I'll leave the post open for comments. Please feel free to share your thoughts on The Boss. I'll go first and say that as a Yankee fan, I loved him. No owner cared more about winning and was willing to put all of his money behind it. The Big Stein could have pocketed so much of the money but he chose to reinvest more of it on the team than any owner in the history of sports. He put winners on the field and for that I am extremely grateful. Without him, the Yankees would also probably never have gotten a new ballpark.
Share your feelings below on the man who hopefully will be Cooperstown bound at some point.
Update 2:45 PM: I figured I'd update this post with thoughts by writers and other people as well:
- Sports Illustrated with some great rare photos (not including The Boss and Rodney Dangerfield after a Yankees' World Series win and The Big Stein playing basketball)
- Paul O'Neill with his thoughts on The Boss, Bud Selig does the same, and Michael Bloomberg with his
- The New York Times George Vescey on hugging George Steinbrenner
- ESPN's Buster Olney on The Boss' drive to win
- Fang's Bites with video of Steinbrenner's commercials and appearances
- HitFix's Alan Sepinwall on George's TV legacy. PopEater has a pop culture tribute as does Deadspin
- Dan Graziano for NJ.com with his goodbye, Baseball Musings' David Pinto does the same and HardballTalk's Craig Calcaterra with his
- FOX Sports' Ken Rosenthal says that their won't be another owner like him
- ESPN New York's Wallace Matthews on the game's biggest star and Big League Stew's 'Duk has the same thoughts
- HardballTalk's Craig Calcaterra with some quotes from Big Stein and The Boston Globe's Peter Abraham with a timeline of the legacy
- ESPN's William Nack on The Boss' wild ride and Baseball-Reference's Steve Lombardi on the Yankees' seasons under Steinbrenner
- The New York Times heads to its archives to pull out a few Steinbrenner gems
- The New York Times' Bats Blog, David Brown of Big League Stew, with various reactions
Posts
Dave Winfeild is on ESPN saying nice things about The Boss. If Winfield can say nice things about Steinbrenner after what happened he must have been a good man
ReplyDeleteIts crazy if you look on facebook at the amount of status updates about The Boss. An old friend from high school had the best one. Paraphrasing what she said, The Yankees lost their voice (Sheppard) and their soul (Steinbrener). Who is next?
ReplyDeleteCleveland lost two of its native sons in less than a week - LeBron James and George Steinbrenner. The great irony - had George Steinbrenner owned the Cavaliers, LeBron James would probably already be a 3 time champion and be a Cavalier for life.
ReplyDeleteNot sure I agree with your assumption about LeBron James' championships. I'm sure Dan Gilbert spent all he could spend in the cap to win.
ReplyDeleteWith Harvey Pikar going this week, Cleveland had three big "losses" (bad things come in 3s)
Also, from Bloomberg: @NYCMayorsOffice: We’re lowering the flags in City Hall Plaza in honor of George Steinbrenner - a man who raised 7 championship flags at Yankee Stadium
Trying to sort through all of the memories and stories (both good and bad), although as of right now, two in particular stick out...
ReplyDelete1)On the day of Thurman Munson's funeral, Steinbrenner flew the whole team out to Canton for the funeral with a game still scheduled to be played in New York that night. The league advised him that if they weren't back in time they would have to forfeit the game. Steinbrenner basically said too bad, if we have to forfeit, we'll forfeit.
2)In 1998, after a beam fell through the second deck of Yankee Stadium, in the first game back at the Stadium, Steinbrenner sat in what would have been the fateful seat and watched the game from that seat. The Yanks won of course!
Of course, I happen to have one personal memory that doesn't shine as good a light on him. Back in 1998, my father won an auction item which among other things was supposed to include dinner for four with Steinbrenner at the stadium and the opportunity to watch the evening's game with him from his suite. Of course, when my dad goes to schedule the game, Steinbrenner claims to have no knowledge of having to have agreed to this. He puts his buddy Arthur Richman to work to remedy the situation. In place of the prearranged (and paid for agreement), we were offered dinner with Joe Pepitone (and his friend who he brought along with him to dinner) and George's field level seats right behind the mayor's seats. Seeing how we were a family of five, my dad made the deal only under the condition that we got a fifth ticket, which we did. While the evening was certainly memorable, it was certainly typical.
I just heard a good one on WFAN...Bob Sheppard went to heaven first so he could announce Steinbrenner's entrance.
Added some links with people's thoughts on Steinbrenner. Worth a read through
ReplyDeleteIt took me a while to find it, but this open letter I wrote to George Steinbrenner in February of 2004 for Brandeis' school newspaper, The Justice, looks quite comical now: http://media.www.thejusticeonline.com/media/storage/paper573/news/2004/02/24/Sports/A.ThankYou.Note.To.Yankees.Owner.George.Steinbrenner-616252.shtml
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