The Boss Has Left The Stadium

He was a horse’s ass, but a visionary owner, and as a Red Sox fan, I’ll miss him. In an era defined by faceless, penny pinching owners with zero personality (David Glass, The Selig’s, Carl Pohlad), Steinbrenner was both the bombastic face and heart and soul of the Yankees. And it made hating the Yankees downright fun.

0% estate in 2010, unless Congress makes retroactive changes. Set to go to 55% on 1/1/11.

One of Steinbrenner’s limited partners was John McMullen, who, IIRC, bought the Astros out of the Hofheinz bankruptcy — I think he technically bought the team from Ford Credit — and later also owned the New Jersey Devils when they won the Stanley Cup.

He was almost Steinbrenner’s opposite in terms of media attention, but he did say this, in explanation of why he sold out:

“There is nothing more limited than being a limited partner of George Steinbrenner.”

I miss Larry David’s portrayal of Big Stein, which was endlessly amusing to me. The man himself? Not so much.

And it made hating the Yankees downright fun.

Fortunately his kids are even douchier than he was. Unfortunately they’ve been keeping a low profile lately.

I was going to add “also see: Cuban, Mark”, but then noticed “high profile owners of high profile teams”.

So Steinbrenner died huh?

Meh. Who gives a shit?

Steinbrenner had a fantasy enthusiast’s understanding of baseball. The only times his teams were really successful was when his player acquisition influence was at its lowest – the 96-99 teams that were built almost entirely from within the farm system and the last couple year’s (and probably going forward) teams which both kept their farm system talent when at all possible and signed young free agents rather than George’s penchant for all-stars already past their prime.

The Tampa gang (of which Steinbrenner was the head) brought all those old players in in response to the Yankee’s world series loss to the Diamondbacks and the Yanks suffered tremendously as those guys predictably underperformed and had high injury rates. The New York gang (led by Brian Cashman) finally got in control when Steinbrenner’s health problems sidelined him. As a result the Yanks signed young FA’s like Sabathia instead of broken down mostly ineffective ones like Randy Johnson. and kept their elite farm talent like Phil Hughes (whom Steinbrenner tried to trade away for a half-season rental in 2007).

Steinbrenner’s main contribution to the Yankees success was in growing their revenue streams to the point where they could afford to pay their roster twice as much as the next richest team in the league and over eight times what bottom feeders like the Royals and Pirates pay their teams.

Frankly MLB as a whole would be much better off if he had never existed. His purchase of the Yankees lead directly to the competitive imbalance the league is forever stuck with (or at least until they get a strong commissioner actually interested in improving MLB instead of a self-interested toad like Bud Selig whose main concern is his own revenue streams via the Brewers.)

Frankly MLB as a whole would be much better off if he had never existed. His purchase of the Yankees lead directly to the competitive imbalance the league is forever stuck with (or at least until they get a strong commissioner actually interested in improving MLB instead of a self-interested toad like Bud Selig whose main concern is his own revenue streams via the Brewers.)

The lack of a salary cap is directly connected to the competitive imbalance and Steinbrenner merely recognized the inherent advantages of having a franchise in NYC.

Steinbrenner and his allies among the owners were instrumental in assuring that no salary cap would ever be put in place.

Nobody is going to nominate George Steinbrenner for a good guy award. OTOH, his teams won 11 Pennents and 7 World Series. Seven.

Other than the Braves ownership group in the nineties, name a single owner over the last three decades that has even come remotely close to that. He was easily the most successful sports owner in modern history. And a world class asshole.

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Steinbrenner and his allies among the owners were instrumental in assuring that no salary cap would ever be put in place.

There are plenty of small-markets teams who do not want a salary cap as well. They assume-correctly-that the players union will demand a salary floor to go with any cap. If the average revenue for each team is 200 million (which is a low estimate) and the players are to get 45% of the total revenue, that would mean each team would have to have a payroll reaching $90 million.

You would also have the situation where some major market teams would see a dramatic increase in revenue thanks to a new stadium or a new TV deal. Meanwhile the Pittsburghs of the league would see a drop in their revenue — thanks to losing and the economy downturn. Their salary floor would rise, while their income would drop.

 Small market owners like having the big boys pay a luxury tax without the burden of then meeting some kind of salary minimum.

I didn’t mean to imply that Steinbrenner is solely responsible for the lack of a salary cap/floor.

Honestly I believe that the cheapskate owners are just as bad as Steinbrenner. They deprive their home towns of any realistic hope of ever winning a championship in order to maintain their profit margin, ignoring that their overall revenues would skyrocket if MLB were to become as competitive as the NFL is. Sure, we all know that there’s a handful of NFL owners that try to get away with being as cheap as possible (most notably the Titans) but we also see that in any given year any team in the NFL can rise up and be excellent. That will never happen in baseball while the current revenue sharing structure is in place.

Come to think of it, MLB has become a lot like college football in the sense that only the top 5% of teams have a realistic chance at ever winning a championship. At least in college football the degree that money effects the quality of players you can get is restricted to things like recruiting budgets and cost of facilities (and salaries for the coaches/recruiters) whereas in MLB things happen like Sabathia going to the Yankees even when he openly did not want to live there or play for them – so they just offered twice as much as anyone else.

“Come to think of it, MLB has become a lot like college football in the sense that only the top 5% of teams have a realistic chance at ever winning a championship.”

Hasn’t like half the league been to a World Series in the past 10 years?

The truth is that the big money covers up a lot of mistakes whereas small market teams have to make more consistently good decisions. The lack of a salary cap does not mean that parity is impossible.

Dick- Are you Billy Beane? It’s ok, I won’t tell anybody.

I can understand the challenges of taking the helm of under utilized asset that has become the victim of mismanagement, arrogance, and malaise. Work to re-build the brand recognition, plow your profits back into improving the product, and expanding your revenue streams only to be the victim of jealousy of those who either don’t have the resources, visions, or balls to do the same.

In “Stumbling on Wins” DJ Berri makes the simple point that baseball has better parity than any other sport, including the NFL, despite having no salary cap. A higher number of teams have won baseball championships than the NBA or the NFL in the last few decades.

To argue that Steinbrenner is evil because he pushed against the salary cap and killed the chances for parity in baseball is, when examined by simple facts, one of the most ludicrous arguments in sports.

I hate the Yankees and root for their failure in all of their enterprises but Steinbrenner made baseball’s biggest club great and consequently improved baseball. The man belongs in Cooperstown.

I don’t really follow baseball, but haven’t the Marlins won the World Series like twice in the last decade? There will always be more parity in baseball than any other sport because it’s much easier to play. John Kruk wouldn’t be an All-Star in the NBA or NFL.

Fuck baseball. Fuck Georgie boy. Fuck the Yankees. And fuck that ratface bastard Bud Selig. I gave up watching this bullshit “sport” after Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell retired. I’d rather watch fucking soccer than another baseball game. The most boring crap on TV next to soccer games that I have no money on.