Farewell to the Boss

Sad news about the passing of Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, who was a polarizing force for much of his tenure at the helm of what is arguably the most storied franchise in the history of sports. There will always be some lingering controversy around how he conducted himself, with the getting-banned-from-baseball-for-hiring-Howard Spira-to-extort-Dave Winfield mess, the seemingly sociopathical behavior when it came to employees and such, but for Yankee fans, it’s impossible to overstate his role and passion in pursuing greatness (albeit misguided at times), no matter what the cost.

I remember as a six-year old walking into the kitchen and my parents telling me that that the Yankees had lost the World Series to the Dodgers the night before. I started to cry inconsolably, and to this day, it’s always puzzled me why I cared so much. I liked baseball as a young child and I remember being a big fan of Graig Nettles, but it’s not as if I watched a single World Series game that year or snuck a radio under my pillow to listen to the games. I just felt bad that “my team” lost, and had to watch in anger as Steve Yeager and a couple of his Dodgers teammates lip-synched “We Are the Champions” on the next episode of “Solid Gold”. That pissed me off, and I obviously remember that vividly. I also recall that time as being introduced to the concept of “fandom” – caring so much about something that, in reality, impacted your life so little. While I lamented the Yankees loss, fandom was great.

What I didn’t realize at the time was just how long it would take for the Yankees to get back to prominence. I suffered through the Butch Wynegar, Steve Kemp and Omar Moreno years, lived through Ed Whitson’s meltdown and got to see Don Mattingly come oh so close with good teams that could never get over the hump. And many of us fans hated him, and fairly held him responsible for pushing some awful trades (Jay Buhner for Ken Phelps? Doug Drabek for Rick Rhoden?) In 1996, the next era of Yankee greatness began, and on the whole, it’s been great to be a Yankees fan since. Much of this success is attributable to both his willingness to spend large amounts of money on the team, but surround himself and delegate responsibility to people who are capable – an attribute which he no-so-coincidentally mastered in the late 90’s.

A final note of appreciation is for his ability to laugh at himself, which doesn’t seem at all compatible with his alleged megalomaniac tendencies. I’ll never forget Steinbrenner hosting (and willingly presenting himself as foil at) Saturday Night Live. He lampooned his quick-hook in terms of firing people, wore fake breast implants and even lampooned the fact that he was being lampooned, interrupting a skit with tyrants Ghengis Khan and Idi Amin asking Lorne Michaels if this whole SNL episode “was just a set up to make fun of him.” Lorne Michaels’ response: “Why would we do that George? We’re all Yankee fans.”

You’ll be missed, George. Here’s to winning that 28th World Championship for you.