ALBANY - The New York Yankees have survived “Boss” Steinbrenner and screaming tabloid headlines on the antics of pampered superstars, but the team is being driven up the wall by a state assemblyman they say belongs in a grandstanders hall of shame.

And the assemblyman, Richard Brodsky of Westchester, is happier than a Red Sox fan about it.

On Tuesday, he was in court trying to pry loose records from the Yankees as part of his investigation into $4 billion in public-supported financing for the team's new stadium. It's just the latest way the legislator and lawyer, at his own expense, uses the courts to enforce what he sees as violations of law and pollution standards, to reform public authorities, to force utilities to return overcharges, and to protect free speech. Next week, he faces the operators of the Indian Point nuclear plant as he seeks to end what he considers a threat to the safety of Westchester residents.

He writes briefs, argues cases and goes to the media, and rarely holds back.

“The Yankees have a history of bullying people they disagree with, whether employees, or public officials or reporters,” Brodsky told reporters outside a state court Tuesday in Albany. The Democrat sees the stadium as a house that ruthlessness built: One of the world's richest franchises using public economic development tax breaks, cash and public-backed financing that could go to needy groups, then jacking up ticket prices beyond the reach of many taxpayers.

“If there's any bullying being done, it's being done by you, assemblyman,” said an exasperated Yankees attorney, George Carpinello, part of a four-person legal team challenging Brodsky. Carpinello argues the project was fully transparent, thoroughly reviewed and even Brodsky voted for it at one time. The club now accuses Brodsky of slander, harassment and waging a personal vendetta.

For Brodsky, a wonky activist who thrives on conflict, there could hardly have been a better present for his 63rd birthday last week.

“Advocacy on behalf of the public interest is not limited to standing on the floor of the Legislature,” Brodsky said. “Where important public issues can only be handled in a judicial forum, it is exactly what a legislator should do.

“You can't spend a lot of time worrying about what people say about your motivation,” he said. “If these weren't good cases, I think the record would reflect that.”

His record of more than a dozen cases includes wins against Consolidated Edison, the Republican Pataki administration, and former Democratic Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. It's a record that seems shaped for a likely run for state attorney general next year if incumbent Andrew Cuomo runs for governor. Brodsky ended his 2006 primary run for the job as New York's top lawyer when his teenage daughter, Willie, needed a kidney transplant and he tried to donate his.

In Assembly debates, he painstakingly deconstructs adversaries' arguments. To reporters, he explains, sometimes slowly for effect, just how much they don't understand an issue. In pushing a bill, he can annoy friends and charm opponents.

He can be acerbic and engaging. He recites classic poetry as easily as he returns profanities. He is a huge fan of Richard Brodsky, and never apologizes for such wise judgment.

But in the end, Brodsky often leaves his adversaries feeling at least a grudging respect.

“Imagine Eliot Spitzer - just as tough, just as smart but just a whole lot more decent a human being without that nagging hooker problem,” joked David Catalfamo, former top aide to Republican Gov. George Pataki, whose programs and top commissioners were early Brodsky targets. Back then, Brodsky wasn't invited to bill signing ceremonies, but even that animosity waned.

“It's always business, never personal and if he is going after you, he gives fair warning,” Catalfamo said.

In 2004, Brodsky squared off against several attorneys hired by the state Thruway Authority to defend a contract to develop 1,000 miles of Erie Canal shoreline won by a politically connector developer for $30,000. The deal was blocked.

There can be a down side. Fewer environmental bills became law during the 12-year Pataki era in part because Brodsky and the Senate, then controlled by Republicans, failed to compromise. He drove Pataki's first environmental conservation commissioner out of office and took another to court.

“Richard Brodsky's history of grandstanding against business growth and job creation is the exact opposite of what New York's families and businesses need,” said state Republican Chairman Joseph Mondello, calling Brodsky's lawsuits frivolous.

“Richard can really get in your face,” said Republican Sen. Thomas Libous of Broome County, who has worked with Brodsky on several major initiatives from mass transit to cancer case mapping. “Ideologically, we're often at different ends, but what I've enjoyed about Richard is we are able to compromise and get an end result.

“Sometimes he gets a little crazy with lawsuits,” Libous said. “His reputation is of sometimes going over the top, but of getting things done.”

Shortly after Assemblyman John “Jack” McEneny, an Albany Democrat, was elected to the Assembly in 1992, he saw the best chess player in the Assembly was awarded a T-shirt with the former champion's name on the back. In this case, the winner proudly wore: “I beat Brodsky.”

McEneny asked a colleague how to become the champ.

“He said, `You just beat the champion,”' McEneny recalled. “But then he said, `Jack, if you want to be popular, go beat Brodsky again.”'

AP-ES-05-08-09 1308EDT