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This was supposed to be a day of great joy. The best players in the world are coming together in Anaheim, California to play in the 2010 MLB All Star game. However, on the morning of this day, the baseball world was shocked to learn of the passing of one of, and it wouldn’t be a stretch to say THE most influential man in baseball history, Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. Steinbrenner passed on the morning of July 13, 2010 in his home in Tampa, Florida after suffering a heart attack.

The legacy of “The Boss” as he is so well known, started when he was the head of an investment group that bought the Yankees from media corporation CBS in 1973 for $8.8 million. That number is baffling, considering that the Yankees are worth well over one BILLION dollars. That’s quite a return on your investment.

Throughout his years, Steinbrenner was known as a guy who hated to lose, and he admitted that himself. He once said “winning is the most important thing in my life, after breathing. Breathing first, winning next.” Anyone who ever played for the Yankees or was associated with the organization would tell you that that was his exact attitude.

Steinbrenner expected perfection from everyone who donned the pinstripes. Derek Jeter told of a time when he was a rookie where in a game he was caught off of first base. The Yankees won the game, but later Steinbrenner was yelling at Jeter telling him to never get caught off of base ever again. That was how passionate Steinbrenner was about the Yankees. That’s why we’re remembering him the way we are today.

Of course, no one has had a perfect career in major league baseball. Steinbrenner could never seem to find a manager he liked, until Joe Torre that is. In his first 20 years under Steinbrenner, the Yankees went through 23 manager changes (although Billy Martin accounts for 5 of those). Speaking of which, you can’t talk about Steinbrenner’s career without mentioning his spats with Martin. The two were certainly the definition of a love-hate relationship. Their relationship was often portrayed in public, the most notable being a Miller light commercial where the two are arguing over whether the beer was less filling, or had more taste. They often had worse arguments behind closed doors.

And of course Steinbrenner’s legacy has two dark spots to it. The first was when in 1974, Steinbrenner was convicted of illegally funding Richard Nixon’s re-election campaign. Steinbrenner ended up being suspended for 15 months.

Regarding another “scandal,” Steinbrenner was banned from baseball
indefinitely in July of 1990, after he paid Howie Spira $40,000 for dirt on Dave Winfield, after Winfield sued Steinbrenner for not paying his foundation $300,000, which was a clause in his contract. He was reinstated in 1993.

However, don’t let these incidents change your opinion about George Steinbrenner. He is, without any doubt in anyone’s mind, the very best owner the league has ever seen. He made strides towards how major league teams are run today. One example of this that all teams relate to is that Steinbrenner was the first person to sell his team’s cable rights, something that generates huge revenue for teams today. He created the YES network, which now features Yankees and Nets games.

But Steinbrenner will always be best known for turning the Yankees into the powerhouse that they are today. When he bought the Yankees, they were a struggling team. However, this changed under his tenure. In ’73, the year he bought the team, the Yankees hadn’t won a world series in over a decade, and hadn’t won an American League pennant in almost as long. It took just 4 years under Steinbrenner to win a pennant, and then the two following years the Yankees won the World Series. With the Boss at the helm, the Yankees won 13 of their 40 American League championships and 8 of their 27 world titles. He revolutionized the way teams are run today, mainly through methods of free agency. Even though he took advantage of it, he still had a strong opinion about free agency: “I am dead set against free agency. It can ruin baseball,” Steinbrenner once said.

George Steinbrenner’s influence will be missed not only in the baseball community, but in the two areas that he called home: New York and Tampa Bay. In New York, he will remain beloved for turning their Yankees into the most iconic sports team in the world. In Tampa Bay, he will be remembered for his contributions off of the field to the community. So much so that the Yankees Spring training stadium and a High School in Tampa are named after him.

Baseball has never lost a person who has meant as much to the game that George Steinbrenner does. That’s right, does. The influence of George Steinbrenner will never fade away, no matter how much time passes. He will always be known as a man who changed baseball as we know it. A man who did whatever it took to win. A man who didn’t quit until health concerns made him. Isn’t it terrible irony that the man who once said “I will never have a heart attack. I give them,” suffered that very fate. But that’s how he will be remembered. A man beloved by all, as long as you weren’t facing the Yankees.

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