George Steinbrenner may have suffered a heart attack, and unsubstantiated stories are quickly filling the airwaves about what has happened to the Yankees' owner.
More news in the comments as it becomes confirmed.
UPDATE: The New York Times and ESPN are now reporting that the Steinbrenner family has confirmed the passing of Big Stein. Condolences to the Steinbrenner family and Yankee fans everywhere.
32 replies on “Report from Tampa:
Steinbrenner Cardiac Arrest?Steinbrenner Passes Away”So soon after Bob Sheppard. Rough week for the Yankees staff, and thanks for the memories.
My condolences Yankee Fans. The guy loved his team and went to the ends of the earth to please the fans.
Old Timers day next year will be the most elaborate, sentimental one in a very long time.
I’m sorry for this, YF’s. I liken it to the fact that everyone hates the winner, and GS was the consumate winner.
sorry for the double-post, but i wanted to add my comment from the other thread with a few alterations:
…sad…2 great yankees in one week…say want you want about old george, a lot of it deserved, but he was a fan’s owner…this yankee fan is grateful for his dedication to resurrecting the team from a very woeful period during the 60’s and early 70’s, and his appreciation for the important baseball history and tradition of the team and the stadium…thanks george…
Wow. A huge loss for Baseball. An actual owner who demanded that his manager and players meet the bottom line of the contracts they signed.
Condolences for the Steinbrenner family and Yankee fans out there.
I’m a Sox fan, but love him or hate him, you always knew that he wanted the Yankees to win, and that the business would follow from the wins. And if the wins weren’t there, he still knew how to keep his team first and foremost in New Yorkers’ minds. He was a great owner of a great team in a great city.
Rest in peace, George. May you rehire and re-fire Billy Martin for eternity.
Looks like the game on Friday is going to be an emotional one…jeez, first Bob and now the Boss??? I might need to bring some tissues now.
Say what you will about The Boss but I think the thing that people don’t talk about enought is his charitible work. As a Tampa resident for over 7 years, the man’s fingerprints were all over that area. Sometimes his GIGANTIC personality and some of the less graceful actions of the man overshadow the good he did aside from baseball…
As a YF though, I appreciate all he did for our team and for us. He could have been more like these other owners (Pohlad) that pocket all their profits and cry a river about what the Yankees do but Mr. Steinbrenner sank every last f-ing penny into our favorite team. He wanted to win for himself, but also for us and he did everything he could even to his own detriment sometimes.
Thanks for everything Boss. You will be missed!
I always hated Steinbrenner; I’m sure most Sox fans feel the same way. He was like the cartoon bad-guy who you love to root against, someone who helps complete the story by being the enemy. However he always did everything in his power to help his team win (something you cannot say for most owners), and was extremely passionate about the sport.
He was a legend, he was larger than life, and he will be missed.
The mourning and commemoration of his passing will go well beyond the next old-timers day. I’d be surprised if there was not a parade through Manhattan in his honor ending at the NYS in the Bronx. This has got to be one of the toughtest citites in the world in which to make yourself stand out among all the other type-A over-achievers and lay claim to helping to build the city’s image as opposed to being yet another player within it. Influential elected officials (LaGuardia, Giuliani), some celebrities (Woody Allen, Robert DeNiro) and some business leaders (Trump) can say this. Steinbrenner undoubtedly achieved that status and may stand above them all in that regard.
Beyond the unquestionable success he brought to the Yankees he influenced the game so enormously. There will be much more comprehensive and eloquently written reviews of his impact on the sport so I won’t even go threre. Really, at the end of the day, I’m where dc is…as a fan of this team, I have no doubt that we will never see an owener as dedicated to the team’s success as he was because the most anyone could ever strive for in that position would be to equal him.
I don’t mean to ignore the less-glamorous and positive elements (just ask Dave Winfield), but no fan could ever have a better owner. And he set a standard (including expectations among Yankee fans) that will be hard for any future owner to live up to.
And of course, as he would have wanted and is only appropriate, he went out with the Yankees as the reigning World Champions.
And thanks for the gracious words all you SF-regulars…
They say to speak no ill of the dead… But I’m gonna exercise a rare exception here for an unusual character.
Amid the understandable nostalgia for a bona fide legend, and the bemused reminiscences about his more benign foibles, it may largely be ignored that Steinbrenner also had a pretty seedy side to him — bad behavior which went well beyond amusing.
For example:
http://www.time.com/time/2007/presidential_pardons/7.html
“Indicted on 14 criminal counts on April 5, 1974, the owner of the New York Yankees plead guilty to obstruction of justice and conspiring to make illegal contributions to President Richard Nixon’s re-election campaign. Steinbrenner, a major Republican donor, allegedly knew the money he was donating was not going through regular election procedures.”
(GOP Saint Ronnie pardoned him.)
And:
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/74260-8-reasons-why-bud-selig-should-be-fired-today
“If you don’t remember, Steinbrenner was banned for life from Major League Baseball by then commissioner Fay Vincent for conspiring against Dave Winfield. Steinbrenner supposedly paid a known gambler and Mafia member to dig up dirt on the Hall of Famer.”
And:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,961112-2,00.html#ixzz0taLc3jYn
“New York Yankees Owner George Steinbrenner aimed RICO against investment partners whom he charged with selling him their interests in a joint venture without informing him of all necessary facts. Dubious charges of racketeering are especially common in takeover attempts.”
Then of course, on the baseball side, there are lists like these:
http://espn.go.com/page2/s/list/steinbrenner.html
Now, I don’t begrudge Yankee fans their sadness for Steinbrenner’s passing… After all, he’s been a force of nature in baseball for the entire lives of most on this site. But there is a legitimate case to be made that the guy was bad for the game. He was committed to winning, yes — but mainly in the two least creative and skillful ways imaginable, by throwing money at problems and throwing tantrums.
I readily admit that George Steinbrenner enriched the lives even of Sox fans, by providing a constant source of both amusement and amazement at his antics. He gave us a bogeyman to rail against, which probably deflected the amount of venom we aimed at individual Yankee players.
Steinbrenner’s somewhat gentler later years remind me of that great line delivered by John Huston from Chinatown:
“Course I’m respectable, Mr. Gittes: I’m old. Ugly buildings, politicians and whores all get respectable if they last long enough.”
Everyone is aware of the man’s shortcomings Hudson…I’m not sure today is the day to rehash them. In the face of the dirt you dug up to make some assinine point, did you look into his philanthropic actions as well? Or is it just about pissing on the man’s grave at this point for you?
I figured at least one SF would pull this crap.
Hudson, I am not interested in hagiographies. But this moment, the first after the man’s passing, isn’t necessarily meant for the pragmatic, realist’s timeline of Steinbrenner’s life. To reduce him to a simply beneficent character isn’t the point, nor is the idea that we need to “tell the truth” to everyone. Steinbrenner’s history is out there, and it is sure to be remembered or else we shall be reminded of it.
I find your post crass, frankly. Your specificity of negative events counters which post in the opposite here, exactly? To whom are you pointing out these events? Do you think we are all, YF and SF alike, ignorant of Steinbrenner’s famous faults?
It’ll be interesting to see if MLB, or what MLB, does tonight at the All Star Game. I wonder if They’ll ask Jeter or Pettitte to say something, or just have a MOS?
Hudson = green with envy. Oh and Hudson, you forgot the guidelines around your comments here this year: “Yankees” = “World Champion Yankees” (or “WCY” to make it easier on you)
Steinbrenner’s politics made me queasy to say the least. In related news, Mahatma Gandhi was not the greatest of husbands and the temperature is unusually hot in northern Europe this week.
I’m not delving into this one, as SF points out, his faults were massive and many, but today isn’t the day to even think of dwelling on that. Shame on you, Hudson. Even the most boastful of hatreds shouldn’t run into the the arena you stepped into, bud.
The simple fact is that Steinbrenner was fortunate to be born into enough money that he could act like a lunatic, be celebrated as a “legend,” and given multiple chances to re-start his career after mistakes that would sink an ordinary mortal. (Try firing your CEO 20 times in 23 years in any other business.)
As far as the sanctimony of not speaking ill of the deceased, unless any of you are Steinbrenner relatives (in which case I’m sorry for your loss), let’s not pretend like anyone here lost anything tangible last night. George Steinbrenner as YFs knew him was gone several years ago.
Lastly, I’ll just note that Bob Sheppard’s thread has more comments. There’s a classy Yankee institutuion, deserving of true respect and praise for a life well-lived.
P.S. I felt much the same way about Tim Russert — shame he had to go so young, but many considered his way of approaching political discourse to be a corrosive influence on our national media, and people had every right to say so.
If one depends and thrives in one’s life upon being a celebrity (and have been the beneficiary of a zillion dollars in corporate welfare to expand your empire), one shouldn’t be surprised if people have opinions about you when your time comes. Steinbrenner lived to be in the limelight and deliberately courted controversy. The only real offense to his memory would be to ignore it.
Meanwhile, if anyone thinks my remarks are in any way inappropriate, try these on for size and you’ll see mine are nothing if not restrained by comparison:
http://wonkette.com/416626/former-nixon-creep-and-baseball-player-buyer-george-steinbrenner-dies-of-dick-cheneys-disease
Now you’re going after Tim Russert??? Really???
What a fucking low-life scumbag you are Hudson. If you don’t have the common decency to hold your bile until at least they get the man’s body into the ground, I don’t even know what to say about you. Although being critical of Russert’s “corrosive influence” gives a me pretty good idea of where you stand on things.
I’m sorry everyone, but this piece of shit should be banned. Period.
Leave it to Steinbrenner to upstage the All-Star game. – ella
geez hudson, you have a track record as a hater, along with a couple of your other buddies who thankfully have not checked in on this topic, so i’m certainly not surprised to see you stoop to such depths, but is your disdain for the yankees so vitriolic that you have to bottom feed so shamelessly?…let me remind you, a human being died, a flawed human being to be sure, but a human being who had people that loved, admired, and respected him for his good qualities…i didn’t have to know the man personally to understand the significance of that…my perspective is that of a fan…he promised me something and he delivered…my sorrow is for the people that cared about him, and who appreciated his good side…it is highly inappropriate and despicable to focus only on his bad deeds at a time like this…to be fair, outlets like espn and fox, that i know of, sprinkled some of the same stuff you researched into their coverage, so you’re not alone, but at least they had the sense to balance that out with coverage of his accomplishments and contributions both on and off the field…did you find any of the stories about his charitable deeds, humanitarian work, his work with the olympics, his devotion to family, or does the wonkette only dish dirt?… you and the other haters will have plenty of time down the road to remind us of his unsavory side, and i’m sure you will…now is not the time…
+1
Beyond the tactlessness, the fundamentals of Hudson’s “argument” are absurd.
Consider this gem: “Try firing your CEO 20 times in 23 years in any other business”.
Let’s see…if I’m on the Board of a company, do I say “FIRE THE CEO! He has fired more Presidents of this company than anyone else in the industry!”?
Or do I point out: “Our CEO has led us to outpace and outperform every other company in the industry (since Steinbrenner bought the Yankees in 1973 they won more world series – 7 – actually MORE THAN DOUBLE what any other team won in that time) – I hope he never leaves.”
Hudson chooses the former. The rational world chooses the latter.
Or consider this gem: “The simple fact is that Steinbrenner was fortunate to be born into enough money that he could act like a lunatic”
Yeah – he inherited a $1.5 billion dollar company, right? Oh yeah…he BUILT that company from a net worth that was a tiny fraction of that amount when he purchased it. One of the greatest investments anyone made in the past 40 years. Nice try.
There are fools and there are flame-throwers. And then there are those who combine both qualities.
Oh, boo-hoo Iron Horse.
Let me get those who are shocked, SHOCKED that anyone would remember that Saint Steinbrenner was (A) born with a silver spoon, (B) a convicted felon, (C) a blowhard, (D) a guy who sicced a thug to dig dirt on his own star player, (E) banned from baseball and suspended again after reinstatement, and (F) someone who benefitted from second and third and fourth chances that most “businessmen” never get a lace hanky to wipe away your sanctimonious tears.
Oh, and a fainting couch to go with your 1922 copy of Emily Post.
And then there’s the whole question of whether George Steinbrenner’s hamhanded, money-based approach to the game was a good thing for baseball. It is undisputed that he changed the economics and dynamics of the game in a direction which has led inexorably to a less balanced and equitable distribution of talent, with an increasing number of haves and have-nots as far as teams which realistically are going to compete for a pennant.
Other sports have gone other directions. There is a legitimate argument to be had whether Steinbrenner — even if you accept his crimes and misdemeanors and absurd behavior — changed the game for the worse.
And the idea that such topics must not be breached in the wake of his death is the type of hifalutin, antiquated politesse that Steinbrenner himself never had the slightest concern for. He and his legacy are fair game.
Hudson, while you may be very correct in the things you say here, I don’t think that’s the collective YF argument against it…but rather the timing, bud.
I think they just wanna let it all kinda sink in a little bit before everyone starts cherry-picking what it is they want to prove his sainthood one way or the other, bud.
Let’s clear the ad hominem decks, shall we?
Other sports have gone other directions. There is a legitimate argument to be had whether Steinbrenner — even if you accept his crimes and misdemeanors and absurd behavior — changed the game for the worse.
The argument has been had and will continue to be had.
He and his legacy are fair game.
Who said they weren’t?
So you have two valid points, to me inarguable.
That being said, your posts in this thread reveal you to be a crass, insensitive douchebag.
Start the chants of ad hominem. I’m game.
Everyone knows he was a flawed individual Hudson. But given that his body is not even in the ground yet, and that he was well-liked by half the members of this website, maybe you should keep your extreme opinions to yourself.
Hudson, thanks for the lace hanky offer. Means alot.
So to be clear – since I know you never like changing an argument to get out of a hole you dug yourself:
1. The success of a team’s owner is better measured by the number of times he fired his manager and NOT by the success of his team as measured by pennants/championships won.
AND
2. Steinbrenner deserves no credit for turning an $8.7 million investment (of which he only had to kick in under $200,000) into a $1.5 billion enterprise.
You see, my issue is not so whether the guy had flaws (he did) or whether his actions were good or bad for the game (great debate to be had here). It isn’t even that we need to wait after he is buried to point these things out, though it would probably be more decent to do so and every other SF here seems capable of both understanding and abiding by that principle.
No, my issue is with the utter stupidity of your arguments as reflected by the latest two above and by the complete one-sidedness of your “assessment” of Steinbrenner’s legacy.
You are so blinded by your frothing fandom and hatred of the fact that the Yankees are yet again the World Champions that you can’t even acknowledge indisputable facts that weigh in Steinbrenner’s favor.
Enjoy the accolades that will continue to shower down on the man’s memory in the coming weeks. And save the hanky. You’ll need it every time you remember who the reigning world champions of baseball are.
You’ll need it every time you remember who the reigning world champions of baseball are.
What, what does Japan have to do with this?
;-)
Well played SF – you got me.
Actually, I sensed a very deep anti-Japenese sentiment among the many other distasteful currents running through Hudson’s comments…
Excellent article on some of the things Steinbrenner did that did not make the news.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/07/18/greene.steinbrenner.clowson/index.html?hpt=C1
The Memorial for him at Friday Nights game was very moving…from Mo putting the roses for The Boss and Bob on home plate, to Jeter’s speech, to the signs in the stands and the lack of roll call and batting announcements. It was even better when Swish walked it off for us. A great night all around…
thanks for sharing that story rob…i guess that’s why i was trying to make the point earlier about the timing of criticizing him for his flaws, and balancing that with the many good things he did, a lot of which was apparently behind the scenes…i’m a bit cynical of rich folks doing nice things or donating money they don’t need, especially when it appears to be merely to grab attention…it means a lot more when the story stays low key or is told voluntarily by someone other than the giver or his pr guy…
glad you got to see it krueg…must have been something…i saw the replay of mo and the roses, and it was huge just on tv…can’t imagine what it was like to be there…and there couldn’t have been a more fitting ending unless jeter got the walk-off, or mo got a save…