As a Yankee fan whose obsession with the team was secured as a youngster growing up with the bad Yankee teams of the late 80s/early 90s, I never fully witnessed firsthand the trials and tribulations of Steinbrenner’s underhandedness. Ironically enough, I’m actually currently in the middle of reading Bill Madden’s biography of the boss, and it would appear that the height of George’s influence was primarily during the first 15 years of his ownership, up until around the time that Fay Vincent banned him for life.
I remember as a nine-year-old that my friend and fellow Yankee fan Dave was ecstatic at the news that Steinbrenner had been banned. How a third grader fully understood the depth of Steinbrenner’s tyranny and subsequently developed a fierce judgmental anger toward a man he’d never met and who was 50 years his senior I’ll never quite understand, but Dave made a convincing enough case that I remember thinking it was a good thing as well.
However, as I grew older and the Yankees became the focal point of my extracurricular interests, I began to appreciate more and more what The Boss had done to restore the Yankees to greatness, and eventually grew to love him. Sure, the credit for the Yankees’ dynasty in the late 90s is often given to Gene Michael for building those teams while George was away, but the one constant throughout his tenure as owner was an open checkbook, which enabled the team to fill any and all of its needs.
This runs counter to how a good majority of baseball owners have historically run their teams. While we’ve seen more of a willingness among owners to expand payrolls during the last few years—primarily a function of realizing the necessity in doing so in order to compete, not to mention ridiculously increased revenues and revenue sharing across the board—many of George’s peers had a tendency to cinch their pursestrings extra tight when it came to putting money back into their franchises.
Yankee haters have long cited that a major problem with the way the team is run is that they always outspend everyone else, but that’s forgetting a major point: the Yankees outspend everyone else because George Steinbrenner was always willing to do whatever it took. It’s not as if other teams in baseball didn’t have the money to spend on free agents (ahem, Carl Pohlad, ahem); but that their billionaire owners were more interested in turning a profit rather than pumping the money back into the team to ensure their hometown fans always had a winning product on the field.
George returned the team to glory in the late 70s, and also arguably ruined any chances the franchise might have had in the lost decade of the 1980s. Stick Michael was the architect for the 90s teams, and by the time George was reinstated, it’s hard to know just how much influence he had on the day-to-day operations. Though George never fired another manager after Stump Merrill, The Boss still called for trades that thankfully were never completed ( in the late 90s), chased fading superstars () and even personally signed players (unfortunately bringing aboard despite Brian Cashman’s preference for ). As George’s health deteriorated, so did his involvement in the team, and Brian Cashman announced to the world after the 2005 season that a return to the Yankees as GM was contingent on receiving full autonomy for all decision-making, which he received.
But despite all of George’s meddling, he ran the Yankees like no other owner has run a franchise on the history of sports, for better or for worse. Yankee fans have long had a love-hate relationship with Steinbrenner: He could be the toast of the town and public enemy #1 in the same breath. However, once the team finally started winning again under Joe Torre, the relationship seemed to finally permanently morph from love-hate to love-love.
I was at the 2008 All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium, and the love and adulation being showered upon George Steinbrenner as he was driven around the field with his family on that golf cart was one of the most heartfelt and touching moments I’ve experienced. It was as if all of New York City finally got to tell George in person that yes, they really did love him after all these years, and to thank him for the unforgettable and lifelong memories he was responsible for creating. Additionally, I’m glad he was at least able to see his beloved Yankees win the World Series one last time in their first season in the beautiful new Stadium that he was responsible for building.
To George Steinbrenner, a man who left an undeniable and legendary impact on the most storied franchise in the history of professional sports, The New York Yankees: You’ll be missed, Boss.
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Fans of other teams have never understood the point you made, that George wanted winning, knowing it would mean more money.
I wonder what fans in the Kansas City (owner married into the Walton family of Wal-Mart infamy yet won't invest in the team) or Pittsburgh areas would give to have an owner with George's philosophy for just 5 years. It might make the difference between their team being what they are, and being what they could be. It worked in Phoenix, Anaheim, St. Louis, Philadelphia, and, with a little (cough) help, twice in Boston.
It sure worked in New York, because we had the original. An original, the original.
Larry,
Great piece!
Best article I've read so far on the boss. While you may be a little older than me I think we still have the same view on things as we weren't able to see the tyrannical side of the boss in the 70's and 80's, but instead fell in love with a team of the mid to late 80's and early 90's.
Every sport needs an owner like the Boss: See Jerry Jones/Dan Snyder/Mark Cuban/Dolans/Marge Schott for better or worse..
The great thing about George is that he was hated and loved by Yanks fans far and wide for his desire to win at all costs. He was certainly a beloved figure by sportswriters, but the willingness to win at all costs is a trait not seen in a lot of owners today. I'm sure every owner wants to win but they ultimately want to line their already thick pockets
He was consistently able to put out a winning product on the field for a prolonged period of time. Of course we can all turn our heads to most of the 1980's, but his body of work as a whole is outstanding. A .566 winning percentage, 11 pennants and 7 championships in 37 years is something he's certainly proud of and he will forever appreciated by Yankee fans young and old.
I suppose when a man dies he deserves to be viewed through rose-colored glasses, and I do enjoy reading the essays on this site quite a bit, normally finding the analysis quite accurate and intelligent. But from my older perspective as a die-hard Yankee fan the Steinbrenner legacy is not even mostly positive.
First off, please recognize that the first spate of Yankee success was funded by Steingrabber, as he was dubbed by Bill Gallo, but it was engineered by Gabe Paul. When ol'Gabe couldn't take the insanity any longer, he left, or was pushed, and Steinbrenner subjected the Yankees and fans to their longest stretch of mediocrity since Babe Ruth arrived, 18 years. The stupidity was particularly intense with the Billy Martin five-step. Can you imagine any scenario where you would hire, fire and rehire the same man for the same job five times? Even if you weren't watching closely at the time, doesn't that sound a little insane to you?
To me losing wasn't the issue, and in retrospect, winning isn't the only goal.
I like following a team, not a disparate band of mercenaries. Yes, it's kind of fun when you have deep pockets and your team can go out and get what it perceives it needs, but look back at the 80s and some of the genius moves this meddlesome idiot insisted on. Some of the names to look up would include Dave Collins, Ken Phelps, Rick Rhoden and so on. Except for Ron Guidry, Donnie Baseball and a small handful of others, it wasn't really a fun team to follow, and the managerial changes, not including Martin, were entirely ridiculous.
I suspect that the Yankees would have continued along the same course if Fay Vincent hadn't banned Steinbrenner from the game for several years, giving the organization the chance to accummulate a teams of good players, good people. But then, after they didn't win in 2001, Steinbrenner can't restrain himself, and he starts pursuing a new batch of past-their-prime All Stars whose personalities didn't fit — Kevin Brown, Randy Johnson, Gary Sheffield, Mondesi and more. The motto seemed to be buy high and sell low.
Read the Dave Anderson column in The Times. Steinbrenner was a mean, irrational man who treated good people like garbage.
If all you want is winning and if you accept the Yankeeography history of Steinbrenner, then he's a great owner. To me, he was a lot like George W., a rich, little prick who nearly sank his family's boat business, but made one of the greatest bets in sports history getting involved with the Yankees at just the right time. His pockets are deeper and he spends more only because we, the fans, have provided the resources to do so, not because he came to the party with deep pockets. In many cases, he mismanaged our team and our resources and made a laughingstock of himself and, by extension, the Yankees.
Please be sure to take a few grains of salt with the baloney that will be served for the next several days.