Publication Date:May 1, 2010 Availability:Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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ISBN13: 9780061690310
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Condition: New
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One of the Most Successful Bi-polar Personalities in History!September 6, 2010 Michael A. Newman(New Hyde Park, NY) Having been a Yankee fan going back to the CBS days, this book was definately a trip down memory lane. Maddon was lucky to get copies of Gabe Paul's taped memoirs post-mortem to document a lot of the back scenes details of Steinbrenner's years from trying to purchase the Indians through the turbulant 70's as Yankee owner. Maddon, only started covering the Yankees himself during the late 70's.
As a Yankee fan it is great to have been insulated from the man who treated all his employees like doormats and then would act like nothing had happened. He would go on tirades and see how he was perceived by the press and if something came out bad he would make one of his staff take the blame.
Steinbrenner could have been the best thing that every happened to selling more Tylonal and Rolaids as most of his employees were taking them regularly and many developed stomach and nerve issues. Through it all, the Yankees were successful when Steinbrenner was "hand-off." His two year suspension during the early 90's was what helped the Yankees start to build the dynasty that ruled later that decade. Surely had he not, Jeter, Williams, Pettitte and Rivera would have been trade bait for another over the hill veteren player.
Steinbrenner seemed to have an affinity for those who had fallen to drugs and alcohol (Art Howe, Billy Martin, Doc Gooden, Darryl Strawberry). He would fire people than feel bad and call them up and try to unfire them. He did many underhanded and under the table types of deals, possibly bribing politician and feeding them undisclosed contributions to obtain favors for his shipbuilding company and some of his Yankee deals.
With the MSG TV deal and later the launching of the YES Network, Steinbrenner helped make the Yankees the first Billion dollar baseball team. He is one of the few owners who didn't mind sharing revenue with other teams as long as he could help his own team get something favorable.
After reading this book, I have my doubts as to whether he should be in the Hall of Fame but he is too unique and influential to not be remembered as possibly the most well-known sports owner in history.
This book was difficult to put down and some of the things that are described may make your head spin.
Seller ReviewAugust 30, 2010 jev38 I contacted the seller "The Book Shack" after my book purchase (ASIN:0061690317 Steinbrenner: The Last Lion of Baseball) to see if I would receive it by 9/8/10. The seller contacted me immediately the same night to advise that it was not likely that I would receive the book by this date. Since the item is a birthday gift I cancelled the order. I was impressed with the quick response to my request and I will definitely shop with them again.
Some intriguing questions raised by this very fine bookAugust 29, 2010 Daniel Berger(Atlanta, GA USA) I puzzled over this fascinating portrait of an unforgettable man.
Why did a man with all the money, breeding and business sense to succeed, fail to recognize that his biggest barrier to steady success was himself?
Madden and the people interviewed here make much of his father's cold relationship to him - that George Steinbrenner, no matter what he accomplished, was constantly put down and belittled by his father. That may be part of it. Much of his life can be reduced to episodes of the tough-Prussian side of him, his father's side, stomping over others, followed by periods where George the unloved child feels remorse and the pain suffered by those he's treated like his father treated him.
But it's still baffling. Steinbrenner had a slew of talented baseball men working under him over his years with the Yankees. Gabe Paul, Lou Piniella, Billy Martin, Gene Michael, Al Rosen, many others. All he would have had to do to be even more successful - the Yankees won 7 World Series but there was a long drought in which his management of the team went from bad to worse - would have been to do what he did, but less of it, and more quietly. That's it.
He had good men under him. He could have let them do their jobs. Their baseball instincts were right again and again. Yankee pinstripes made it easy to attract the best. And if it was just his style to be the the hands-on, top-down, ulcer-creating type of boss, he could have kept doing that. On average these guys could put up with Steinbrenner's constant orders, even his many reversals and devious dealings, but often the straws breaking the camel's back were his public criticisms of them.
I was a reporter. I know that reporters constantly stir the pot and sometimes the people they write about have to make public statements about things they'd have preferred to keep out of the press. I also know reporters need something to stir the pot with. Constantly speaking up, as Steinbrenner went out of his way to do, gives them that. If you shut up, work hard and do good, your work speaks for itself and the circus dies down.
Steinbrenner was born to money, the fifth generation of a family to own a major Cleveland shipping company. He had one of those rigorous you-won't-be-spoiled upbringings featuring a military boarding school that rich peopole often give their kids. He went to work in his family's company and had to make real business decisions. He was no dilletante. He was one of a young coterie of powerful business leaders in Cleveland, intent on breathing some life into a moribund industrial town. He was also a good athlete, a talented musician, a patron of the arts, a philanthropist.
His sports background made him dangerous as an owner. He'd hurdled in college, been an assistant college football coach, and before buying the Yankees had owned a minor league basketball team and and made a play for the Indians that nearly succeeded.
Steinbrenner was an sportsman, but not a baseball guy. Real baseball guys didn't need Steinbrenner second-guessing them. Time on college football fields in the 1950s didn't necessarily translate to a baseball field in the 70s, 80s and 90s. Steinbrenner's instincts and sports business sense, though, were often correct, and his baseball guys weren't infallible.
There was a real contradiction in Steinbrenner. He had old-fashioned senses of dignity, honor and patriotism, expressed far more often than was common by the 1980s, but he blatantly contradicted them regularly. I'm not so innocent that I think one can run a business empire while being Mr. Nice Guy every day. You will invariably find yourself at some point saying, "We need to get rid of this person even if we reassured him two months ago" or "Can you get me some dirt on this guy?" or "I know he's a great guy, but his best years are behind him, get rid of him." You will stab people in the back sometimes, you will spy on people, you will bend the rules, sometimes until they break.
But basic to others' honor and dignity is holding your tongue publicly. Steinbrenner managed this sometimes. He is quoted often saying the right thing publicly despite what we see he really felt and said behind the scenes. But he didn't manage it enough. Too often, his need to be the tough guy and be seen as one - not just by his subordinates, but by the public - outweighed his good sense. Ironically no one questioned his right to be the tough guy and the boss. He really did sign the checks. He really did change baseball and build strong Yankees teams by opening his checkbook to intiate the free agent wars, signing the best available even if that meant supplanting last year's stars, and recognizing before others that last year's stars were beginning to wane.
But effective tough guys wield their power more judiciously. Effective tough guys don't have all the Yankees' best men scheming to leave- Winfield, Gossage, Mattingly, Piniella, Paul, Rosen - just to get some peace and quiet far away from him.
Steinbrenner's inner turmoil was reflected by his tantrums and impulsivity - firing someone on the spot, blasting them in the press - tempered by remorse he subsequently felt, where he'd quietly reinstate them or make other amends. The Billy Martin affair was the best known of these. The book, however, is essentially one nonstop recital of this pattern, involving practically everyone on the Yankees. This is how Steinbrenner shot himself in the foot, leading to the Yankees' long years on the skids.
The book also left me wondering one other thing. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, when Steinbrenner's health had not yet failed, he gave enough room to Joe Torre and Brian Cashman to bluild and run a great team - interfering, but not excessively, and letting these talented guys do their jobs. What caused him to mellow? Was there any realization? Was it the sobering effect of his two-year suspension following the Dave Winfield affair? Was it aging? Or had he just matured? This is the biggest unanswered question in this very fine book.
Steinbrenner was nutsAugust 27, 2010 M. Martino I rarely read books, normally getting bored pretty quickly. But this book kept my attention the entire time, full of stories on how nuts Steinbrenner really was. If you like baseball, you'll enjoy hearing some of the inside stories from historical moments in the game.
Steinbrenner - a must read!August 24, 2010 David D. Molica(Rochester, NY) I recommend this book to all Yankee fans, but especially to the older readers who remember when "George" originally purchased the Yankees from CBS in 1973. This book will give you the behind the scenes view of what was going on that didn't make it into the newspapers.
There were two great things about this book, first was the story itself, all 400+ pages of it; and second was the way Bill Madden (author) came across - I could not put the book down!
