Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
February 14, 2008
The Steinbrenner Legacy

River Ave. Blues looks at changing fan feelings toward George Steinbrenner:

When I, on Monday, wrote about George's buying the Yankees, I got the sense that the older Yankee fans have long passed judgment on George. He was a two-faced liar who would backstab fellow front office employees and his dugout and on-field personnel. He would do whatever it took to win and eventually wound up in trouble with the baseball law. In fact, I was at the game on July 30, 1990 when George was suspended, and the Yankee fans sitting around me applauded.

But a funny thing happened on the way to 2008. New Yorkers started adopting King George's maniacally bent on winning, and the Yankees on the field became victorious once more. Following Steinbrenner's reinstatement in 1993, the Yankees entered a period of prosperity largely unmatched in franchise history. They've finished first or second every season since 1993 and have won four World Series titles and six AL championships since then.

In the eyes of the public, George became a hero.

I was a Yankees fan growing up, but had no problem transitioning to a baseball fan because of how poorly Steinbrenner ran the team during the 1980s. It should be noted that the two championship eras under were due to team building while he was suspended. By the time he came back from the second suspension, I believe he mellowed a bit. He was still driving the team to win, but was a bit more willing to listen to his baseball people.


Posted by David Pinto at 07:23 PM | Owners | TrackBack (0)
Comments

I'm old enough to remember CBS owning the team prior to George's reign. The Scooter would be on the radio imploring fans to come out so 1 million attendance could be hit. The 1st thing he did was buy Catfish and it was obvious things had changed, in a big way. He added Reggie and Goose putting the team over the top. The 80's were ugly but never boring.There is a tendency to adopt the Seinfeld caricuture as reality but there was some method to the media enhanced madness.

Posted by: Mark at February 15, 2008 08:13 AM

Respectfully disagree, his was a fantasy league approach. If the man was not suspended in the Spira/Winfield fiasco the 90's team would not have been allowed to come together. Half of the Bernie, Jeter, Pettite, Posada nucleus would have been dealt at a minimum. His approach worked in the 70's, then baseball adjustment to his open wallet. Since that period his value added was 100% entertainment.

Posted by: abe at February 15, 2008 11:00 AM

The longest Yankee drought of our lifetimes occurred under Steinbrenner (1981-1995). It was a worse drought than under CBS, where the only bad years really were 1966 - 1969.

With their payroll, every year the Yankess don't win the World Series is a year they underachieved. Never has so much money been spent so unwisely.

Posted by: captcrisis at February 15, 2008 07:21 PM
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