Idioms

Reader Lazarus sends us to SI.com's Power Rankings, where we find this gem:

Joe Torre met with George Steinbrenner for a nice lunch in Tampa the other day, and I'm sure at some point the subject probably turned to the Yankees. And George, I'd bet, at some point looked at his manager and said, "#$!&@* the heck?"

I assume they meant to write: "What the #$!&@*?" But they didn't. They wrote "#$!&@* the heck?"

Or, presumably: "Fuck the heck?"

Steinbrenner really is in poor health, if he is saying "Fuck the heck." That is not a phrase.