I was going to start today off with some beef about the MLB All Star Game voting, but as a New York based blog, and as a sports blog in general, I thought it was necessary to talk about the death of Yankees owner George Steinbrenner today from a massive heart attack at the age of 80.
George Steinbrenner who had been having health problems during recent years and had been making fewer and fewer public appearances, was taken to St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa last night and died there this morning around 6:30 a.m. The man that had won his whole life, and once said "I will never have a heart attack, I give them," found the one thing he couldn't beat: death.
Steinbrenner bought the Yankees in 1973 for just $8.7 million, after close to 10 years of struggles under the ownership of CBS. No one knew it at the time, but professional sports would never be the same.
He didn't wait very long to establish himself as "The Boss." He hired Gabe Paul as a senior Yankee executive, taking power away from team president E. Michael Burke, who soon after resigned from the team. Burke wasn't the only one who didn't want to serve under King George; Manager Ralph Houk left the team after just one year under Steinbrenner.
Steinbrenner had as much trouble on the field as he did off of it, during his first few years as owner. In April 1974, he pleaded guilty to making illegal donations to Richard Nixon's presidential campaign and later that year, pleaded guilty for obstruction of justice. Commissioner Bowie Kuhn suspended Steinbrenner from the game for two years, a sentence which was later reduced to 15 months.
Amidst all of the controversy, Steinbrenner immediately turned the poorly performing franchise around thanks to the help of free agency in 1974. Steinbrenner took advantage, offering Catfish Hunter $700,000 a year in 1975, and $3 million to Reggie Jackson in a five year deal starting in 1977. The influx of stars brought the Yanks two titles back-to-back in 1977 and 1978.
Although, the 10 year, $275 million contract that Alex Rodriguez has, makes Hunter's and Jackson's deals look like they were signing for what A-Rod leaves for a tip, it's important to remember, that back in the 70s, free agency was a brand new, revolutionary idea. Up to that point, athletes made very little, with the average salary of a baseball player in 1970 being a mere $20,000. Also, many players had to stay with the same team throughout their career, as under the reserve clause, teams had the right to retain players for a year after their contracts were up; players did not have the right to enter into another contract with a different team during that year. Even though players didn't have to play for that year, the owner also didn't have to pay the player, and therefore baseball players constantly renewed contracts with their team, trying to remain employed, as if they didn't go along with what their team wanted, they'd most likely be released and no other team would go through the trouble of signing them. But, thanks to the help of MLBPA's former executive director Marvin Miller, free agency got its start with its first participants being Catfish Hunter and Steinbrenner. With Hunter's signing, George started a trend of signing big name players for big bucks, that would last for three decades, and showed the world that he was going to win, no matter what the cost.
Despite the team's success in the late 70s, the 80s were a turbulent, tumultuous time for the Yanks. Steinbrenner was still signing players for unheard of sums of money, including Dave Winfield who became the highest paid player in baseball in 1980, when he signed a 10 year deal worth $23 million, but nothing came of it. Although the big deals paid off during the regular season, and made the Yankees the best team in baseball, winning percentage-wise during the decade, it didn't pay off in titles nor playoff appearances. Following the 1981 World Series loss to the Dodgers, the Yanks failed to win an AL pennant for 15 years, and missed the playoffs for 13 straight years.
The thing that the Yankees were probably known most for wasn't their performance on the field, but the ongoing feud between Steinbrenner and manager Billy Martin. A former Yankee second baseman, Martin took over the team towards the end of the 1975 season. He had immediate success, but in 1978 after telling reporters "[Jackson and Steinbrenner] deserve each other. One's a born liar, and the other's convicted," Martin resigned under pressure from Steinbrenner. It would be the first of five firings in the wild relationship between Steinbrenner and Martin. Martin started his second stint with the team a little less than halfway through the 1979 season, but was fired again after a fight with a salesman. Martin came back to coach the team for the full 1983 season, most of the 1985 season and half of the 1988 season, being replaced by Lou Piniella, whom he had replaced when he came on to manage. Martin was planning on coming back for a sixth time, before he died in a one car crash on Christmas Day 1989. The duo even did a commercial for Miller Lite that mocked their inability to get along and agree on anything: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_zDcQV6_6k.
Even though Steinbrenner made 22 managerial changes with 15 different managers, (20 of which came in his first 23 years as owner) he had trouble with more of his employees than just managers. He signed players to huge deals that didn't pan out, and essentially ruined the Yankee farm system by trading many young players for veterans. In addition to running through players in the blink of an eye, Steinbrenner also had trouble with workers off the field. Everyone from general managers (which he had 13 of) all the way down to assistants was spurned by "The Boss" at one point or another, as Steinbrenner created an unworkable, high-pressure environment that fewer and fewer people wanted to work in as time went on. He made almost everyone associated with the Yankees, including their fans, miserable with his antics, until finally he was taught a lesson that made him turn over a new leaf.
In 1990, Steinbrenner paid gambler Howard Spira $40,000 to try and find dirt on Dave Winfield, when Winfield sued Steinbrenner for failing to pay the $300,000 he had agreed to pay to Winfield's foundation under his contract. Commissioner Fay Vincent banned Steinbrenner from the game of baseball for life when he heard the news. When Yankee fans got word of Vincent's actions against Steinbrenner at the game that night, instead of launching boos, the stadium echoed with cheers and roars, showing how disliked the tyrant had become amongst the fans.
Steinbrenner was reinstated in 1993, and he came back with a new attitude and outlook on how he should go about running his team. Instead of having a huge part in every single move that the Yankees made, he began to trust his staff more than ever before, and it paid off. Gene Michael, then the General Manager of the Yankees, revived the farm system, bringing up players like Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte, Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada that would help bring the Yankees four titles within five years. It was from this success, that the Yankees were revived and became the goldmine that they are today.
From 2001 until 2008, the Yankees made the playoffs every single year, as they had since 1995, but failed to bring home a title, despite the absurd amounts of money that Steinbrenner continued to pour into the team. Guys like Carl Pavano, Kevin Brown and Randy Johnson donned the pinstripes without winning a World Series ring, and the Yanks began to move back to the dark place they had been two decades ago, depleting their farm system to get big name players that couldn't handle playing in New York.
Steinbrenner relinquished control of the team to his sons Hank and Hal in 2007, and the following year, the Yankees missed the playoffs for the first time in more than a decade. But, the Yanks came back as favorites to win the title in 2009, and followed through, with big free agent additions like C.C. Sabathia, Mark Teixeira and A.J. Burnett, as well as a little help from many of the youngsters that had come up through the minors with the Yanks, like Robinson Cano, Joba Chamberlain, Phil Hughes, and Melky Cabrera - the things the Yanks had been missing for nearly a decade - to give The Boss his final World Series ring.
Many people despised George Steinbrenner, but quite frankly, most people hated him because he wasn't their team's owner. After returning to baseball in 1993, he quickly became the ultimate fan's owner. He made it known amongst the fans that he was going to spend all the money and make all the moves that were needed to win the World Series, and he was going to do it every single year. Rebuilding and losing weren't part of his vocabulary.
Since 1990, the Yankees have spent more than $1.8 billion, more than double what any other team has spent in that time span. Steinbrenner took capitalism and brought it to baseball. All of the money that he put into building championship teams, into rebuilding the Yankees, came back to him in team revenue with high attendance, high television revenue from the network he created (YES), etc. The team that was worth just $8.7 million back in 1973, today is estimated to be worth about $1.6 billion, and with the YES network, more than $2 billion. Through hard work, and lots of check signing, Steinbrenner created an empire that is unmatched in all of sports.
He created big-market baseball, and although many people, especially baseball purists, may not like the idea of "buying championships," that's the way baseball is run today, and that's mostly due in part to George Steinbrenner. No one likes a bully, no one likes a favorite, and therefore the Yankees became America's most hated team under Steinbrenner.
But just because he tried to win year after year, and made a few mistakes along the way, doesn't mean he wasn't a man with a big heart. Steinbrenner helped revitalize the Bronx, as well as contributed so much to the city of Tampa, where a high school is named in his honor. He's also responsible, according to reports, for providing numerous college scholarships to kids, and doing small acts of kindness for people in whatever neighborhood he was living in. He once said "I'm really 95 percent Mr. Rogers, and only 5 percent Oscar the Grouch."
Tonight at the All-Star Game and the next Yankee game this Friday, there will most certainly be some type of tribute for Steinbrenner, and he will most certainly get the same cheers he received when he was banned from the game in 1990. This time however, it won't be for Steinbrenner's missteps, or his poor temper; the ovation will be for continuing the Yankee legacy as the greatest franchise in sports history, revolutionizing the sport through free agency, doing so much for the communities he has been a part of, and always, unlike so many owners who own teams just as a hobby, making sure that he put the best team out on the field every single day, no matter what he had to do. There's two quotes which sum up The Boss best, the first being, "They always say, 'what would you like to be on your tombstone? I'd just like it to say 'He never stopped trying,' that would be good enough for me," and the second being, "Winning is the most important thing in my life, after breathing. Breathing first, winning next." One thing's for sure, never in the history of sports, has there been a winner quite like George Steinbrenner.
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