George Steinbrenner

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George Steinbrenner, 1998.

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George Steinbrennerwas an American businessman and principal owner of the New York Yankees (1973–2010). His exacting methods and often bellicose attitude established him as one of the most controversial personalities in major league baseball. Though he was often criticized, under his ownership the Yankees became one of the dominant teams in baseball and one of the most valuable franchises in sports.

Steinbrenner was raised in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. After attending Culver Military Academy (1944–48), a preparatory school in Indiana, he earned a bachelor’s degree in English (1952) from Williams College in Massachusetts. Upon graduation he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and served for two years. He later received a master’s degree in physical education from The Ohio State University (1955) and was an assistant coach for the football teams at Northwestern and Purdue universities.

In 1957 Steinbrenner went to work for his father’s shipping company. There he served in various capacities until 1967, when he acquired the American Shipbuilding Company, which soon subsumed the family business. After several abortive attempts to acquire a professional sports franchise, Steinbrenner successfully engineered the purchase of the New York Yankees for $10.3 million in 1973. Though he had vowed to distance himself from the quotidian activities of the team, the domineering tendencies for which he would become infamous—and that would earn him the nickname “the Boss”—first asserted themselves during the season opener when he demanded that several players cut their long hair.

In 1974 Steinbrenner was indicted for obstruction of justice and for conspiring to make illegal contributions to U.S. Pres. Richard Nixon’s reelection campaign. He was convicted and, as a result, suspended from major league baseball until 1976. That year the Yankees advanced to the World Series, though they were ultimately defeated. However, they won the following two World Series, both played against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Under Steinbrenner’s ownership the Yankees played in seven other World Series, winning five titles (1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2009). In 2002 he expanded the Yankee empire with the creation of the Yankee Entertainment and Sports (YES) Network, a television channel devoted to coverage of the team.

While partially credited with the success of the Yankees, Steinbrenner remained a divisive figure, instituting stringent regulations regarding the appearance of his players, frequently criticizing players to the press, and indulging in public spats with members of his staff. (He fired manager Billy Martin five separate times.) Public disapproval of such behaviour was compounded by Steinbrenner’s willingness to pay his players exorbitantly, a practice widely blamed for escalating salaries in the major leagues. In 1990 Steinbrenner was banned from baseball for life after mounting a smear campaign against a player with whom he was arguing. Though the ban was lifted in 1993, negative characterizations continued to dominate his press coverage, and he was even featured in flamboyant caricature on the hit television show Seinfeld. Though they subsided in later years, his histrionics were incessantly rehashed by the press even as he turned over control of the team to his sons in 2008.

Steinbrenner founded the Gold Shield Foundation (1981) in Tampa, Florida, and the Silver Shield Foundation (1982) in New York. Both organizations provided educational funding to the children of police officers and firefighters who had died in the line of duty.