When you die, the truth is the last thing you owe. I can’t quite describe what that exactly means, even I don’t really fully know. As a man who’s afraid of death, I’m kind of contradicting myself because this belief implies that one is “escaping” from life, and the very least you can do to all the saps you’re leaving behind is to allow the facts about your legacy to be told, completely and without fear.
So please, don’t slam me as a spiteful fan of a non-lucrative team, the Minnesota Twins, when I give my thoughts on the larger-than-life owner of the New York Yankees, George Steinbrenner, who died Tuesday morning. Actually, the heart attack he succumbed to took away the body, but the soul was sapped away by dementia many years ago. Death is very vicious, but I really hope his family and friends are at some level of peace because he’s no longer suffering the ravages of this evil malady.
But I guess I’m a bastard, because I cannot totally genuflect at his memory as I write this. The very cynical part of me notes that he died in a year where there’s no estate tax. I also have to note that he died the morning of the All-Star Game. For an attention whore, the big stage of the Midsummer Classic would be a hell of a way to bow out for the final time. Of course, I don’t imply that he died on purpose.
George Steinbrenner will go down as possibly the Greatest Owner in Sports History, and rightfully so. As a sports historian, I have to admire his love and care for his franchise, the fact that his determination, bordering on crazy obsession, propelled the Yankees to seven World Series championships on his watch, and that his vision turned his $10 million purchase in 1973 to a $1.6 billion sport, concession and media behemoth, and the gold standard of all sports companies on Earth – a return on investment of 33,900%.
If you’re a Yankee fan, this marks one of the worst weeks in your life. Steinbrenner’s passing was bad enough; that he followed the death of beloved Yankee public-address announcer Bob Sheppard Sunday is a devastating 1-2 punch. If you’re a Yankee player of staff member, you alternately mourn his passing and remember the times you feared him stalking the Stadium. If you’re a sportswriter, you miss all the florid quotes he’d give you after a Bronx Bomber loss on the record – and good copy on players in his doghouse off it. And if you’re Billy Martin … well, Steinbrenner’s probably firing him right now.
But if you’re a fan of a team besides the Yankees … no. I can’t. He singlehandedly turned baseball, and American sports, into a business. Trickle-down economists point to Steinbrenner as a hero for increasing salaries for all players and values for all franchises during his 37 years as owner of the Yanks. They’re blind to the fact that he didn’t really give a damn about anything except the Yankees, and that he didn’t mind singlehandedly raising the tide to float all boats if his floated the highest.
Don’t hate the player, hate the game? You can hate both, and should. Steinbrenner will be canonized by Yankees fans for plowing all the money he made from his empire back into his empire … so he can make even more money. Steinbrenner wasn’t the richest owner in baseball; Carl Pohlad, late owner of the Twins, was, and in the club’s last decade at the Metrodome he was a complete miser. The bottom line is, Twins fans, and fans of all the 28 other teams in baseball, have to chase an organization with 27 titles and the most money in the game, in a rigged system that refuses to impose a salary cap, in a league led by a commissioner who is hired by owners to not be a visionary. Owners like Steinbrenner.
Just jealous? Please. And it’s not just the oppression of his team. As Falstafian as “The Boss” could be, George Steinbrenner was capable of incredible acts of cruelty. He paid a two-bit gambler to dig up dirt on Dave Winfield, a man he ridiculed as “Mr. May.” He fired a public relations officer after he returned from Christmas vacation. When he co-owned the Cleveland Pipers of the American Basketball League, he once led the other partners to cut emergency checks to cover payroll, then ripped up his own check after they left the meeting. Hell, he’s even a criminal; he pled guilty to illegal donations to Richard Nixon’s presidential campaign in 1971, and he was suspended from baseball for three years for paying off that two-bit gambler. (I have to admit I’m cribbing some of these anecdotes from the “memorial” filed by Mike Celizic of NBCsports.com. Here’s a man who’s not afraid to tell it like it really is.)
You can’t even say he was that good of a baseball owner. According to Celizic, those years he was forced to stay away from his plaything, 1990-3, General Manager Gene Michael was allowed to restock the Yankee farm system without Steinbrenner’s meddling. The fruits of Michael’s labor: Modern-day Yankee legends Bernie Williams, Jorge Posada, Andy Pettitte, Mariano Rivera, and Derek Jeter.
The efforts of Michael, Bob Watson and now-current GM Brian Cashman have continued to exploit the libertarian salary system in MLB and thus further enriched the history of the Yankees as America’s premier sports team. Their omniscience in scouting, development and free agency, money advantage excepted, stands in greater relief when compared to Steinbrenner’s bumbling: He’s the one who insisted Cashman sign banged-up and over-the-hill pitchers Randy Johnson and Kevin Brown. After dementia took over Steinbrenner’s mind, forcing him to cede day-to-day control of the Yankees to son Hank, they finally won a World Series again, their 27th and first since 2000.
You want a boss like that? I’ll take Steinbrenner as a guy who can tell stories at a bar, but I wouldn’t want to get on his bad side. You just don’t know what it takes to get on his bad side. That’s a scary, scary man to deal with, let alone work for.
When you die, the truth is the last thing you owe. And the truth about George Michael Steinbrenner III is this: He was … complex and unique. Hero and villain, saint and son-of-a-bitch, he did things his way, and as a result, he shaped the future of sports in his image for all of us, forever. For good and for ill.
I give my condolences to his family and friends at this sad time, as I would to those of any human being.