It’s official: Baby Hank takes over Yankees
Hal Steinbrenner has officially taken control of one of the most loved and hated franchises in all of sports: The New York Yankees. Hal will replace his papa bear, George Steinbrenner.
Whether you liked George or you hated him, The New York Post notes that he was one of a kind:
And was a hell of a thing to be George Steinbrenner, too. There were times he was a model of how not to run a sports franchise (or a 7-Eleven franchise, for that matter), and there is an army of ex-employees who’ll tell you he was a model of how not to be a boss, too. And yet, players who spent years raging at him would invariably be welcomed back as coaches and instructors after their playing days were over. There are a thousand tales of quiet kindnesses Steinbrenner administered through the years.
And perhaps the most staggering thing of all is to know that in the short course of his stewardship, public opinion about him managed to do the impossible: it did a complete 180. This was a man whose banishment from baseball in July 1990 was greeted with a standing ovation and a vulgar chant at Yankee Stadium. And yet less than a decade later, those same fans would serenade him with a chant of “Thank you, George!”
New York has long been the place where men come to find their destinies, and Steinbrenner found his here. It has long been a city that welcomes men to re-invent themselves, and Steinbrenner did that, too. We will never see another like him, and who ever would have thought, back in the day, that this would be a sad thing?
So the name of the boss, lower case, changes. Even as everyone knows that the Boss, upper case, will be forever.
Chances are if you live outside of the Bronx, you probably hate George Steinbrenner and his freewheeling approach. But you have to give the guy one thing – he went after it every year. He wanted to win and it didn’t matter how much money it took to do it. He never broke any rules (MLB should have always had a cap if they wanted to regulate the Yankees’ spending) and he always put the money he earned back into the organization. Not every owner in baseball can say that.
So again, love him or hate him – “Big Stein” is a legend.
In the end Baseball will be very kind to George Stienbrenner.
I am a Yankee Fan and I have had moments where I just shook my head at some of the moves he made from hiring to firing but at the end of the day he always gave us (fans) a change to root for a winning Team.
It was a sad to see him in Spring training and then again at the All star game….He health is bad but he still is the BOSS…
Hal is the right choice, a lot of people were freaked out by Hank but he was never going to be the one to take over. The daughters husband had a shot until he messed up…but George cut him like a dead limb.
I think we’re in good hands.
First of all I feel bad that Georgie or anyone else is in bad health. I wish the man well.
Thats a nice fluffy article but in some areas – but I will say that Georgie was not good for baseball.He was good for the yankees only. MLB should have stopped him and some others long ago with a cap and wild ass spending that just destroyed some good baseball cities. I know, I know, He didn’t break any rules. BUT he did abuse the crap out of them for his own ego.
I don’t agree that the yankees are the only team that “goes for it”. I’m sick of hearing that. The reason it looks that way to some closed minds is because the yankees inherit so much revenue being from NYC.If you really break it down and crunch the numbers many, many, teams spend more PERCENTAGE wise than the yankees. They just don’t have the income from revenue. Yankee lovers don’t see this – they don’t want too.
I respected the old yankees. But does the Steinbrenner family really know baseball ? Were they ever in “good hands” or were they just able to buy,spend,throw away,fire,hire do anything they wanted ? OH, I know – “he went for it”. Stop it. Was KC able to do that with their pultry $80 million dollar revenue or whatever it is ?
If the yankees wanted to impress the baseball world they would have been able to win Championships while spending a “reasonable” amount of money. Then we could commend the Family.Making players get haircuts didn’t make them any better. In fact you may want to let Johnny Demon grows his back. He can’t reach the infield grass.The yankees won exactly NO games because of neat haircuts.
I am not telling anyone who to like or who not too – thats up to you. But to me, there was more greed than success in the past 35 years. It was bad for baseball – just good for the yankees … MAYBE. Right now, King G says the yankees are a “SAD FAILURE”.
HAL is the answer ? I still don’t think the Steinbrenner family knows baseball. If I were a yankee fan I would want Whitey Ford or Yogi or some REAL yankee running the show.
Just my opinion, but I think the yankees have been a Dumpster Fire for the past 35 years and have been the major cause for the rediculous costs surrounding the League.
King G …… GET BETTER !