| 14 July 2010
sday morning that Yankees owner George Steinbrenner had passed, predictably, I got a few texts from friends asking if I was planning on writing about “The Boss.”At first I hesitated. Too much had happened before I was even born. I had never met him in person. What perspective could I possibly give that a million other writers couldn’t?
Then I really started to think about George. Think about the way he ran his organization with the iron fist of a South American dictator. Think about the way he controlled every word that came in and out his clubhouse like the Russians controlled information during the Cold War. Think about the way he struck fear into multi-millionaire ballplayers and fired managers like they were clerks at CVS. Think about the way he was equal parts loathed, feared and at the same time respected by fans of the opposition.
I really started to think about how there might be a million more Mark Cuban’s in my lifetime. But there will never be anyone quite like George.
Now if you’re looking for me to give perspective on the old-school, tyrannical, terrifying, trust no one, fire everyone Steinbrenner of the 1980’s and early 1990’s you’ll have to go somewhere else. By the time I got to know him as a fan, he was coming off his second suspension from baseball and was a more mellowed, subdued guy. Make no mistake though, he was still “The Boss.” Even in his advanced age, there was never a doubt who the alpha dog with the Yankees- or in baseball for that matter- was. It was always Big George.
As a Red Sox fan growing up in Steinbrenner’s world, he was more terrifying than any player, coach, team or organization of my youth. He was an almost mythical figure, rarely seen, but always heard from, and much like the Godfather, someone who could always get things done. Steinbrenner wasn’t just an owner, but the scariest kind, one with lots of money who wasn’t afraid to spend it.
During his heyday (And basically every day), Steinbrenner was like a 16-year-old girl with her father’s credit card at the mall. If he saw something he wanted, he went and got it. No trade was impossible for the Yankees. No free agent splurge too outlandish. If his team was struggling during the season you always knew he’d put pressure on someone, to do something to make the squad. There was nothing he wasn’t capable of.
Because of that “fear no one, crush everyone” attitude, Steinbrenner was at the controls of the most dominant sports organization of my youth. Not only did fans of other teams know they weren’t beating the Yankees, I always got the sense that opposing players did too. I remember watching the 1998 World Series when the Yankees played the Padres. After eight innings of Game 1, you could see in the Padres eyes that they knew they were toast, and sure enough, were swept three games later. Nobody beat the Yankees in the late 1990’s, and like I said, it more Steinbrenner more than any one player.
And it was that burning, win at all costs passion that made The Boss the best owner of my lifetime.
Just a few days ago, I wrote about Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert and his comments regarding LeBron James leaving his team. But with the death of Steinbrenner yesterday, it’s all kind of worth repeating:
While I thought Gilbert’s comments about LeBron were crass and a bit over the top, it also gave me a newfound respect for the guy. At the end of the day, Gilbert stood up to a superstar and stood behind his fans and remaining players. He made his point clear, that LeBron James wasn’t bigger than his organization, and that he’d continue to do whatever it took to put a championship caliber team on the court. Good for him.
Steinbrenner was like that...times 45,000.
Again, as a Red Sox fan growing up in the late 1990’s, watching the Yankees pile up championships was terrifying, frustrating and angering, and it was probably just the same for every Braves, Mets and White Sox fan too. We didn’t just despise Steinbrenner. We hated him.
At the same time, how could you not respect him?
As a fan, all you want to know, is that if you’re going to spend an ungodly amount of money going to the ballpark, and the entire summer in front of the TV, that your owner is doing everything possible to put a winning team on the field. That he or she cares as much as you do. Well, that was never in doubt with Steinbrenner in charge. In an era where so many owners look at running a team with the bottom line in mind, something needs to be said about a guy that continued to funnel money into his franchise, even if it was reckless at times. At least he wasn’t lining his own pockets with it.
Beyond the titles, one of Steinbrenner’s greatest legacies will be away from the diamond, where over time, he changed the role of what being an owner is. From what I can tell, he was the first guy to step out of his suite, and step up to the plate when he wasn’t happy how things were going. Not only was he the first guy to go to the media and lodge a complaint about a player or manager, but to use the media to get a bigger picture and message across. And unlike current owners, he never did it for show. That's just who he was.
In the modern world of ownership, the guy that Steinbrenner is most closely associated with is Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. But to me, they couldn’t be any more different.
It seems like Cuban enjoys the celebrity that ownership brings, just as much as being an actual owner. He likes playing in celebrity basketball games and being interviewed courtside. He likes making goofy public appearances like he did that one time at Dairy Queen. I mean come on, the guy was on Dancing With The Stars like three years ago. You mean to tell me he doesn’t like seeing his own face on TV?
Yes Steinbrenner made appearances on Saturday Night Live and Seinfeld. But unlike Cuban, if you ever saw Steinbrenner in front of the cameras during the season, it was never with a smile on his face, and always strictly business. Someone wasn’t getting it done. Someone was in danger of losing their job. Steinbrenner was grim. He was pandering. He was to the point. And there was always a purpose when he spoke.
As we shift to the future, I think it’s safe to say that we’ll never see another owner quite like Steinbrenner.
In this day and age, good owners aren’t just savvy businessmen, but part marketers and politicians too. They answer fan e-mails. They’re buddy, buddy with the media. They might as well being walking around kissing babies and pushing around old people in wheelchairs. Steinbrenner’s cavalier, “I don’t give a s**t what you think about me,” attitude would never fly now. Maybe for awhile, but have one or two bad seasons and see where you stand with everyone.
Remember too the lesson that Dan Gilbert taught us last week: Like any public figure, owners have to be really, really careful what they say. Every quote is on the record. Every internal e-mail will go public at some point. You can’t be rude, crass or politically incorrect anymore, without having every word you say broken down by a million different blogs, sports radio hosts and shown on a continuous loop on TV. How long could George Steinbrenner have made it in 2010 without saying something that would gotten him fined, suspended, deported or turned into a public pariah? One day? Two?
In the end, Steinbrenner will be remembered for a lot of things. He was part revolutionary with the creation of the YES Network. Part maverick with the way he threw around money like Pac-Man Jones at a strip club. To a generation, part self-parody thanks to his appearance on Seinfeld.
But above all, you can’t deny he was a winner.
While this past decade wasn’t always kind to Steinbrenner’s Yankees, I did find it a bit ironic that he passed when he did.
By all accounts, his health had been failing for awhile now, and for the better part of the last few years he’d largely been out of the public eye. After he made an appearance at the 2008 All-Star Game in which he clearly wasn’t the same old George, I think when I speak for a lot of people, when I say that I thought old George could leave us at any time.
Yet after a decade without a championship, he stuck around just long enough to see one more Yankees World Series victory. Even I saw that strangely fitting.
Say what you want about Steinbrenner.
He went out a winner.
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