by Eric Martin
George Steinbrenner passed away today at age 80. Guess he was waiting for Bob Sheppard to go on ahead first so that he could get a proper introduction at the pearly gates.
Say what you will about Steinbrenner, as a Yankee fan, you knew the guy was going to spend his money to put a contender on the field, which some owners with more loot simply choose not to do. He wasn't as wealthy as many owners when he bought the team (which was struggling under CBS ownership) back in the early 1970s, but he turned the team around and made it into a lucrative money making venture, and then plowed a good deal of the revenue back into the players he put on the field.
It's the end of the era of Yankee ownership that I've known all my life up until now.
RIP.
No it really isn’t an end to an era. The end happened three or four years ago. He really hasn’t been the same hands on guy he was back in the 70-80’s and 90’s (when he wasn’t suspended which allowed the team to coalsce).
They’ve been working on the transition team for at least 3+ years now.
It’s still a shame he’s gone, but I’m not sure I buy “greatest owner” ever. He might have been the greatest owner for his team, but I’m not sure he’s a deadlock for greatest owner of any sports franchise ever. Definitely in the discussion though, and you do have to admire him spending the cash he had on hand due to the inherent advantages of his market and sport.
“Heavan”?
They’ve been working on the transition team for at least 3+ years now.
Sure, but death has a certain finality.
It’s still a shame he’s gone, but I’m not sure I buy “greatest owner” ever.
I agree.
you do have to admire him spending the cash he had on hand due to the inherent advantages of his market and sport.
Yeah, and he was spending his own money before the team was making much more than others, and at a time when spending by owners was more limited, especially by owners with much more bank than him.
“Heavan”?
Fixed Slarti. Sweet jeebus that’s embarrassing.
Bye George.
Sorry. I should have been a little more explicit about that comment.
Not really directed at just you. It just a response to the inevitable “what will this mean for the team? How will the 200 million dollar team of upstarts respond this season? What will the future hold for this franchise?” as if his death really would have an effect on the operations of the team.
It will most assuredly affect a lot of the players on a personal level, but the actual running of the Yankees is not gonna be changed.
As an aside, I have even less reason to watch the ASG tonight. It’s going to be insufferable, over the top, overstating stuff, and I’d probably throw whatever is handy at TV the first (and probably multiple times) some talking head references “how will this team overcome?” BS.
It’s probably one of the best, if not best, constructed teams in baseball. Tons of talent, plenty of resources to plug any hole, etc.
Yeah, I agree Mr. Dantes.
I usually don’t watch the ASG much, but tonight will do so even less than normal.
RIP, George Steinbrenner.
His genius as an owner was in understanding how valuable being in the New York market was, especially under baseball’s rules, which involve much less sharing of revenues than other sports. He capitalized on that to build the Yankees into what they are – an enormously well-funded championship team.
Actually, “build” is the wrong word. “Rebuild” is better. In may ways Steinbrenner’s career as owner echoes that of Jacob Ruppert, the beer baron who bought the Yankees in 1915 and built their first decades of championship teams (as well as Yankee Stadium) with large infusions of money. Babe Ruth was not the only player he bought from the Red Sox.
It is interesting that the free-agent era did not mark the beginning of the Yankees’ ability to use their financial advantages to build strong teams. Before that you bought players from other teams, today the money goes to the players. In the old days there was neither a draft nor nationwide coverage of promising young players, so the ability to support a large scouting network and an expansive minor league system was quite important.
Sweet jeebus that’s embarrassing.
Don’t feel bad. I once spelled the Greek letter representing the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter as “pie” in a comment on this very blog.
[And I’m a friggin’ engineer! (Actually, maybe that’s a good excuse. In school I always wrote it as the lower case Greek letter and didn’t have to think about how to spell it in English.)]
Now he’s off to baseball heaven so he can fire Billy Martin a few more times.
Actually, his genius was that after, what, ten-twelve years of failure, he finally backed off and let the baseball people run the baseball operations.
They’ve been working on the transition team for at least 3+ years now.
as if his death really would have an effect on the operations of the team.
There’s some anecdotal evidence, and some reporting (i.e. the firing of Torre) that the sons are taking things back to the impetuous bad old days.
Actually, his genius was that after, what, ten-twelve years of failure, he finally backed off and let the baseball people run the baseball operations.
What about the two titles in the 1970s?
@Hogan: Actually, I read an article by Bill James several years ago that pointed out that Steinbrenner may have been the one owner who really understood how to use Billy Martin to best advantage. Martin’s teams had a consistent pattern of overachieving relative to their previous performance in the first couple of years after he came in, followed by a crash-and-burn afterwards. So the best way to use him would be as a “platoon manager” that you bring in for a short-term boost when you are ready to make a championship run or two, followed by swapping him out for a less intense manager before he can burn out the team completely. That’s essentially what Steinbrenner wound up doing with him.
Dave W.: That makes a lot of sense. It also keeps Martin from blowing out the arms of the quality starters, which he also tended to do given time. (Plus you just knew that he couldn’t go much more than a year in New York without committing some kind of firing offense.)
Tell me about it. Familiarity, etc.
I’ll have to remember that, though. For pie stare radiance!
-Note: new author list
How typical of Steinbrenner to die on All Star Game day and grab all the attention. (I say this as a life-long Yankee fan.)
heh
@Bernard Yomtov:
I would rank Rupert as a greater owner than Steinbrenner. Yes, Steinbrenner returned the Yankees to their glory days. Rupert was the one who brought them to glory in the first place, taking a team with little tradition and no history of success and turning it into the most dominant team in the history of the sport. I know which one of those achievements ranks higher in my book.
-Note: new author list
And an excellent addition to the list indeed not to mention a target rich environment for conservative trolls.:-)
Bad joke aside, JD exemplifies the reasoned and polite discourse that make ObWi what it is and hopefully always will be. Welcome, welcome.
Eric Martin
What about the two titles in the 1970s?
And losing World Series appearances in 1976 and 1981?
Roger Moore,
I’m not sure you can compare. The Ruppert Yankees won a higher share of WS, but under different competitive conditions. I think the main thing they had in common was the realization of the degree to which the value of the New York franchise in particular would be affected by success on the field, and hence the importance of not stinting.
Ruppert was a better judge of talent or, probably, more willing to listen to others, than Steinbrenner, who made some awful decisions over the years.
And losing World Series appearances in 1976 and 1981?
True. My personal reminisces:
Don’t remember 1976 (was only 2 years old)
1981 was my first taste of the sting, at age 7.
2001 hurt worse than any, though, as NYC really needed a break, and Mo blowing a Game 7 lead was such a shock.
2003 to the Marlins was more like a shrug.
The Ruppert Yankees won a higher share of WS, but under different competitive conditions.
It’s not the share of World Series that I see as important. It’s the starting position of the team when each owner bought them. Steinbrenner took a storied franchise that had slipped from the pedestal and returned it to its former glory. I can’t and won’t deny that was a great achievement. Rupert took an also ran team and turned it into a storied one, which is a much greater achievement.
Are you guys actually listening to yourselves? For nearly a century now the Yankee formula for success has been to spend more money than any other team. Buy up the best players and beat up the inferior ones. Same formula as Manchester United or Real Madrid, in another sport that does not control the power of CA$H by spending caps or revenue sharing. It ain’t rocket science. Spend more, win more, gain more revenues, win even more. Repeat ad nauseam.
(Admittedly, it’s possible to have lots of money and still screw it up, but you sound as if you’re not just nominating The Boss for the “Didn’t Screw It Up Award.”)
FWIW, I grew up in the era of the greatest Yankee success era, far greater than either Ruppert before or Steinbrenner since. Between 1949 and 1964 – I point out to those of you too young to remember – the Yanks won 14 pennants in 16 years, and turned more than half of them into World Series wins. Whenever the produce of their farm system fell short – which wasn’t that often – they would go out and buy Allie Reynolds or Gene Woodling or Johnny Mize or Bob Cerv or Roger Maris from their less fortunate colleagues. The KC Athletics were virtually a Yankee farm team in the 1950s. A *highly* successful operation – none greater – but no one suggested George Weiss was the second coming of Einstein (who was still around at the time) for his deployment of the Big Bucks Brigade.
Sheesh.
Dr ngo,
Are you guys actually listening to yourselves? For nearly a century now the Yankee formula for success has been to spend more money than any other team. Buy up the best players and beat up the inferior ones. Same formula as Manchester United or Real Madrid, in another sport that does not control the power of CA$H by spending caps or revenue sharing. It ain’t rocket science. Spend more, win more, gain more revenues, win even more. Repeat ad nauseam.
Isn’t that what we’ve been saying? OK. “Genius” is strong, but Steinbrenner and Ruppert understood the formula you accurately describe and had the nerve to apply it. Do the Mets?
I grew up in the same era you did – Berra, Mantle, Ford, etc., and they did win a lot. That success was very much due to the farm system built under Ruppert (in which Weiss played a major role).
I’ll give you the Yanks as better than the Mets. BFD. New York is not – sit down before you read this – the Navel Of The Universe. If Steinbrenner had operated in any other city, his career (and his death) would not even make the front page.
I know that some of the other Yankee co-owners didn’t like Steinbrenner either.
dr ngo:
I never said it was genius, I just said thanks for doing what the prior owners weren’t: putting a winner on the field.
Other owners could have, and could still, spend more money than they do because they demand a certain level of return on their “investment.” Steinbrenner spent much more of his wealth as a percentage than just about any other owner at the time (and only now not so much because his wealth has increased so much because of the profitability of the team).
The Wilpons are a classic example. Pre-Madoff, they had more money than Steinbrenner. But spent less (though their payroll was still pretty high). And didn’t win.
dr ngo,
I’ll give you the Yanks as better than the Mets. BFD. New York is not – sit down before you read this – the Navel Of The Universe. If Steinbrenner had operated in any other city, his career (and his death) would not even make the front page.
Well, the Red Sox do seem to be trying his approach with some success, though I’ll grant that it wouldn’t work in most baseball cities. Still, that’s like saying Joe DiMaggio would have been a lousy soccer player.
The point about the Mets is just that they operate in much the same environment as the Yankees, with vastly less success, as did CBS when they owned the team. Since we’re of roughly equal vintage you probably recall the outcry over the CBS purchase. Something to the effect that their money would overwhelm all the other teams. It didn’t turn out that way, of course.
So Steinbrenner did something right, and was not just lucky to be operating in New York.
Since we’re of roughly equal vintage
Any minute, they are going to start yelling at us to get off their yard….
(I keeed, I keeeeeed…)
Someone who makes you laugh until you can’t stop; Someone who makes you believe that there really is good in the world. Someone who convinces you that there really is an unlocked door just waiting for you to open it. This is Forever Friendship.
LJ,
And a fine year it was, you whippersnapper.
It’s was a terrific All-Star game, i.e. the good guys won, and the best guy pitched a superb 1-2-3 inning (the 8th). If only he could do that in games that count.
For nearly a century now the Yankee formula for success has been to spend more money than any other team.
Under Weiss, the Yankees were notoriously cheap. When negotiating salaries, they actually insisted that the World Series share be considered part of the base.
Pixies!!
Yay, I got one!
I once spelled the Greek letter representing the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter as “pie” in a comment on this very blog.
I blame cleek.
Steinbrenner’s estate won’t pay estate taxes, apparently, given George’s impeccable timing.
Redstate intimates, given the incentives the ghouls who love money more than life itself respond to, he might have been murdered and adds that four billionaires who leased the farm with an option to raise zombies on it this year, might have been offed too.
It’s great to see fresh, creative ideas that have never been done before.