By JOHN DELCOS
The (Westchester, N.Y.) Journal News

TAMPA, Fla. - David Wells writing a tell-all book, a fight between players, trade rumors or a crippling injury are events. They become "distractions" if the players choose to become distracted. Then they become excuses.

It's not a stretch to conclude, said Bernie Williams, that a team's ability to win is directly in proportion to its ability to handle on-field adversity and off-field controversies.

"This team has been through so much over the years that we know how to handle things like this," Williams said. "Winning teams have to be mentally tough; they have to be able to handle adversity. Teams that aren't successful let things get to them."

The New York Yankees, while annoyed with Wells' autobiography enough to consider disciplinary action, refuse to be bothered by the fallout in their clubhouse.

Wells might have lost his focus in Wednesday's exhibition meltdown against Atlanta, but his teammates don't view this as their sacred clubhouse being violated, but part amusement and part disinterest.

Manager Joe Torre isn't even curious as to what Wells wrote and said the issue isn't on his team's radar.

"If all it takes is this to get your club off focus, or off center, then I'm not doing my job," Torre said. "I don't sense (it's a distraction), it doesn't seem to be the center of attention or conversation."

Wells' book brought renewed attention to former Yankee Jim Bouton's "Ball Four," the standard by which clubhouse tell-all books must be judged. Bouton's book broke new ground because it took the reader inside the clubhouse as never before - to the point where he became ostracized by the sport - but Wells' book is part of the Jerry Springer generation.

"There's something about the sanctity of the clubhouse that I don't want to know about," Torre said. "I've lived my whole life knowing how sacred that was."

However, with the saturation of cameras and microphones, cable television and talk-radio, there are no secrets.

It must be differentiated, said Mike Mussina, Bouton's book exposed teammates in an unflattering light - he wrote of the drinking exploits of Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford - while Wells' book is mostly about him bragging of his behavior the way a high school jock boasts about his Saturday nights.

Mussina and Roger Clemens are the Yankees tweaked in Wells' book, and neither seems to be concerned. Both laughed the first day; now they just ignore.

"If we play well, the other stuff goes away," Mussina said. "We're accustomed with things going around the team. There are certain issues people are upset about, but I'm having fun with it.

"When you have this many people together for such a long period of time, not everybody is going to get along. The important thing is doing your job."

The litmus test for the Yankees under Torre was in 1999, the year after their record-setting championship season. Spring training that year began with the trade of Wells to Toronto for Clemens, and included Torre's diagnosis with prostate cancer, Joe DiMaggio's death and the Hideki Irabu flap that led to coach Don Zimmer's spat with George Steinbrenner.

The Yankees won their second straight World Series that season.

The Oakland Athletics of the early 1970s and the Yankees of 1977-78 won despite combustible clubhouses. While those teams had inner conflicts - Reggie Jackson's relationship with Thurman Munson was especially contentious - they won because talent prevailed.

There was also the theory the players were united against their owners, Charles Finley and Steinbrenner.

"Talent has a way of overcoming things," Jackson said. " Some teams have the capacity to deal with it and others don't."