Say this for iconic Yankees of the championship years: they don’t fade away easily. In 2007, Bernie Williams kind of, sort of, but not officially, stopped playing baseball. Now, four years later, Andy Pettitte is in the same situation. He’s retired — kind of, sort of, but not officially.

The circumstances are different — the Yankees did not want to give Williams a roster spot that spring, and they would gladly slide Pettitte back into their 2011 rotation. But the nature of the story is similar. It never really changes, yet it fascinates almost everyone.

On Wednesday night, General Manager Brian Cashman stressed that he simply used “a poor choice of words” when he told the Daily News that Pettitte has “chosen at this stage at least not to start in 2011.”

This set off a brush fire that Cashman was eager to snuff out. Basically, Cashman said, “it’s a misunderstanding.” Cashman said he meant to use the word play or pitch; but he used the word start, which was taken to mean “begin the season.”

“I haven’t talked to Andy,” Cashman said. “He hasn’t told me anything like he doesn’t want to play in the beginning. It’s the same thing: he has chosen not to play. There’s nothing new: Andy Pettitte is not in play.”

Asked if the Yankees had spoken to Pettitte about the possibility of pitching a partial season, as Roger Clemens and Pedro Martinez have done in recent years, Cashman said, “We have not talked to him about anything like that, no.”