

And, then there is this also from the Post on the woman Brian Cashman choose to bring into his life -

Former targets of alleged serial stalker Louise Meanwell, men who all lived in the Albany area, said she won’t move on from her obsession with Yankee general manager Brian Cashman anytime soon.

“She’s not done with Cashman. She’s never done,” Meanwell’s former live-in boyfriend, David Sano, told The Post.

“You learn that about Louise. She’s ruthless.’’

The ominous prediction came as Sano recounted a wild, two-year ride with Meanwell that began as a 2001 one-night stand and spiraled into a nightmare that included claims of a pregnancy and abortion, a leaked sex tape, shredded clothing, slashed tires — and a prison stint for Sano after he pulled a knife on her in exasperation.

“She is the most conniving person I have ever met,” Sano said.

Two others — a successful Albany businessman who says Meanwell stalked him “for months” in 1999 and Jason Walker, once an aide to former Gov. George Pataki — echoed Sano.

“She is relentless,’’ said the businessman, whose name is being withheld.

“She was really intimidating and ingrained herself into my life.”

Meanwell, he said, cozied up to his pals at an Albany country club, staked out his home, bombarded him with e-mails and filled his answering-machine tape with messages before he hired a lawyer to stop her.

He described Meanwell as “a multiple personality, where one minute she was a nice, relatively normal person who [could] turn vindictive and evil at any point in time.”

“She was very, very persistent,” said Walker, who was working for Pataki when he dated Meanwell for two months in 2002. He said he bailed out because he couldn’t deal with her constant calls and demands for attention.

How many days until Pitchers & Catchers report?

YES Network television host Bob Lorenz has been charged with drunken driving in Connecticut where police say he was found passed out in his car in his hometown of Westport.

The 48-year-old Lorenz was arrested early Wednesday morning. Police say they found him slumped over the wheel of his car and when they woke him up he drove away slowly and nearly hit a utility pole. Officers say his speech was slurred and he smelled of alcohol.

Lorenz hosts pregame and postgame shows for the New York Yankees and New Jersey Nets. He was arraigned Wednesday at Norwalk Superior Court and his case was continued to Feb. 29.

There’s no phone listing for Lorenz and it’s not clear if he has a lawyer. A Yes Network spokesman declined to comment.

And, then there’s this from the Daily News -

The woman accused of stalking and blackmailing Yankees GM Brian Cashman has injected steroids into the sordid mix.

From Rikers Island, Louise Meanwell claimed Wednesday that Cashman told her he misled federal investigators over what the Bombers’ brass knew of steroid use by players.

Meanwell, who claims she had an affair with Cashman, told the Daily News that Cashman confided to her that he was grilled in June or July by “the feds.”

She said Cashman told her he made it seem like the Yankees had no knowledge of players’ steroid use when, in fact, they did.

Cashman’s spokesman Chris Giglio vehemently denied the accusations.

“These claims are complete and utter fiction, the latest installment of a carefully concocted campaign of harassment now spewing from a jail cell by a person who is being held on serious criminal felony charges of harassment and extortion,” Giglio said.

A friend of Meanwell’s told The News he sent an email to federal investigators advising them of her claims.

The friend said he sent the email to Ron Gardella, chief investigator for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, and FBI agent Brian Jacob.

The email, obtained by The News, went on to say that Meanwell had “specific details” on dates and times that Cashman was aware of steroid use by players.

Both the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s office refused to confirm or deny that Meanwell had informed them of her claims.

Cashman was on prosecutors’ witness list for Roger Clemens’ trial on perjury charges last July before Judge Reggie Walton declared a mistrial on the first day of the proceedings in Washington. Walton has scheduled a new trial for April.

I’m sure the Mets don’t mind the Yankees making the headlines with all this “stuff” and taking the spot-light off them and all their problems…

The Yankees general manager’s relationship with the woman in these photos has been known or suspected among New York reporters for years, but has been just too darn shady, complicated, and expensive to pursue, especially at the risk of antagonizing the Yankees.

But now the pictures are out. When these photos were snapped by a private investigator, the woman in them was named Kimberley Brennan, and she was married to a man named Brian Brennan, who had hired the private investigator. The couple, who lived in Westchester, have since divorced, in no small part because of the photos.

How did the story get out, then? We first caught wind of it in 2009, when we were contacted by a source who claimed that word of the Cashman affair was about to break, pending finalization of a deal for a book about famous people and the private investigators who trailed them. We spoke with the private investigator, Tony De Lorenzo, and he confirmed the story was being circulated. But the book deal fell apart, the PI clammed up, and the Cashman affair story never reached the mainstream press, though we’re told a number of reporters around the Yankees knew of it. (When we contacted De Lorenzo two days ago, he had no comment, either.) A number of Brennan’s friends had apparently taken it upon themselves to shop Brian’s story to the New York Post and at least one other New York newspaper, a source tells us. They didn’t find any takers. In August, we received the photos from a friend of Deadspin contributor Pete Nash, free of charge.

Usually, I would not pay much attention to the personal lives of front office personnel – unless they do something unlawful. And, if Cashman wants to do the tube snake boogie with some chick and totally trash his marriage and make things uncomfortable for his children, that’s a call which he has a right to make, on his own, and deal with the consequences.

But, what bothers me with this whole thing – if it’s all true – is that Cashman was messing with a married woman. By doing that, he’s not just messing with his own family, but, he’s wrecking another family in the process. That’s just not cool.

There’s enough loose trim in the world that there’s no need to tap on someone else’s squeeze. That should be a given in the man code. And, if Cashman can’t respect that, then it speaks volumes as to what kind of dude he is…shifty.

A-Rod irritated the other players because he was so high-maintenance. He required his personal assistant to position his toothbrush on a certain part of the sink, specifically the edge near the right-hand cold water tap, leaning with bristles up over the basin. The first time he ordered me to do this, I couldn’t believe my ears when he said, “And put some toothpaste on it.”

Probably the strangest thing we had to do for A-Rod was lay his clothes out on the table so he could get dressed. You had to lay out these items in a predetermined order: socks at the head of the table, followed by undershorts, undershirt, shirt, pants, and then shoes. I had to carry his clothes from his locker to the trainer’s room, where he liked to get dressed away from the prying eyes of the media.

A-Rod was different in another, childish way that made players laugh behind his back. When you watch games at home you sometimes see players come into the dugout after they hit a home run. If you’ve ever wondered what they’re saying, it’s usually things like “Way to go!” or “Good job!” Not A-Rod. After he hits a home run, he comes into the dugout and brags about it. Usually he’s speaking Spanish to one of the other Latino players, and if he hit a home run he wouldn’t shut up. “Wow, did you see I hit a home run?” he’d say. “That pitcher threw me a ball right over the plate and I smashed it over the fence. Did you ever see anything like that before?”

Even during the rockiest and most difficult years of his being manager, Joe Torre was usually focused and kept his nose to the grindstone. There was only one thing that distracted him from work, however, and it wasn’t women — it was horses.

I found out about this quirk of his during a late-season game. Torre called me over in the dugout, and from the dark look on his face I thought it was something serious. He waited until I was close and then lowered his voice. “Go down to my office,” he said. “I want you to check the score on the Off-Track Betting channel and see who won.” I was stunned. It was during a game! I had never before been asked to leave my post.

“Make sure you find out the exact track and horse,” he added.

I ran down into the clubhouse and found the attendant, Joe Lee.

“Joe, Mr. T just asked me to find out something about which horses won,” I said. “What’s he talking about?”

Lee was chewing gum and looked unimpressed about the whole thing. “Yeah,” he said. “Don’t you know why he’s got that TV in his office? It’s usually just tuned to one channel.”

“What’s that, the YES Network?”

“No, the OTB station.”

Lee led me into Torre’s office and showed me how to decipher the race results. I jogged up to the dugout and gave them to Torre, who grabbed the paper and studied it like his life depended on it. When he had discovered the information he wanted, he turned to Don Zimmer and showed it to him. The older man’s eyes lit up, and before I left they were talking excitedly not about the next batter but the OTB results!

If that’s the worst stuff in the book, it’s pretty mild. However, it will be interesting to see if Bud has any comment on the Torre part.

Major League Baseball is taking “very seriously” the allegations that Alex Rodriguez took part in some illegal, underground poker games, one of which reportedly turned violent, and he could face suspension if his participation in the games is confirmed.

“We’re talking to people involved in the investigation and we’re taking this very seriously,” said an MLB executive who spoke to ESPNNewYork.com on condition of anonymity. “Because he had been warned about this before, I would say a possible suspension would be very much in play.”

The allegations, first published by RadarOnline.com, are that the New York Yankees third baseman played in at least two of the games, one of which took place at the Beverly Hills mansion of a record executive at which “cocaine was openly used and a fight nearly broke out when one of the players refused to pay after losing “more than a half-million dollars.”

According to the story, details of which were reportedly provided by another player at the games, Rodriguez “tried to distance himself from the game,” once the violence broke out.

“He just shook his head, not knowing what the hell happened,” the whistle-blower revealed. “He didn’t want to deal with it at all. He was like, ‘OK, whatever. It’s your game.’ I would estimate A-Rod lost, like, a few thousand dollars that night. After everything that happened, he paid up and left.”

In 2005, Rodriguez had been warned about gambling in underground poker clubs by the Yankees and by baseball commissioner Bud Selig, both of whom were concerned that possible involvement with gamblers who might be betting on baseball games could result in a Pete Rose-type lifetime ban from baseball.

Various reports have the games under investigation taking place as far back as 2007.

Although baseball’s investigation centers upon Rodriguez’s card-playing and he is not thought to have gambled on the outcome of any baseball games, the fact that he may have disregarded Selig’s warning is said to have angered the commissioner.

MLB is also concerned that Rodriguez’s name will resurface in the ongoing federal investigation of Dr. Anthony Galea, the Toronto physician charged with smuggling human growth hormone and other illegal substances into the United States. Galea has treated numerous professional athletes, including Rodriguez and Tiger Woods.

“It’s like there’s something new with him every day and it’s impossible to keep up with it,” a baseball insider said.

Yup.

After today’s game, you can pretty much say the same thing about the 2011 Yankees.  Sooner or later, they’re going to have to prove that they can beat the Boston Red Sox – and tomorrow would be a great time to start.

Yeah, I know it’s only June.  But, I’m sorry.  Another sweep by Boston this season, at home in the Bronx, will just be too much to take.

Major League Baseball is once again investigating Alex Rodriguez’s relationship with the cousin he admitted two years ago was his steroid mule.

According to a team source, Rodriguez’s cousin, Yuri Sucart, is again traveling with Rodriguez on some road trips, despite being banned by the Yankees from any team-related function or facility. That edict followed A-Rod’s 2009 claim that Sucart provided and injected him with performance-enhancing drugs. Sucart, wearing a Yankee hooded sweatshirt, was spotted at the team’s St. Regis Hotel in San Francisco Tuesday night after the middle game of the Bombers’ series with Oakland. The source also said Sucart has accompanied A-Rod on road trips this year and even last season.

Sucart was spotted chauffeuring A-Rod around in spring training in ’09, prompting the Yankees to ban Sucart from team flights, buses and in restricted areas at stadiums and spring training sites.

“We have been in contact with the Yankees about this matter,” Rob Manfred, baseball’s executive VP of labor relations, told the Daily News Wednesday. “We are looking into it.”

Major League Baseball instituted its own ban of personal trainers and non-team employees before the 2003 season – in part as a security measure in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and in part because clubhouses were rife with personal trainers and hangers-on. The ban does not extend to team hotels nor does it prevent people such as Sucart from purchasing a ticket to a game and watching as a spectator.

Yankees GM Brian Cashman would not comment on the matter when reached at his Stadium office Wednesday.

A-Rod needs a “go-fer.” I get that – especially in today’s paparazzi times. Heck, this is nothing new, actually. Even Dracula needed Reinfeld.

And, A-Rod wants to help his primo by giving him a job – especially after Alex threw him under the bus with the Selena Roberts thing. I get that too.

But, dude, buy your cousin a frozen banana stand on the boardwalk so that he can pay his bills. And, hire someone else to be your butler. This move, of using Yuri Sucart, is just plain stupid.

And, it’s, once again, A-Rod thinking that he’s so big that the rules don’t apply to him – even when the rules were written for him. Gosh, I will celebrate the day this hiney-clown is no longer a member of the New York Yankees.

From the bad to the bizarre, Rafael Soriano is going to see Dr. Ahmad tomorrow. His elbow felt tight again this afternoon and he had to cut his bullpen session short. Girardi seemed legitimately concerned about his setup man, who said he felt better today than last week, and who said he felt “a lot different” from his injury plagued 2008 season.

Of all the things he said, though, tonight’s Soriano interview will be remembered for three things, all of them suggesting he skipped the media training session this spring.

At one point Soriano said he had been advised to take a week or two off, but when asked who gave him the advice, he said it was team vice president Felix Lopez, who Soriano had been talking to pregame. The Yankees later clarified that Lopez had been acting as a sort of intermediary for the training staff. Maybe that’s explainable, but two other comments suggest Soriano will need to apologize more than Jorge Posada.

Asked whether it bothers him to not be able to pitch, Soriano threw his lineup under the bus: “I don’t think the bullpen be the problem right now. I think it be the hitters. That thing happens sometimes. Whatever we have to do, make a good game and see what happens. One of these days, everything be better.”

Given a second chance to answer essentially the same question, Soriano was asked how much it’s bothered him to miss games against Boston and Tampa Bay: “Not at all, to me,” he said. “Because in the situation, how the team looks be the situation when I’m supposed to be in the game, the eighth. Everybody see, (the team is) losing two, three runs. I don’t think it be that situation that I would be in the bullpen, that I would be in the game.”

Thank you Hal Steinbrenner and Randy Levine.

The details, via Bryan Hoch -

Alex Rodriguez winced as he paced near third base, staring into his glove with an expression of disbelief, as though he might suddenly find a huge hole about the size of a baseball.

In a week filled with team lowlights, an easy ground ball shooting between Rodriguez’s legs was the capper. The Yankees wrapped up an awful homestand with a 7-5 loss to the Red Sox, their season-high fifth straight.

“Not good,” Rodriguez said. “We can talk about it over and over again; the bottom line is, we’ve got to play better. We’ve got to play winning baseball.”

Rodriguez evoked memories of Bill Buckner’s iconic miscue in the 1986 World Series with his misplay of a Kevin Youkilis grounder that gave the Red Sox an all-important seventh-inning insurance run.

“It seems like when things are going bad, they’re going bad,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. “It’s going to turn around.”

When was the last time, during the regular season, that we saw this much out of control with the Yankees?  Yes, the 2006 ALDS was a low-point.  But, that was October.  When was the last time we saw this outside of the post-season spot-light?  1989 or 1990?  It does seem like a long time…unless I’m just forgetting something more recent.

Who is to blame for all this?  Cashman?  Girardi?  Both?  Neither?  What do you think?