“I will never have a heart attack. I give them”
The Yankee kingdom has an empty throne. Today, George Stienbrenner passed away at the age of 80.
Whether you loved him or you hated him, there was nobody in baseball like him. Thankfully, he was ours. He was our fearless leader. He was The Boss.
George Stienbrenner rebuilt the downtrodden Yankees into the powerhouse that they are today. Bottom line, he saved the legacy of the franchise that I’m proud to be a fan of. 11 Pennants, 7 World Series titles, and the pieces in place for many more to come. Sure, he was loud, brash, dominating, and maybe even a little bit off his rocker…..but he always got results. Even during the title drought of the 80′s, no team in baseball won more games than the Bronx Bombers.
But, he also maintained the Yankee lore. There were no alternate jerseys, or names on the backs. You weren’t growing a beard, and if George told you to get a haircut…you got a freakin haircut. The Boss wasn’t going to let any player compromise the class and tradition of the team of Ruth, Gerig, Mantle, and Dimaggio, no matter how much they produced or how much money he paid for them. The legend of the Yankees was always bigger than the sum of its parts.
Of course, George made plenty of mistakes along the way. To whitewash his screw ups would be selling his legacy short. But even in failure, nobody did it like The Boss. How many owners would publicly call a pitcher a fat pussy toad…in spring training!?! Zero, that’s how many. And that’s what made him special. He never settled for second best. He re-invested every dime he made off the the Yankees into making them better. His tactics may have seemed ruthless at times, but not when you’re a Yankee fan. All he wanted to do was win, and it happened more often than not.
No one ever talked about the good that George did. It was always just a small footnote in the story of The Bronx Zoo. He gave away millions of dollars to charities on the condition that no one every mention where it came from. Hundreds of kids went to college, without knowing that Mr.Stienbrenner paid the bill. He took down on their luck players like Doc and Straw, and gave them chance after chance to turn their lives around. He even hired his own personal assistant after catching him putting graffiti on one of the stadium subway cars. He made the kid remove the graffiti, then gave him a job. That’s the Big Stien no one ever mentioned. He demanded results on the field, but the man had a heart of gold off of it. He was the best owner a baseball fan could ever have.
The last time I saw him was my last visit to old Yankee Stadium: the 2008 All-Star Game. It was an emotional day to begin with, and then came The Boss. Sure, he rode around the field in a golf cart and was obviously in fading health…but the electricity of having the King back in his castle for one more night is something I will never forget for the rest of my life. Dammed if I didn’t even get a little teary eyed. The Boss was like every Yankee fan’s crazy grandpa, and every October we got awesome Christmas presents. Nothing makes me happier to know that he went out a champion, just like he deserved.
9 days ago, we spent the 4th of July and George Stienbrenner’s birthday in the house that he built. A palace fit for none other than the greatest team in history of sports. It’s tough for me to accept that in those 9 days since, Yankee fans first lost the voice of the Yankees, and then their heart and soul. I suppose Big Stien just needed to wait for Bob Sheppard to get to heaven to announce his grand arrival.
My friends and I have never known a baseball world without George Stienbrenner. All I can hope for is that two little Stienbrenners can add up to be even half of what he meant to us over the years.
A hard rain fell over the city of New York today. My only guess is that George immediately fired Mother Nature.
Rest In Peace Boss. You’ll be sorely missed.
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