George Steinbrenner

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George Michael Steinbrenner III (July 4, 1930 – July 13, 2010) was an American businessman who was the principal owner and managing partner of the New York Yankees in Major League Baseball.

The Yankees won seven World Series titles and 11 pennants during Steinbrenner's 37-year ownership, the longest in club history.

His outspokenness and his role in driving up player salaries made him one of the sport's most controversial figures.

Steinbrenner was also involved in the Gulf Coast shipping industry in the Great Lakes and Gulf Coasts. Steinbrenner, a hands-on baseball executive, was known as "The Boss."

He had a tendency to interfere in everyday on-field decisions, as well as the recruitment and dismissal of (and in some cases re-hired) managers.

Dallas Green, the former Yankees' manager, gave him the affectionate nickname "Manager George."

On the morning of the 81st All-Star Game, he died after suffering a heart attack in his Tampa home.

Early life and education

Steinbrenner was born in Rocky River, Ohio, as the sole son of Rita (née Haley) and Henry George Steinbrenner II. His mother, an Irish immigrant, had changed his name from O'Haley to Haley. His father, who was of German descent, had been a world-class track and field hurdler at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, from which he graduated in engineering in 1927, first in his class and a respected scholar in Naval architecture. On the Great Lakes, the elder Steinbrenner became a wealthy shipping magnate who managed a freight ship hauling ore and grain. George Michael Steinbrenner II, his paternal grandfather, was named after him. Susan and Judy, Steinbrenner's younger sisters, were younger. George was held to a few hundred chickens at a young age, and he paraded hens and eggs from door to door. "I learned a lot about raising chickens," he told Sports Illustrated, "I learned a lot about business from raising chickens." "Half of my clients were afraid of me."

Steinbrenner was admitted to the Culver Military Academy in Northern Indiana in 1944, graduating in 1948. He received his B.A. In 1952, Williams College was established. George was an average student with an active extracurricular life while at Williams. He was a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. He was an outstanding hurdler on the varsity track and field team, served as the sports editor of The Williams Record, played piano, and played halfback on the football team in his senior year. After graduation, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant and was stationed at Lockbourne Air Force Base in Columbus, Ohio. After an honorable discharge in 1954, he pursued post-graduate study at The Ohio State University (1954-55), earning his master's degree in physical education.

Elizabeth Joan (pronounced Jo-Ann) Zieg) Zieg, Bob's husband-to-be, married her in Columbus on May 12, 1956. Hank and Hal's sons, as well as two grandchildren, Jessica Steinbrenner and Jennifer Steinbrenner-Swindal, were among the couple's two children. Numerous grandchildren have also been born in the Steinbrenners. All four four of the Steinbrenners' children were eventually divorced, some times repeatedly, resulting in several former-in-laws being stripped from the Yankees' administration.

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Pre-Yankees career

He served as a graduate assistant to Buckeye football coach Woody Hayes while attending Ohio State. The Buckeyes were undefeated national champions this year and also won the Rose Bowl. Steinbrenner served as an assistant football coach at Northwestern University in 1955 and later at Purdue University from 1956 to 1957.

In 1957, Steinbrenner joined Kinsman Marine Transit Company, the Great Lakes shipping company that Henry's great-grandfather Henry had purchased in 1901 from The Minch Transit Company, which was owned by a family friend and renamed. Steinbrenner worked hard to resurrect the company, which was already struggling as a result of difficult market conditions. Kinsman emphasized grain shipments over ore a few years ago, with the support of a New York bank, a few years later, the company was purchased from his family. He later joined the American Shipbuilding Company as a director and chief executive officer, and in 1967, he became the company's chairman and chief executive officer. The company's gross revenues were more than $100 million per year by 1972.

Steinbrenner's Cleveland Pipers of the National Industrial Basketball League first joined the sports franchise market for the first time in 1960, against his father's wishes. Steinbrenner had recruited John McClendon, the first African American coach in professional basketball, who persuaded Jerry Lucas to join his team rather than the rival National Basketball Association. In 1961, the Pipers joined the Harlem Globetrotters, who founded the new ABL; Abe Saperstein, the Harlem Globetrotters, conceived the new circuit. McClendon resigned in protest halfway through the season, and the league and its affiliates suffered with financial difficulties, and McClendon resigned in protest halfway through the season. However, the Pipers had already won the first half of a split season. Bill Sharman, a former Boston Celtics player, and the Pipers captured the ABL championship in 1961–62. The ABL debuted in December 1962, only months into its second season. Steinbrenner and his partners lost a lot of money on the venture, but Steinbrenner paid off all of his creditors and partners over the next several years.

Steinbrenner's attention was directed to the stage, despite his burgeoning sports ambitions. His Broadway debut, The Ninety Day Mistress, began in 1967, in which he worked with another rookie producer, James M. Nederlander. Although Nederlander threw himself into his family's business full time, Steinbrenner invested in a mere half-dozen shows, including the 1974 Tony Award winner for Best Musical, Seesaw, and the 1988 Peter Allen flop, Legs Diamond.

New York Yankees career

During their time under CBS ownership, the Yankees had been losing, especially during the team's 1965 season. William S. Paley, the late chairman of CBS, told team president E. Michael Burke that the newspaper company intended to sell the team in 1972. Paley, as Burke later told writer Roger Kahn, offered to sell the franchise to Burke if he could find financial assistance. Steinbrenner, who had failed to purchase the Cleveland Indians from Vernon Stouffer one year earlier and who had been involved in Buffalo's unsuccessful 1969 Major League baseball expansion bid, was brought together with Burke by veteran baseball executive Gabe Paul.

Steinbrenner and his minority partner Burke led a group of investors that included Nederlander, Lester Crown, John DeLorean, Nelson Bunker Hunt, and Marvin L. Warner, who purchased the Yankees from CBS on January 3, 1973. The selling price was estimated to be $10 million for years. Steinbrenner later revealed that the agreement contained two parking garages that CBS had leased from the city, and CBS bought back the garages shortly after the deal was concluded for $1.2 million. The Yankees' net cost to the organization was therefore $8.8 million.

Burke would continue to coach the team as team president, according to the company's plan. Burke became outraged when he learned that Paul had been hired as a senior Yankee executive, reducing his authority, and leaving the team presidency in April 1973. (Burke was a minority owner of the club for the next decade, but as fellow minority owner John McMullen said, "There is nothing in life quite so limited as being a restricted partner of George Steinbrenner." On April 19, Paul was officially named president of the club. It would be the first of many high-profile departures for workers who took the route of "The Boss" in the first place. Two more notable names departed at the end of the 1973 season: manager Ralph Houk, who resigned and took a similar role with the Detroit Tigers; and general manager Lee MacPhail, who became president of the American League, were both resigned and assumed the same role.

When Steinbrenner and Paul fought to recruit former Oakland Athletics boss Dick Williams, who had resigned immediately after winning the team's second straight World Series title, the 1973 off-season would be tense. However, because Williams was still under contract to Oakland, the Yankees were unlikely to hire him. Bill Virdon, the former Pittsburgh Pirates manager, was hired by the Yankees to lead the team on the first anniversary of the team's ownership change.

Steinbrenner's rapid turnover of management employees became a hit among management employees. Billy Martin alone was fired 20 times during his first 23 seasons; rehired five times. He underwent 13 publicity directors in his first 26 years with the club. "It's the first time George fires you, it's really sad," said Harvey Greene of the Yankees. "It's like, Great!" says the three or four times after that." The rest of the day is off.' Over the course of 30 years, he has employed 11 general managers. He was also known for pursuing high-priced free agents and then feuding with them. Billy Martin wrote about Steinbrenner and his $3 million outfielder Reggie Jackson in July 1978. "The two were meant for each other." One's a born lieteller, and the other is guilty. Martin's first departure resulted in his resignation, though technically he resigned (tearfully), before Yankees President Al Rosen could fire him with Steinbrenner's dictum.

Steinbrenner provided a vivid backdrop to the Yankees' loss of the series during the 1981 World Series. Steinbrenner called a press conference in his hotel room after losing to two Dodgers supporters in the hotel elevator in Los Angeles, demonstrating his left hand in a cast and several other ailments that he claimed he suffered in a game three. Nobody came forward about the fight, leading to the suspicion that he had fabricated up the story of the battle to light a fire under the Yankees. After the series, he released a public apology to the City of New York for his team's success, while still reminding the fans that the team's efforts to rebuild the squad for 1982 will begin right away. As most people felt losing in the World Series was not something requiring an apology, players and journalists alike condemned him for doing so.

All players, coaches, and male executives were forbidden to have any facial hair other than mustaches (except for religious reasons), and scalp hair could not be grown below the collar. (Long sideburns and "mutton chops" were not specifically banned from eating.) Some unusual and amusing incidents were triggered by the policy.

During the 1973 home opener against the Cleveland Indians, while the Yankees, caps removed, were attracted to National Anthem Steinbrenner, who was in the owner's box next to the New York dugout, where several players' hair was too long for his measurements. As he didn't know the players' names, he wrote down the uniform numbers of the criminals (Thurman Munson, Bobby Murcer, and sparky Lyle) and Houk were given the list, as well as the request that their hair be cut immediately. The order was reluctantly delivered to the players.

Goose Gossage was ordered to remove a beard he was growing in 1983, at Steinbrenner's behest. Gossage responded by shaving away the beard but leaving a long, swollen mustache running down the upper lip to the jaw line, a look that Gossage still wears to this day.

In 1991, the most notorious case involving facial hair occurred. Despite Steinbrenner's suspension, the Yankees' Don Mattingly, who was then sporting a mullet-like hairstyle, was granted a haircut. When Mattingly refused, he was suspended. This culminated in a media blitz with journalists and talk radio consistently mocking the team. With Rizzuto playing the role of a barber sent to enforce the law, the WPIX broadcasting crews of Phil Rizzuto, Bobby Murcer, and Tom Seaver mocked the policy on a pregame show. Mattingly will be restored someday. Mattingly appeared in The Simpsons episode "Homer at the Bat" earlier this year, despite shaving the area of his head above where the sideburns grow. When Mattingly grew a goatee, he fell foul of the policy in 1995.

Johnny Damon, the Boston Red Sox center fielder who was known for his "Jesus-like" beard and shoulder-length hair during his time with the Red Sox, said about the policy in 2005: "I have a scheme and I'm sticking to it." We're going to go out there and win, and we're going to try and bring another championship to them." "He seems like a Yankee, he sounds like a Yankee, and he is a Yankee," Steinbrenner later said. Damon said he was already planning on shaving his hair after the 2005 season.

Steinbrenner's connection to Richard Nixon was "convicted" in Billy Martin's classic 1978 "liar and guilty" statement; in 1974, Steinbrenner pled guilty to making unlawful contributions to Nixon's re-election bid, as well as a criminal charge of obstruction of justice. Faced with a cost overrun issue with the US Commerce Department, Steinbrenner gave six of his American Shipbuilding employees "extraordinary compensation" of $25,000 and asked them to then turn around and privately donate the funds to Nixon's Committee for the Re-Election of the President.

Steinbrenner had expected to contest the charges in court in the first week after Nixon resigned in August 1974, two weeks after Nixon resigned, Steinbrenner pled guilty to two charges in the lawsuit. He was personally fined $15,000, while his company American Shipbuilding was assessed an additional $20,000. Bowie Kuhn, the commissioner of MLB, suspended him for two years but later extended it to fifteen months. Ronald Reagan pardoned Steinbrenner in January 1989, one of his last acts in office.

Steinbrenner made news by securing Dave Winfield to a 10-year, $23 million deal, making him the highest-paid player in the game. Steinbrenner mocked Winfield's poor results in a pivotal September series against the Toronto Blue Jays.

Following the 1981 World Series, this critique became somewhat of an anachronism, as many believed Steinbrenner made the remark following the 1981 World Series. Ken Griffey Jr. later listed the Yankees as a unit for which he would never play.

Steinbrenner was barred from day-to-day operation (but not ownership) of the Yankees by MLB Commissioner Fay Vincent for charging Howard Spira $40,000 to dig up "dirt" on Winfield on July 30, 1990. Winfield was sued by the Yankees for failing to pledge $300,000 to his foundation, which was a legally bound stipulation in his deal. Vincent suggested a two-year suspension, but Steinbrenner wanted to have it worded as a "agreement" rather than a suspension in order to protect his name with the US Olympic Committee (he also cited a desire to see his son's take over). Robert Nederlander, one of Steinbrenner's theatre partners and a limited partner in the Yankees company, joined him as the managing general partner after lengthy discussions with Vincent's office. After Nederlander resigned in 1992, Joe Molloy, George's son-in-law, took over. Steinbrenner's parents, such as Jerry Reinsdorf, had him convince that he made a terrible mistake two years ago. Vincent allowed him to be released on the condition that he settles any lawsuits he had against Vincent.

Winfield cited the Steinbrenner animosity as a factor in his decision to join the San Diego Padres rather than the Yankees, which earned him national recognition.

Steinbrenner was reinstated in 1993. Unlike previous years, he was much less likely to interfere in the Yankees' baseball operations. Gene Michael and other executives handled day-to-day baseball affairs, allowing promising farm-system players such as Bernie Williams to develop rather than simply trading them for established players. Steinbrenner's having "got religion" (in the words of New York Daily News reporter Bill Madden) was paid off. The 1993 Yankees were in the American League East race with the eventual champion Toronto Blue Jays until September, after fighting only for a few years ago.

When a players' strike knocked out the remainder of the season, the 1994 Yankees were the American League East champions. In the same way, a players' strike had aided in the 1981 playoff effort.

For the first time since 1981, the team returned to the playoffs, and in 1996, they defeated the Atlanta Braves in six games to win the World Series for the first time since 1991. They went on to win in 1998, 1999, and 2000, but they fell short of their fourth straight title in 2001 with a seventh-game loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks.

The Yankees also made the playoffs every season from 2007 to 2007. The Boston Red Sox won the AL pennant in 2003, but they lost the World Series to the Florida Marlins in June of that year, denying Steinbrenner, who had won the Stanley Cup in June of that year as part-owner of the New Jersey Devils, as part of two major sports leagues in the same year.

With a third-place finish in the American League East in 2008, the Yankees announced their post-season campaign. In 2009, the Yankees defeated the Philadelphia Phillies in the World Series for their 27th championship, seven of which had been won under Steinbrenner's ownership.

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Awards and honors

• Seven-time World Series champion as owner of the NY Yankees (1977, 1978, 1996, 1998–2000, 2009)
• Two-time Stanley Cup champion as owner of the NJ Devils (2000, 2003)
• Three-time Outstanding Team ESPY Award winner as owner of the Yankees (1997, 1999, 2001)
• The Flying Wedge Award
• 1992 Tampa Metro Civitan Club's Outstanding Citizen of the Year Award.
• Steinbrenner Band Hall at the University of Florida named in his honor
• George M. Steinbrenner High School in Lutz, Florida named in his honor. Steinbrenner was a generous contributor to the Tampa Bay area.
• Yankees spring training field named George M. Steinbrenner Field in March 2008 in his honor
• The entrance to the new Bryson Field at Boshamer Stadium at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill named for Steinbrenner and his family.
• A life-size bronze statue of Steinbrenner was placed in front of the stadium in January 2011.
• Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement in 1969