The tributes for George Steinbrenner -- at least in New York -- continue to roll on. Although I doubt there's much talk of this north of the Bronx or west of the Hudson River, Steinbrenner's death has even prompted rumblings that he, who was twice thrown out of baseball, should be inducted into Cooperstown. Hmm, a nice thought except Hall-of-Famer George Steinbrenner has the same ring to it to me as President Rudy Giuliani.
Since George Steinbrenner died last week, the Boss has gotten a lot of press -- for returning the Yankees to their winning ways, for ushering in an era of big spending in sports and for amassing a reputation as one of baseball's most vilified owners.
The New York Yankees owner talked about his life's work, and about being a winner.
Those of us who knew Alex Clowson understood that his baseball dreams were all behind him.
NEW YORK -- The Yankees already used the rallying cry of "This one's for the Boss" last year, that slogan flashing on the stadium's scoreboard in honor of the ailing George Steinbrenner as they claimed the franchise's 27th World Series championship last November.
ANAHEIM -- His regular managerial hirings and firings grabbed the headlines, his bombastic demands were quotable and his nickname, The Boss, stirred an image of a domineering and unforgiving executive.
Joe Girardi, Andy Pettitte, Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter talk about George Steinbrenner's influence on their lives.
In March 2004 George Steinbrenner, his health just starting to slip, invited me into his office and boardroom at Tampa's Legends Field for what neither one of us could know would be one of his last extensive interviews. Steinbrenner gave me all the time that I wanted, looking back wistfully on his life during a period when his friends were dying off and a fainting spell he had suffered at the funeral of Otto Graham only three months earlier had augured the slow decline of his own faculties.
New York Yankees All-Star players Tuesday remembered owner George M. Steinbrenner III as a demanding father figure who had a gentle side.
George M. Steinbrenner III, the most visible, vilified and successful baseball owner of the free-agency era, died on Tuesday morning following a massive heart attack.
Demanding, vilified, legendary. "The Boss" of baseball, George Steinbrenner, turned 80 on the Fourth of July.
"Winning is the most important thing in my life, after breathing," George Steinbrenner said in 1998, when his Yankees were doing a whole lot of it -- 114 games worth plus the AL pennant and World Series.. "Breathing first, winning next."
Iconic New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner passes away at age 80.
Depending on who you ask, George Steinbrenner was either a visionary, influential owner who changed the face of baseball, gave to charity and was generous to friends, or a bombastic bully, given to insults, meddling and feuds, voraciously assembling the best team money could buy, sometimes with the help of taxpayers.
George Steinbrenner's family is planning a small private funeral for the immediate family that is likely to be held Saturday in Tampa, according to people close to the late Yankees owner. Tampa is the adopted hometown of Steinbrenner, who died early Tuesday morning after a heart attack at age 80.
Living in New York and covering baseball for Sports Illustrated gave me an intimate perspective on the George Steinbrenner Yankees of the late 1970s and early '80s. Multiple assignments revealed the secrets, jealousies and rivalries that made the team's Bronx Zoo sobriquet seem sufficiently justified. Reggie Jackson may have been "the straw that stirs the drink," as he famously declared upon his arrival in 1977, but Steinbrenner was the master mixologist. His obsessive-compulsive hiring and firing poured the ingredients together, and his cocktail shaker management style brought it all to a froth.
With the death of George Steinbrenner, we will undoubtedly hear endless stories about the imperious nature of the man who called himself The Boss. He was in the words of one writer, "every worker's nightmare, the satanic CEO, a fanatically controlling overlord who borrows his warmed-over rhetoric from Vince Lombardi and his managerial style from Stalin." One of Steinbrenner's favorite lines was, "I don't get heart attacks. I give them."
The controversial figure had a massive heart attack after years of failing health
George Steinbrenner turns 74 on the Fourth of July. Renowned for his vocal, public style of leadership, Steinbrenner, now in his 32nd year of ownership of the New York Yankees, has cut back on his availability to the media in recent years. The Boss recently sat, however, for two lengthy, far-ranging interviews with me, during which it became apparent that reminders of his mortality have begun to resonate within him. The result was a portrait of the Yankees patriarch that appears in this week's issue of Sports Illustrated. What follows are some excerpts from those interviews, in which Steinbrenner gave his take on a variety of subjects, including Joe Torre, the Red Sox, steroids, Andy Pettitte, Pete Rose, Fay Vincent, Donald Trump, whether The Boss himself belongs in the Hall of Fame ... and the one thing that makes him happy.
NEW YORK -- Reality hadn't yet sunk in for Hal Steinbrenner when he saw the old Yankee Stadium in the process of being demolished four weeks ago. The grandstand had come down, but the park's shell still stood, a convincing mirage that maybe its 85 years of history weren't going anywhere.
"Mr. Steinbrenner deserves another championship." --Joe Girardi, after the Yankees won the pennant
George Steinbrenner, the most famous owner of the free agency era, was at the new Yankee Stadium on Opening Day. When he was introduced, his daughter Jenny, sitting next to him, gently raised his right arm so that he could wave to the crowd. His roar may be gone, but the old lion was able to see his palace open. I watched Steinbrenner choking back emotion on the scoreboard TV from the concourse behind home plate. Next to me, a Yankee fan in a Paul O'Neill jersey had a homemade sign hanging from a string around his neck. It read: "The House that LOOT Built."
Article II, Section 2 of the United States Constitution grants the president "power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States." With a stroke of his pen, the man in charge can make legal trouble disappear. As one might expect, this practice can be a bit controversial.
It was just before one o'clock in the morning on Sept. 22, but the scoreboard clock was frozen at 12:21. The last game at Yankee Stadium was over, Sinatra had finally stopped singing New York, New York, and organist Ed Alstrom was playing Goodnight, Sweetheart. The home team had won 7-3 in a game that meant nothing in the standings but everything in a deeper, gut-felt way. The Yankees would not be going to the postseason for the first time since 1993, yet they had drawn 4.3 million fans, including another capacity-plus 54,640 on this night. And now, as the last of them drifted out of the ballpark, it felt like closing night for a hit Broadway show.
Every city in the country, I suppose, has its own relationship with New York City -- you know, much the same way that every college basketball team in the old ACC had a rivalry with North Carolina. The City is just omnipresent in American life. Everyone knows about Boston's rivalry with New York and the friction between Philadelphia and New York and the long-distance relationship between Los Angeles and New York. Chicago calls itself "Second City," and while technically this is because of the way it rebuilt itself after the Great Chicago Fire, I know many people in Chicago who believe it is in some way a reference to New York and its entrenched role as the First City. Kansas City* has a chip on its shoulder about New York that goes back to before the days when the Kansas City Blues were a Yankees minor league team and before the Kansas City A's traded Roger Maris to the big city. People in towns big and small all across America have long placed their own city's charms and ease and
There are only 21 more regular season games left at Yankee Stadium and each is being treated like standing room only for a smash Broadway show -- it's the hottest ticket in town. That late summer game against Tampa Bay? It's going to cost you. Seats for the regular season finale are already going for more than a thousand bucks a pop.
There was a T-shirt in New York in the early '80s that said, "Welcome to New York, Now Go the ---- Home." It is only with a small degree of exaggeration that you can apply the same sentiment to the experience of watching a game at Yankee Stadium. It is not for the faint of heart or for the aesthetic-minded.
It's never easy being told you're not wanted, that the organization is going in a different direction and that your services will no longer be needed. You can couch it in a thousand euphemisms -- all related to "philosophical differences," of course -- but it doesn't change the fact that you've just been fired.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Yankees ownership approached longtime general manager Brian Cashman offering to talk about an extension to his contract that expires after the 2008 season, SI.com has learned, but Cashman responded by telling his bosses that he doesn't feel the time is right to talk about his contract.
When he was robust and running the New York Yankees, George Steinbrenner never minded a little blood on his hands. He swung his firing axe decisively and often. I was there in Chicago at old Comiskey Park when Dale Berra cried into his dirty sanitary sock when Steinbrenner fired his father, Yogi, only 16 games into the 1985 season. Steinbrenner was rash, but he took the heat for it.
The New York Yankees did the right thing by offering Joe Torre a fair contract that would have kept him the highest-paid manager in the game. And Torre did the right thing by rejecting the offer.
Joe Torre is done as Yankees manager after he rejected their one-year offer to remain with the club, ending his legendary 12-year reign in the Bronx.
Top Yankees decision-makers are believed to have discussed different scenarios under which Joe Torre could possibly return for a 13th season when they gathered again Wednesday in Tampa, Fla., perhaps signaling a softening in the tough stance club owner George Steinbrenner enunciated regarding Torre in his rare interview 11 days ago.
Also in this column: • Boss' son to decide Torre's fate? • Ex-Braves GM's agent run-around • Mazzone's luck runs out
Last weekend's saber-rattling from New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner is once again raising questions about whether age and illness have caught up to the 77-year-old Boss -- and not just because many fans think Steinbrenner would be foolish to let manager Joe Torre go.
Also in this column: • What is D-Train's value? • Jose Reyes for Johan Santana? • White Sox want Rowand or Hunter • More news and notes
Word is, George Steinbrenner was "quite upset'' during the 6-4 Indians' win that ensured the Yankees would not be a World Series champion for a seventh straight season. According to confidants, Steinbrenner actually has been itching to fire Joe Torre for a few years. Now a managerial firing will likely be the Boss's only consolation.
NEW YORK -- In his first 20 years as principal owner of the New York Yankees, George Steinbrenner hired and fired 21 managers, including Billy Martin five times. That Joe Torre has remained skipper for 12 full seasons under The Boss is an anomaly, a feat almost as remarkable as Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak.
Also in this column: • How many chances for Torre? • Mattingly vs. Girardi debate • Wedge makes a bad call • More news and notes
Sunday, May 6, 2007. Seventh-inning-stretch time at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. The Yankees boasted a 3-0 lead, but to many New York fans the entire season was already in peril. The team's high-priced pitching staff had been decimated by injuries and ineffectiveness, and the Yanks had fallen 5 1D 2 games behind their resurgent rivals, the Boston Red Sox.
Also in this column: • A good week for baseball -- by comparison • More news and notes
Twenty-five years ago, the Yankees hit July 4 at 36-37 on their way to unceremoniously snapping a string of five postseason appearances in six years, including three pennants and two World Series championships. That run could have been six-for-six if not for the demoralizing death of captain Thurman Munson during the 1979 season. The '82 Yankees, who bear a passing resemblance to this year's squad, were a talented bunch (on papyrus) that wheezed in fifth in the A.L. East at 79-83 -- the franchise's first losing record since 1973.
Also in this column: • Zambrano's roller-coaster year • Giambi facing 50-game ban • Ken Williams backs Ozzie • More news and notes
Also in this column: • Brewers call up a stud • Sheffield's latest rant • More news and notes
Also in this column: • New Braves owners won't spend • Ozzie awaits A-Rod in Chicago • An omission from my over-40 list • More news and notes
SI.com: The final strawupdated: Thu May 03 2007 10:14:00
Well, it's early May, and we've already had our first casualty. No surprise, it's a Yankee. No surprise again, it's the strength and conditioning man who has overseen a disastrous run of injuries to front-line Yankees pitcher, many of those injuries involving the hamstring.
SI.com: Next in lineupdated: Sat Apr 28 2007 22:47:00
NEW YORK -- If George Steinbrenner decides to blame Joe Torre for the Yankees' awful start and fire him, Steinbrenner's first choice to replace Torre would be Don Mattingly, SI.com has learned.
SI.com: Heirs to the throne?updated: Fri Apr 27 2007 11:08:00
Also in this column: • Schilling's bloody sock mess • John Smoltz's extension • Philip Hughes' rough debut • More news and notes
Also in this column: • Russ Ortiz's quick fix • Bobby Jenks' velocity drop • More news and notes
SI.com: As the Stein turnsupdated: Fri Mar 30 2007 11:19:00
Also in this column: • Pitching injury epidemic • Late spring awards • Other camp news, notes
SI.com: Those were the daysupdated: Fri Mar 02 2007 17:01:00
In recent years, one of the annual rites of spring for the New York media has been to proclaim the return of The Bronx Zoo. This year, Mariano Rivera's expiring contract, the absence of Bernie Williams, and the Alex Rodriguez-Derek Jeter affair have prompted New York writers to invoke the name of the old Zoo. You can hardly blame them.
SI.com: Cash's callsupdated: Wed Feb 14 2007 10:42:00
Also in this column: • Torre and Donnie Baseball • Tejada ready for big year • Beckett's big problem • More news and notes
You don't have to love him -- and relatively few baseball fans do -- to believe that George Steinbrenner belongs in baseball's Hall of Fame someday.
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