Steinbrenner Not So Bad, Just Don’t Work for Him

You must go back, way before Dave Winfield and Howie Spira and Reggie and Billy, to pinpoint the most outrageous moment in George Steinbrenner’s reign as Boss of the Yankees. Back to January 1973, precisely.

On the day he bought the team, Steinbrenner said: “We plan absentee ownership, as far as running the Yankees is concerned. We’re not going to pretend we’re something we aren’t. I’ll stick to building ships.”

Twenty-five years later, nothing tops it.

“I should’ve never said that,” Steinbrenner says. “To get where I wanted to go, I wasn’t going to stay hands-off.”

In 25 years, he has purposely steered this ship through choppy seas, and yet the Yankees have never toppled like the Titanic. Amazingly, neither has Steinbrenner. Imagine winning three World Series championships, five American League pennants, being suspended twice, hiring and firing 14 different managers (including Billy Martin five times), associating with a convicted gambler and throwing tons of tantrums.

If Steinbrenner were any more hands-on, he’d be charged with harassment.

A quarter-century of Steinbrenner gives you cause to celebrate, if you’re a headline writer for New York tabloids, or reason to cringe, if you’re a manager in pinstripes. Through incredible highs and pitiful lows, Steinbrenner can be accused of being anything but boring. No sports owner, before or since, has caused a stir quite like the Boss. Like the city he works in, sometimes you love him, sometimes you hate him.

If the bottom line means everything, then Steinbrenner gets a pass. He took a decaying franchise and made it a winner on the field and in the ledger. He parlayed a $10 million investment into the most valuable sports franchise on the planet. Even at a rather high human toll, that sounds like success.

“If the purpose is to win, I’ll stand on my record,” Steinbrenner says. “Over the last 25 years, we’ve won more games than any team in baseball. I think a lot of things should’ve been done differently, and I suppose I would do them differently if I had to do over. But I’m human. The main drive is to win.”

His worst moment, easily, was consorting with and paying Spira $40,000 to deliver the dirt on Winfield. That was classic Steinbrenner, doing whatever he could to win, no matter how insensitive and cold-hearted.

“My darkest hour,” he says.

Mostly, whenever Steinbrenner laid out the cash, he received a huge return. No owner attacked the origin of free agency so viciously, and few spent more wisely. Steinbrenner never was tight with money. Signing Reggie Jackson and Catfish Hunter rate as two of Steinbrenner’s finest moves. Goose Gossage was another.

Then the managers came and went. Bob Lemon, gone after 14 games in his second stint as manager in 1982. Bucky Dent, finished after 49 games in 1990. The cruelest cut of all: Yogi Berra, 16 games into the season in 1985. Berra still won’t step foot inside Yankee Stadium as long as Steinbrenner’s around, and good for Yogi. As for Martin, he was an excellent choice the first time, a bad one the next four times.

“I had a fondness for Billy,” Steinbrenner says.

The lean years of the ‘80s brought out the worst in Steinbrenner, who sent managers and prospects packing. For 18 years between world championships, there was Don Mattingly and little else, and then Steinbrenner made a decision that, at the time, was enormously unpopular.

As soon as Steinbrenner hired Joe Torre, everyone put the new manager on the clock. Almost everyone. Steinbrenner, of all people, had patience for Torre.

“One of the best relationships I’ve had,” Steinbrenner says. “The media was against it. He never won anywhere, they said. But he was a New Yorker, and he’s mentally tough.”

Steinbrenner has had only two managers since Oct. 29, 1991. Six years and one change is a lifetime for him. But don’t think Steinbrenner has mellowed. That would be a mistake. And don’t buy the notion Steinbrenner is wearing fewer hats in the organization. In a move that was bizarre even for him, Steinbrenner supervised the Yankee parking lot last fall.

Then last week, Bob Watson finally grew weary of Steinbrenner’s meddling and quit, forcing the Boss to hire his 16th general manager, Brian Cashman.

“(Watson) knew what he was getting into when he took the job,” says Steinbrenner, who still refuses to credit Watson for the ’96 World Series championship. “I’m me. I can’t help that.”

Twenty-five years? In sifting through the rubble, maybe George Steinbrenner hasn’t been all that bad.

But then, I’ve never had to work for him.