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On his 80th birthday, the Boss and Cooperstown

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George Steinbrenner turned 80 this past Sunday, and the New York media took the time to fete the Boss. Harvey Araton talked with current Yankees who remembered the fiercely competitive owner. Filip Bondy found fans players alike who were thanks for the Boss’ World Series obsession. MLB.com’s Barry Bloom waxed poetic, and ESPN’s Wallace Matthews calls for enshrinement. What a lovefest.

For Yankee fans of any age, it’s hard to distill Steinbrenner’s reign as Yankee owner into anything resembling a narrative. A carpetbagger from Cleveland, he purchased the team at its darkest moment after CBS ownership had decimated the once-proud franchise. With a newly renovated stadium as a backdrop, George built up a championship team and a reputation for micromanaging. “We plan absentee ownership as far as running the Yankees is concerned,” the Boss infamously said upon purchasing the team. “We’re not going to pretend we’re something we aren’t. I’ll stick to building ships.”

Yet, building ships was not in the cards for the Yankees. Steinbrenner wanted to win, and he wanted to win on his own terms. He hired, fired, rehired and refired Billy Martin more times than anyone could count. He threw money at problems, landing Reggie Jackson amidst clubhouse dissent and then signing Goose Gossage with Sparky Lyle already around to close. Winning once wasn’t good enough, and he put more and more pressure on the team to win and win at all costs.

After success in the late 1970s, George became too much for the team in the 1980s. He ordered trades that left the farm system barren, paid more than top dollar for free agents who weren’t worth the money they earned and obsessed over the drive and devotion of stars such as Dave Winfield. He pushed away Yogi Berra and Lou Piniella, and he continued to run through managers as though they were tissues.

In the 1990s, the Boss finally seemed to realize that the Yanks weren’t going to win 162 games a year. He allowed the farm to grow, and he sat back satisfied as the Yanks won four World Series in five years and spent the 2000s raking in the dough. Still, he meddled when he shouldn’t have, acquiring Randy Johnson years too late, establishing a Tampa faction to challenge Brian Cashman needlessly. The Yanks racked up the wins, but the team was flawed.

When George’s health started to slip away, the tributes came out in full. Matthews, who doesn’t want to limit the Hall of Fame to only those who were “exemplary human beings,” says Steinbrenner should be in Cooperstown because of his contributions to the game. The Yankees, through their spending, have radically changed baseball economics, and even when the game off the field shakes down to 29 clubs facing off against George’s dollars, Steinbrenner’s clubs have kept on winning. TV deals are more lucrative because of him, and record-breaking crowds flock to see the Yanks both at home and on the road. What’s good for baseball is, after all, good for baseball.

But George isn’t an easy man to pigeonhole. He violated campaign finance laws and was suspended after he sent a private investigatory to spy on Winfield. He was a cranky and temperamental owner whose need to have his finger stirring the pot probably cost the Yankees more championships during his reign than they won. Some would say he ruined the game with his spending.

So George the octogenarian trudges forward. His sons run the team, and he serves as the aging patriarch. The media loves him because he made for great headlines. Wallace Matthews and Filip Bondy are fond fans of the boss because he made their jobs easier. With an eruption from Mount George or a firing, the daily articles practically wrote themselves. Whether he belongs in the Hall though, enshrined forever in Cooperstown, is open-ended indeed.

Tampa area high school named after The Boss

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Although his appearances at Yankee games are limited mostly to Spring Training and the World Series these days, George Steinbrenner was on hand this weekend for the dedication of George M. Steinbrenner High School. Although he didn’t speak at the ceremony, he sat front row with his wife Joan and sons Hank and Hal, and received standing ovations from the crowd and school officials. Most know him as the brash owner of the Yanks, but The Boss pumps thousands of dollars into the community each year through donations and what not, often with zero fanfare. I’m happy to see him recognized for it.

Steinbrenners in talks to sell Yanks to Dolans

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James Dolan may be the next Yankee owner. (AP Photo/Jeff Christensen, file)

When Hank and Hal Steinbrenner took over control of the Yanks from their ailing father George, many fans feared the the family would try to cash in on their billion-dollar asset. Although Yankee fans knew the destructive tendencies wrought by King George during his team, they also came to love George’s singular focus on winning and knew that any other potential ownership group brought with it fears of a heavy hand and bad baseball minds.

Today, multiple New York media outlets confirm what we were dreading: The Steinbrenners are in talks with the Dolan family concerning the Yanks. Although neither side would confirm the talks, a source close to the Yanks said that a deal could be reached before the All Star Break. At that point, the other owners would have to vote to approve the deal.

“Ever since Hal and Hank were appointed co-chairs of the team,” the source said, “the family has been pressuring them to sale. With the Knicks and Rangers in their pockets, the Dolans seemed to be a logical choice, and James has been chomping at the bit to run a baseball team.”

Early reports indicate that the Dolans will pay upwards of $1 billion for a controlling share of the team and the final price could top $1.2 billion. Yankee Global Enterprises, the holding company controlled by the Steinbrenners that owns both the Yankees and YES Network, will hold onto the TV station for now. Considering that George paid $10 million to buy the Yankees in 1973, the family is certainly turning a pretty penny from their 36 years of ownership.

This isn’t the first time that the Dolans, owners of the lucrative Cablevision empire, have expressed interest in buying the Yankees. In late 1998, Steinbrenner and the Dolans were rumored to be close to a sale of the team. George would have gotten $600 million while retaining control over the Yankees, but the deal fell through in March of 1999 over George’s continued involvement with the Yanks. Ownership, it seems, won by winning since that sale didn’t happen.

As the Steinbrenners get rich, though, the franchise and its fans are in for a bumpy ride full of uncertainty. James Dolan, the chair of both Cablevision and Madison Square Garden, has developed a reputation as a hands-on owner who isn’t very good at installing top player managers. On his watch, the Rangers missed the playoffs every year from 1998-2005 despite leading the NHL in payroll. They still aren’t a legitimate threat in the Eastern Conference.

The Knicks, meanwhile, have been a walking disaster since the early 2000s. They haven’t finished a season above .500 in nearly a decade and haven’t won a playoff game since the 1990s. On Dolan’s watch, they suffered through the Isiah Thomas Era and spent millions on just one season of Larry Brown. The team has overpaid for overrated and old players, and Dolan was rated one of the worst owners in the league by Sports Illustrated.

Maybe this will work out for the best. Maybe the Yankees have too many good baseball minds in charge for the Dolans to ruin things. Maybe Cablevision will take a hands-off approach for its $1 billion investment. I can’t help but think though that we’ll miss the Steinbrenners more than we realize. [Read more…]

Meet the new Boss, not nearly the same as the old Boss

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In what has become something of a Yankee Spring Training rite of passage these days, Hall Steinbrenner met with manager Joe Girardi yesterday, and the meeting was a very quite and cordial one. As Bryan Hoch reports, Hal didn’t stop to say much to the media and simply stopped by to talk to his manager. Then, he left. “When Hal comes down, the conversations are very meaningful. They’re right to the point and we talk a lot of baseball. It’s great,” Girardi said. “I feel like we’re always on the same page. He’s very open. The conversations are usually very constructive.”

The media still picks up these stories because, even though George has been out of the picture for a while now, it’s such a radical change from the way the Yanks operated from the early 1970s through the mid-2000s. Hal lets his baseball people run baseball ops and his business people run the business side of the franchise. He doesn’t overstep his bounds, and his employees don’t manage or play with the threat of the Boss looming over them. It is no coincidence that the team has improved as George has ceded power. The Yankee U, meanwhile, today pondered whether or not the Steinbrenner family would sell the team after George passes and if it would matter — interesting questions, indeed.

The Boss stops by

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So here’s an interesting if typical late January story: George Steinbrenner stopped by Steinbrenner Field late last week and spent four hours in the office. He said he is “feeling good” and is excited for the upcoming season. It’s a typical story because this seems to be the extent of the media’s exposure to George. It’s interesting because this is the first we’ve heard from Steinbrenner since the season ended. Clearly, the Boss is not at full strength anymore. His days of roaring are over.

Thoughts on a weekend at George’s

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Once the driving force behind the Yankees, George Steinbrenner has faded from public view over the last six or seven years. He no longer roars with the ferocity he displayed in the 1970s and 1980s. He no longer embraces his team as he did when they won in the 1990s. His statements are filtered through a press representative, and his children are in charge of the team.

Still, the Cult of Steinbrenner lives on in the Yankees Universe. As the team celebrated its 27th World Championship last month, Hal Steinbrenner said, “This one’s for you, dad.” George wasn’t at the stadium; he was at home in Tampa, reportedly watching on television.

This week, this attention to George’s role with the Yankees took a turn for the bizarre, and as Bryan Hoch story on MLB.com last night said that the Boss was “active” during the off-season team meetings, a few fans started wondering if we were witnessing a remake of Weekend at Bernie’s. Of course, old age and the health problems that come with it are no laughing matter, but the Yankee leadership’s constant attention to George rings odd.

As the day wore on, and the Yanks’ officials stopped to talk to the press, they maintained a narrative about Steinbrenner’s participation. Brian Cashman spoke with Mark Feinsand. “He wants to win again,” Cashman said. Don’t we all, Brian?

So what, I am left to wonder, is going on here? Is it some quest for a Yankee identity? For the better part of the last four decades, George Steinbrenner and the Yankees were synonymous with each other. Steinbrenner’s fire and drive to win brought the Yankes out of a World Series drought but into dysfunction. His obsessive need to win led to overspending in the 1980s with little results, and by the time the Boss’s legal problems forced him out of the game in the early 1990s, the organization was a mess. In the 1990s, George’s spending along with a tempered temper and more faith in his Baseball People restored the team to greatness.

Now, we don’t quite know what is wrong with him. We know he had a fainting spell back in 2003, but we also know that he has rarely made public statements or conducted in-person interviews since then. Now 79, George seems to be in declining health. We’ve heard rumblings of Alzheimer’s for four or five years, but the Yankees have kept his status close to the vest.

In a way, then, those in charge now want to project the same image of the team that it had when George was there. They want to be known as the team not afraid to spend, spend, spend, and the team that demands perfection in the form of a trophy every year or else.

One day, George will be with us no longer. The Yankees will have to forge ahead with his business-minded son Hal at the helm and a bevy of baseball talent building the Bronx Bombers. For now, as George and his family try to reclaim a tortured legacy, we’ll listen to the Yankees as they honor him and work to build a team with him. The Days of George though — the glory days of rage and insanity — are over.

Meet the new Boss, not the same as the old Boss

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I saw only bits and pieces of the George Steinbrenner Yankeeography this week. At some point, I’ll sit down and watch this entire odd to the Boss, but what I saw was reminiscent of a distinct era in Yankee history, one long gone.

The Boss of the 1970s and 1980s was a man unto himself. He was loud and brash. He wanted the Yankees; he wanted headlines; he wanted championships. Despite his early promises of hands off management, he courted controversy and attention as a moth to a flame.

Steinbrenner’s shenanigans worked in the late 1970s as the Yankees won. The team members hated each other, and many players had a love-hate relationship with their boss – the Boss. Yet, the Bronx Zoo years remains one of the more colorful eras in Yankee and New York history, and nostalgia for that era reigns supreme. Whether we should yearn for those days of Billy and Thurmon and Reggie is another question entirely.

In the 1980s, a few years removed from the Yanks’ last world title, George wore thin. He hired, fired and rehired managers on a whim and was impatient with his GMs. A revolving door of players came and went, oftentimes in a matter of months as George tried to put together a team according to his and his so-called Baseball People’s ideas, and the farm system was neglected. The Yanks won more regular season games in the 1980s than any other AL team but post-season success eluded them.

In the 1990s, a new Boss emerged. Suspended at the start of the decade, George couldn’t interfere, and Gene Michael, Brian Cashman and the Yanks’ Front Office were free from the constraints and demands of the Boss. A last-place finish in 1991 guanranteed them Derek Jeter in the following year’s draft, and the rest is history.

George came back and let his employees run the team. He would roar, but it was all for show. No one was fired, and the good times rolled.

Today, George is ailing. Rumors of Alzheimer’s have swirled around him for the better part of the decade, and he rarely makes appearances at games. He speaks primarily through Howard Rubenstein and has turned control of the team over to his sons and daughters.

This week though George showed up at the office for a few hours, and he made some headlines. Promising to come to New York for the playoffs, he said, “Let’s keep it going.”. And that was it. No threats if failure follows; no promises of an easy October. Just a weak encouragement.

Once upon a time, we would yearn for George-inspired stories. Nothing makes for better headline fodder than a roaring lion. But that’s not George anymore. His influence is on the wane, and while we might pine for the Boss-inspired Years of Terror, the Yankees are better off without it.