Proud Owner of Yankees Is Still a Hands-On Boss

He has enlivened the tabloids with his tirades. He has stoked the salary structure with his signings. He has fired and hired, won and lost, then won again. George Steinbrenner celebrated his 25th year as owner of the New York Yankees in January.

It has been a quarter-century in which Steinbrenner has dominated--would he have it any other way?--the baseball spotlight and the Yankees have won three World Series titles, five American League pennants and more games than any major league team, 20 more than the Dodgers.

No apologies, none needed, Steinbrenner said in a spring interview.

Winning is what he is about, the bottom line.

And Steinbrenner vowed the Yankees would win in ’98 after they lost to the Cleveland Indians in last year’s division series, meaning they had better win.

On Wednesday night, at the beautifully remodeled Edison Field, the Yankees initiated Steinbrenner’s 26th season, a second quarter-century--presuming he is serious when he says he would never sell the team that is his lifeblood.

Imagine. He paid $8.8 million for the Yankees in 1973 amid dreams of Gary Cooper in “Pride of the Yankees,” and now he has a $465-million cable TV deal and will be paying Bernie Williams alone $8.25 million to play center field in 1998, which may not be enough to keep Williams a pride of the Yankees beyond ’98.

Imagine. There was Steinbrenner portraying himself as a humble shipbuilder in ‘73, insisting he wouldn’t pretend to be something he wasn’t, and saying, “We plan absentee ownership, as far as running the Yankees.” Now he was sitting in his office at Legends Field in Tampa, Fla., where the Yankees train, and saying, “That’s something I never should have said. I realized that to get this team where I wanted it to go, I had to be involved. It’s not my nature to keep hands off.”

Indeed, his fingerprints--and footprints--are all over the 25 years, and now, at 67, if he has mellowed as some insist, then why is he suing baseball and why did Bob Watson recently quit as general manager and why did Steinbrenner and pitcher David Wells almost stage a clubhouse wrestling match last year?

“He’s the most intense competitor I’ve ever been with--player or nonplayer,” pitcher David Cone said in the Yankees’ spring clubhouse, “and I doubt that will change.

“He’s demanding and tough, but he cares about winning and he’ll do anything he can to make the team better. And considering what’s happened to last year’s world champions and their ownership, George looks pretty good right now. He sure beats Wayne Huizenga, and who knows what Rupert Murdoch will be like in L.A.”

The maverick Murdoch, new owner of the Dodgers, is following almost five decades of stable family ownership by the O’Malleys. Huizenga, the Florida Marlins’ owner, was a man for one season, buying a World Series winner in 1997, then ripping it apart as he put the team up for sale in what has to rank as one of baseball’s ugliest series of events.

Steinbrenner knows ugly, but he reflected this spring and said, “Have I made mistakes? Yes. Are there things I would do differently? Yes. I’m human and I have an ego, I admit that. But if the goal is to win, I’ll stand on my record. I mean, we play in New York City. You have to perform, and we’ve won more than anyone in the 25 years.”

More justification and motivation for a winter of silver anniversary shopping.

Undeterred by the new luxury-tax payment of $4.4 million he was forced to make in ’97 and the $6 million he grudgingly doled to smaller and less fortunate colleagues in revenue sharing, Steinbrenner’s return to the market was no surprise.

Among his purchases:

Designated hitter Chili Davis for $9.8 million and second baseman Chuck Knoblauch for the $24 million left on the five-year contract he signed with the Minnesota Twins. Cuban pitcher Orlando Hernandez for $6.6 million and 16-year-old Dominican pitching prospect Ricardo Aramboles for $1.52 million.

Cone reflected and said, “George said to me last winter, ‘What do we need to get better?’ I said, ‘Knoblauch.’ Boom, we get Knoblauch. That’s the way he is. I mean, the Yankees are the most demanding team you would ever want to play for. It’s inevitable you’re going to be booed at [Yankee] Stadium. It’s inevitable you’re going to hear it from the owner when things aren’t going well. At the same time, it’s the most exciting and rewarding team to play for when things are going well. I can’t imagine a more exciting celebration than that victory parade [after the 1996 World Series win]. We all understand that George likes to vent, but he doesn’t hold a grudge, and he’ll pay the price to make the team a winner.”

Steinbrenner ultimately will pay more than $70 million this year, as will Baltimore Oriole owner Peter Angelos as they stage another high-stakes poker game for supremacy in the American League East.

The Yankees, twice as the wild card and once as division champion, have been to the playoffs the last three years, and Steinbrenner has had only two managers since October of ‘91--Buck Showalter and Joe Torre.

“I’m more understanding now,” he said in his Tampa office, “but my desire to win is as strong as ever.”

In addition to the ’98 vow in the aftermath of the October loss to the Indians, Steinbrenner slyly underscored his optimism and expectations recently by asking Torre if any American League manager has ever gone undefeated during the regular season.

“That puts a lot of emphasis on opening day,” said Torre, who has handled the pressure of the Bronx so admirably and who reflected on his position this spring and said: “There’s a certain accountability that comes with managing the Yankees and I don’t mind that. [George] wants to win. So do I. And when you work for George Steinbrenner, you know he’s going to get you the players. What manager doesn’t like that?”

From Catfish Hunter and Reggie Jackson to Knoblauch and Davis, Steinbrenner has never stopped trying to win--often impetuously trading the best of his farm system in the effort but slightly more cautious recently. A promising outfielder, Ruben Rivera, was traded to San Diego for Hideki Irabu, and a promising pitcher, Eric Milton, went to Minnesota for Knoblauch. However, farm products--Andy Pettitte, Mariano Rivera, Derek Jeter and Williams--make up the heart of the current team, and that’s about as good as it gets with Steinbrenner’s revolving rosters.

Don Mattingly spent 13 years in New York, but Steinbrenner is the only real link to the 25. Yankee continuity is the stuff of sitcoms. The Boss has changed managers 21 times and general managers 18 times.

The late Billy Martin managed the Yankees five times. Pitching coaches and public relations directors know better than to put up a nameplate.

“He keeps baseball in the headlines, and that’s a positive,” former commissioner Peter Ueberroth said, “but he can be abusive and demeaning to employees at times. He can be tough on the little guy.”

Even partners with big investments.

“There is nothing quite so limited as being a limited partner of George Steinbrenner,” said former limited partner John McMullen, who later owned the Houston Astros and now owns hockey’s New Jersey Devils.

The new Yankee general manager is 30-year-old Brian Cashman, who joined the team as an intern in 1986, insists he knows what he’s getting into but now figures to age quickly.

Predecessor Watson never received credit from Steinbrenner for the ’96 World Series victory and wearied of never knowing where the parameters of his New York office ended and those of Steinbrenner’s Tampa office began.

It’s Steinbrenner’s tendency to lay the blame for any deal that doesn’t work on his “baseball people,” but Watson packed and said, “Those baseball people are all in George’s head.”

Said Steinbrenner this spring: “I’m me. I have to be involved. It was the way I was raised. I don’t apologize. Watson knew what he was getting into when he took the job.”

Maybe, but it’s always a jolt, and there’s always a twist.

Yogi Berra was fired as manager 16 games into the 1985 season and hasn’t been back to Yankee Stadium.

Bob Lemon was fired 14 games into his second managerial tenure in 1982 but is said to still get checks from the Yankees, pure gifts.

A known gambler, Howard Spira, was paid $40,000 to dig up dirt on Dave Winfield in the owner’s most despicable act, but Roy White, Goose Gossage, Ron Guidry, Mickey Rivers and other former Yankees were hired as spring instructors, some simply because they are hurting financially.

What to make of it?

A man who has been suspended twice and fined more than $600,000 in 25 years, but a man who paid off a mortgage for Dick Howser’s widow seven years after he had fired Howser as manager in the aftermath of a season of 103 wins and a division title.

A supporter of Bud Selig for commissioner even though Selig recently kicked him off the ruling executive council for suing baseball over baseball’s interference with his Adidas marketing deal.

Twenty five imperious years as a caring bully and ego-driven competitor. Never boring, never will be.

Proud of the Yankees, if not always pride of the Yankees.

*

The New York Yankees have finished below .500 in only six of 25 seasons under owner George Steinbrenner.

1977: .617*

1978: .613*

1980: .636

1990: .414

1994: .619

1996: .568*

*World Series Champions