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George Steinbrenner, owner of New York Yankees, has died in Tampa at age of 80 after heart attack
By Bill Madden / DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER
George Steinbrenner, a towering and intimidating figure who dominated the New York sports scene for 35 years, winning 11 American League pennants and seven world championships as owner of the Yankees, in and around two suspensions from baseball and multiple feuds and firings, died Tuesday morning in Tampa after suffering a massive heart attack. He was 80.
"The Boss" - as he was so aptly named by Daily News columnist Mike Lupica, his longtime antagonist - died at around 6:30 a.m. He had been suffering from failing health, the result of a series of strokes, for the past few years.
His family released a statement Tuesday morning. "It is with profound sadness that the family of George M. Steinbrenner III announces his passing," the statement said. "He was an incredible and charitable man. First and foremost he was devoted to his entire family - his beloved wife, Joan; his sisters, Susan Norpell and Judy Kamm, his children, Hank, Jennifer, Jessica and Hal; and all his grandchildren. He was a visionary and a giant in the world of sports. He took a great but struggling franchise and turned it into a champion again."
In Steinbrenner's blustering and bombastic reign as the longest-termed owner in their history, the Yankees recovered from the rubble of their darkest era under CBS' ownership (1964-72) to win world championships in 1977 and 1978, only to fall and then rise again with another dynastic string of four championships under manager Joe Torre from 1996-2000 and then winning a seventh world championship for him under Joe Girardi this past season.
At the same time, the franchise that Steinbrenner and a group of 15 limited partners purchased on Jan. 3, 1973, for $8.8 million from CBS (or $4.4 million less than the network had paid for it), skyrocketed in value to over a billion dollars, according to analysts, after Steinbrenner brokered unprecedented worldwide marketing deals for the Yankees and formed his own cable television network (YES) to broadcast the team's games. Steinbrenner's personal initial investment in the team was $168,000.
"George was a giant of the game, and his devotion to baseball was surpassed only by his devotion to his family and his beloved New York Yankees," said Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig. "He was and always will be as much of a New York Yankee as Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford and all of the other Yankee legends."
As news of Steinbrenner's death spread Tuesday morning, words of praise and admiration poured in from across the sports world and beyond.
"He was truly the most influential and innovative owner in all of sports," said former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. "He made the Yankees a source of great pride in being a New Yorker. George Steinbrenner's Yankees represent the will to overcome all odds, which is precisely the will New Yorkers display when meeting every challenge they face."
Until his mostly glorious sunset years, during which his management team of chief adviser Gene Michael, GM Brian Cashman and Torre remained intact and the team payroll escalated to the $200 million plateau, Steinbrenner's operation of the Yankees was one of constant upheaval, turmoil and instability. This was no better evidenced than by his hiring and firing of 12 managers (including Billy Martin five times) between Ralph Houk (whom he inherited in 1973) and Torre. And prior to Cashman's ascension at age 30 to the Yankee GM role in 1998, no less than 14 people (including Michael twice) held that position before ultimately finding the working conditions intolerable and, in many cases, hazardous to their health.
Hard as he was on his managers and general managers, Steinbrenner feuded with his players as well, the most notable being Dave Winfield, whom he signed to a 10-year, $23 million free-agent contract in 1980, then a record. The ink was barely dry on the deal when Steinbrenner discovered his lawyers had neglected to inform him of cost-of-living clauses in it that greatly enhanced its value. This, in turn, led to a bitter feud between Steinbrenner and his new superstar left fielder that culminated with the Yankee owner's second suspension from baseball, July 30, 1990, after it was revealed he'd paid $40,000 to a self-described gambler, Howie Spira, to provide dirt to him on Winfield.
Through the years, Steinbrenner had acrimonious fallings out with many of his star players such as Reggie Jackson, Lou Piniella, Goose Gossage, Graig Nettles and Sparky Lyle, only to later patch things up and welcome them back into the Yankee fold. With Yankee icon Yogi Berra, however, the feud was a lasting one. Berra, who Steinbrenner fired as manager just 16 games into the 1985 season, vowed never to return to Yankee Stadium "as long as [Steinbrenner's] there," and was estranged from the organization until January 1999, when a peace pact was finally brokered between the two, with Steinbrenner issuing a public apology to him.
"He was a very generous, caring, passionate man," Berra said Tuesday. "George and I had our differences, but who didn't? We became great friends over the last decade and I will miss him very much."
When Steinbrenner wasn't publicly sparring with his own Yankee underlings, he was seemingly in constant war with commissioners, league presidents, umpires and other team owners and officials. From 1983 until 1995, it was calculated that he'd accrued $645,000 in fines stemming from those feuds. In 1983 alone, Steinbrenner was levied fines totaling $305,000 for various offenses against baseball mankind, as well as being suspended for a week by American League president Lee MacPhail for making derogatory remarks about umpires Darryl Cousins and John Shulock.
If nothing else, Steinbrenner's public jabs at his many targets of derision and contempt were colorful. He once called White Sox owners Jerry Reinsdorf and Eddie Einhorn "those two pumpkins" and "the Katzenjammer twins" (for which he was fined $5,000). Responding to a 1981 off-the-cuff remark by Mets GM Frank Cashen about Yankee Stadium being "Fort Apache," Steinbrenner referred to him as "that pus-sy face little man" - a term he used a variation of some 25 years later when he called his Japanese pitching prodigy Hideki Irabu "a fat pus-sy toad." And during the height of the Yankee-Red Sox hostilities in 2003, he referred to Boston CEO Larry Lucchino as a "chameleon" after Lucchino labeled the Yankees "the evil empire."
The low point of the Steinbrenner-created turmoil in 1983 came when The Boss was fined $250,000 by baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn for his actions and statements surrounding the infamous "Pine Tar Game" in which MacPhail overturned an umpires' ruling disallowing a game-winning home run by the Kansas City Royals' George Brett because of excessive pine tar on his bat. MacPhail ordered the game to be picked up from the point of Brett's home run when the Royals returned to New York 3½ weeks later.
In the meantime, Steinbrenner, with notorious rogue attorney Roy Cohn as his point man, filed lawsuits against baseball in the courts of Manhattan and the Bronx in an attempt to prevent the game from being restarted. The final straw for Kuhn was when Steinbrenner, in an obvious attempt to incite the New York fans against the AL president, suggested publicly that "MacPhail ought to go house-hunting in Kansas City."
It was Kuhn who handed down Steinbrenner's first suspension, barely 23 months after he'd purchased controlling interest in the Yankees. Having pled guilty to one count of conspiracy for making illegal contributions to Richard Nixon's 1972 presidential campaign, Steinbrenner was suspended in November 1974 for two years by Kuhn for actions detrimental to baseball. The suspension was lifted by Kuhn after 15 months for "good behavior" but by then Steinbrenner had already been working undercover to buy and build the Yankees into a superpower again.
In December 1974, Oakland A's ace right-hander Catfish Hunter was declared a free agent by baseball arbitrator Peter Seitz on the grounds that his contract had been breached. A wild bidding war ensued, and on New Year's Eve, the Yankees announced they had signed Hunter to what was later revealed to be a five-year, $3.35 million deal.
Although Steinbrenner was on suspension at the time of the Hunter signing, there was no question he had engineered it, and from there the Yankees became the biggest players in the advent of free agency. Hunter was the cornerstone to their renaissance, followed by the high-profile signings of Jackson and pitcher Don Gullett in 1976 and the fearsome closer, Gossage, in 1977. More than any other owner at the time, Steinbrenner understood how, through free agency, a team could go from the bottom to the top in a hurry, and he, of course, had the resources to do it.
But after the back-to-back world championships in 1977 and 1978 and winning 103 games in 1980 (after which he still fired manager Dick Howser because the Yankees got swept in the ALCS by the Royals), Steinbrenner began to get carried away with signing free agents, to the detriment of the Yankee farm system. For all his free agent successes of the '70s, there were just as many expensive flops in the '80s - singles-hitting outfielder Davey Collins (three years, $2.4 million), pitchers Ed Whitson (five years, $4.5 million), Pascual Perez (three years, $5.1 million), outfielder Steve Kemp (five years, $4.5 million), reliever Rawley Eastwick, (five years, $1.1 million), all of which were considered at the time to be market-busting deals.
Steinbrenner's nadir as a meddling, destructive owner came in the 1981 World Series, when he ordered the benching of Jackson and got involved in a fistfight on the elevator of the hotel in Los Angeles where the Yankees were staying. He claimed at the time he was defending the honor of his players against two unidentified ruffians who had been making taunting remarks about the Yankees. The two never materialized and after the Yankees lost the Series in six games to the Dodgers, Steinbrenner ordered his public relations director, Irv Kaze, to read a public apology to the Yankee Stadium fans, further infuriating his players.
As a result of Steinbrenner's failed excesses, the Yankees, beginning in 1982, endured the longest pennant draught (15 years) in their history, and as their decline deepened, even their money couldn't lure the better free agents to New York. It was not until Steinbrenner was serving his second suspension, this one levied by commissioner Fay Vincent, that the Yankees, under Michael's stewardship, began planting the seeds to a new era of prosperity and refreshing stability.
A primary factor in the '90s Yankee renaissance was the farm system, which for years Steinbrenner had ravaged with impulsive "win now" deals in which he sacrificed top prospects like outfielders Jay Buhner and Willie McGee and first baseman Fred McGriff. With Steinbrenner again on suspension, the farm system was allowed to flourish, and homegrown talents Bernie Williams, Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera - any and all of whom would have likely been traded under Steinbrenner's operating policy of the '80s - instead made it to the Bronx to form the nucleus of the Torre-managed championship seasons.
The October 1995 hiring of Torre - whose managerial term far exceeded any of Steinbrenner's previous 13 pilots - was the end result of another tempest. After leading the Yankees to the playoffs for the first time since 1981, Buck Showalter balked at the two-year, $1,050,000 contract extension offered him, prompting Steinbrenner to take the offer off the table and sever ties with him. Steinbrenner then issued a statement in which he wished "nothing but the best for Buck and his little family."
But, as with Howser (whom he called from a roadside pay phone in Tampa, to say he'd reconsidered his decision to fire him), Steinbrenner had second thoughts about letting Showalter go and actually drove to his home in Pensacola, Fla., a few days later, asking him to come back. Like Howser in 1980, however, Showalter said "no thanks," pointing out that Steinbrenner, on the advice of Michael, had already hired the Brooklyn-born Torre as his new manager.
Although they had their inevitable clashes, Steinbrenner admitted that he never had a better relationship with a manager than he had with Torre, although that, too, ended badly when Torre turned down an incentive-laden contract after another quick playoff exit in 2007. It was at that fateful meeting in Tampa that Torre looked Steinbrenner in the eye and called the offer "insulting." In turning down the offer, Torre told Steinbrenner that The Boss would never have become a billionaire without Torre and his winning teams. Torre was replaced by Girardi, his former catcher, and went on to manage the Los Angeles Dodgers.
"I will always remember George Steinbrenner as a passionate man, a tough boss, a true visionary, a great humanitarian and a dear friend," Torre said Tuesday. "I will be forever grateful that he trusted me with his Yankees for 12 years. My heart goes out to his entire family. He will be deeply missed in New York, Tampa and throughout the world of baseball. It's only fitting that he went out as a world champ."
Born July 4, 1930, in Cleveland, Steinbrenner spoke often about his demanding father, Henry, as having been the most influential person in his life. Henry Steinbrenner had graduated from MIT, where he was an NCAA hurdles champion. Young George tried to emulate his father (whose dictum was "Always work harder than anybody else") but, by his own admission, he was never able to please the old man.
After attending Culver Military Academy in Indiana, Steinbrenner didn't have the grades to follow his father to MIT. But he did get admitted to Williams College, where he, too, excelled in running the hurdles. It was at Williams where Steinbrenner developed a passion for the classics, as well as Gen. George Patton. Throughout his years running the Yankees, he would readily recite his favorite quotes of various philosophers, poets and military leaders, many of which are also inscribed on the clubhouse walls of both Yankee Stadium and the team's spring training complex in Tampa.
Upon graduation from Williams, Steinbrenner went into the military service for three years and, at Lockbourne Air Force base near Columbus, Ohio, set up a coffee cart franchise that served 16,000 soldiers and office workers. After his discharge, he stayed in Columbus to coach football and basketball at St. Thomas Aquinas High School. It was also there that he met a local student at Ohio State, Joan Zieg, whom he married.
In 1955, Steinbrenner was hired as an assistant football coach at Northwestern under Lou Saban, who remained a lifelong friend and even served a brief term as Yankee president. In 1956 and 1957, he served as Jack Mollenkopf's backfield coach at Purdue. Then, in 1957 he elected to enter his father's shipbuilding business, Kinsman Transit, which had been a fixture on the Great Lakes since 1882.
By this time, the elder Steinbrenner had grown weary of trying to compete against the larger shipbuilding corporations, which was fine with his hard-driving son, who relished the challenge of butting heads with big business. Steinbrenner later became part of a group that purchased American Shipbuilding Co., and by 1972 the company's gross sales were more than $100 million annually.
In the early 1980s, however, the government had eliminated shipbuilding subsidies and American Ship began a long decline - ironically paralleling that of Steinbrenner's Yankees. In 1983, Steinbrenner shuttered the company's Lorain, Ohio, offices and moved all his operations to Tampa. Mounting losses, however, prompted the company to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1993.
Throughout his tenure of running the shipbuilding business, Steinbrenner maintained a connection to his real passion, sports. In the '50s, he owned the Cleveland Pipers of the ill-fated American Basketball League, and he was a longtime member of the U.S. Olympic Committee. After moving to Tampa, Steinbrenner became actively involved in horse racing. He briefly owned Tampa Bay Downs and bred horses on his farm in Ocala, Fla. He was also presented with the prestigious Gold Medal award from the National (college) Football Foundation in 2002.
But his sports legacy, of course, is the Yankees. "I've just bought the Mona Lisa of sports teams," he said upon closing the deal with CBS for the team in 1973 - to which his father said to him: "You finally did something right."
But of all the quotes uttered by and about him, the one that probably best summed up the essence of Steinbrenner was that of John McMullen, one of his early limited partners with the Yankees. When asked why he was selling his share of the Yankees, McMullen replied: "Because I came to realize that there is nothing quite so limited in life than being a limited partner of George Steinbrenner."
Beside his wife, Joan, Steinbrenner is survived by two sons, Harold and Hank, and two daughters, Jennifer and Jessica, all of whom reside in Tampa.
Funeral arrangements will be private. There will be an additional public service with details to be announced.
Source:www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/yankees/george-steinbrenner-owner-new-york-yankees-died-tampa-age-80-heart-attack-article-1.464158
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