New Jork Yankees World Series King Leyritz kills a peasant after a back
slapping night at the saloon.

Cops released the hero from jail after posting a few dollars bail so he
could hurry home for a few shots from the hair of the dog.

Yankees hero Jim Leyritz blew a red light and killed a young mother in a car
wreck while stinking drunk on birthday booze, Florida police said Friday.

The retired major leaguer balked at breath and blood tests for alcohol -
even after being told that the other driver, 30-year-old Fredia Ann Veitch,
was dead, Fort Lauderdale cops said.

Veitch, who has a 13-year-old and a 5-year-old, was returning to her
Plantation, Fla., home after working a late shift as a bartender at a
steakhouse.

Investigators who charged Leyritz with manslaughter said he was clearly
drunk, citing his "red watery eyes, flushed face and the odor of an
alcoholic beverage."

Leyritz stumbled, couldn't follow instructions from cops, and missed three
of six attempts to touch his nose with his finger, police said.

When Leyritz emerged from the Broward County jail 11 hours later, after
being booked on DUI charges and posting $11,000 bond, he appeared shaken and
close to tears.

Friends of the victim vented their fury.

"I don't care if he's an icon. He has to go to jail like everybody else,"
said Chris Ewers, a friend of the Veitch family. "She was a beautiful mother
and now her children have no mom to come home to anymore."

Leyritz, idolized by Yankee fans for his game-tying home run in Game 4 of
the 1996 World Series, was out celebrating his 44th birthday on Thursday
night.

His Ford Expedition ran a red light just after 3 a.m. in the city's club
district and slammed into Veitch's Mitsubishi Montero, poilce said.

Her SUV flipped over and she was thrown out.

Leyritz had just refused to take a Breathalyzer at the scene when cops
learned Veitch died at the hospital.

The police asked the athlete known as The King to submit to a mandatory
blood test and he refused.

Paramedics tried to take a sample but failed, and it wasn't until two hours
later that doctors were able to draw Leyritz's blood. The results were not
immediately released.

Leyritz, who has three young children, faces a maximum of 15 years in prison
if convicted of DUI manslaughter.

No one answered the door at his home in Davie, Fla., last night and Veitch's
family had no immediate comment.

A police spokeswoman said the victim - known to friends as "Freddie" - was
days away from quitting her job as a Thursday and Friday night bartender at
The Original Steakhouse.

"Her husband did not like the fact that she worked late hours and this was
going to be her last week working for them," Fort Lauderdale police
spokeswoman Detective Kathy Collins told WPLG-TV in Miami.

Leyritz, who played for the Yankees from 1990 to 1996 and 1999 to 2000,
spent 11 years in the majors. He made several failed comeback attempts
before embarking on a broadcasting career. In a radio interview last year,
he copped to using human growth hormone and amphetamines while playing ball.

He said the first time he took uppers was to take the edge off a hangover
after a night of drinking. "I went out and went 3-for-4 with two homers," he
boasted.

IT is a good thing he didn't smoke marijuana because the victim probably may
have been someone worthwhile, like a lawyer.