George Steinbrenner

To be brutally honest, I spent much of my youth thinking that George Steinbrenner embodied everything that was wrong with the modern game of baseball. After getting a little older, mellowing out a bit, and looking at everything objectively, I determined that I could not have been more wrong.

I’ve heard the saying many times “don’t’ hate the player, hate the game”. Even though this quote may not fit Steinbrenner socially, it fit him perfectly as owner of baseball’s flagship franchise. He wanted to win and he did everything he could to help the Yankees win, pushing the team’s payroll up to a major league record $208 million in 2005. Including this year, the Yankees have spent $1.78 billion on payroll and many detractors say this is perfect evidence of the lack of competitive balance in major league baseball. However, in the last ten years (including the unfinished 2010 season) eight different teams have won the World Series, proof that a huge payroll can give you a chance to win it all, but it doesn’t come close to guaranteeing it.

I never knew George Steinbrenner or knew anyone who knew him. The closest I ever got to him was watching his finely tuned product that he put out on the field of play and since that is the best way I can relate to him, that is how I will attempt to put his career with the Yankees into perspective.

Since his purchase of the Yankees, they have put forth a regular season record of 3364-2583-3, good for an average of 88 wins per season. His teams won 100 games 8 times and won 90 games another 11 times. Their .566 winning percentage during his ownership tenure was the best in baseball but as good as the teams he paid for were during the regular season, they were always able to ratchet it up when the stakes were higher.

His Yankees teams went 114-77 in the postseason, including 35-25 in 11 World Series appearances, 7 of which ended with Yankees victories. The Yankees played in 38 postseason series with Steinbrenner as their owner and won an astounding 27 of them.

Many people say that they hate the New York Yankees and they hate its principal architect, George Steinbrenner. I have a very hard time, however, blaming him for something that goes against nothing but the mythical standards of “fair play”. It is nothing short of ludicrous to me that people dislike Steinbrenner because he spends $200 million in payroll every year (or so it seems). Here’s the problem; there’s no salary cap in baseball and he can spend his hard earned money however he wants to.

In my opinion, what most complaints really boil down to is people don’t like Steinbrenner because he’s willing to pay tens of millions of dollars in luxury taxes so he can have the roster that he wants while other owners won’t do that. People are also upset because of the economic benefits to running a successful franchise in New York City versus Kansas City or Pittsburgh (just to name two) and to blame these things on George Steinbrenner is preposterous.

Was he a model human being? From everything I’ve read and heard, he tried to be a good person but he sometimes had a short fuse and was never afraid to speak his mind. Was he good for baseball over the last 38 years? No question about it. The New York Yankees is the only brand in Major League Baseball that can sell around the world. Kids in Japan dream about playing for the Yankees which might be part of the reason why several Japanese imports have ended up there. They are the best and when there’s a standard bearer like that, it gives the other 29 teams something to aspire to. Everyone else knows that the Yankees level of revenue and income are nearly impossible to attain elsewhere but they all dream of having fans that devoted and having the kind of prolonged success that people in the Bronx have.

Steinbrenner increased the value of baseball’s most storied franchise from $8.8 million nearly 40 years ago to $1.6 billion today. Along the way he’s paid millions upon millions in revenue sharing and luxury taxes so his success has lined the pockets of all the other owners out there. It is nothing short of hypocritical to criticize the way he’s run the Yankees while depositing his checks into your bank accounts and into your own franchise.

To sum up, there was a time that George Steinbrenner was public enemy #1 for me but that time is long since past. Other teams have $100 million payrolls and players earning more than $20 million per season. The only difference is that those other teams haven’t been able to find the sustained success of the New York Yankees. So if “The Boss” is guilty of anything, perhaps he’s guilty of being a good businessman.

Rest in Peace
George Steinbrenner
July 4th, 1930 – July 15th, 2010