Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, July 5, 1990 TAG: 9007050093
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BEN WALKER AP BASEBALL WRITER
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Long
This was George Steinbrenner's idea of absentee ownership: 18 managerial moves, one suspension, scores of suspect trades and free-agent signings, countless feuds and 17 years of constant chaos, confusion and controversy.
Now, with the New York Yankees the worst team in baseball and their owner headed toward a hearing today with baseball commissioner Fay Vincent, has it all finally caught up to him - is the S.S. Steinbrenner sinking?
"I know people say, `Why, George, why?' " Steinbrenner said recently. "But I'm my guy. I can't change a lot."
Maybe he can't change a lot about himself, but that hasn't stopped him from rearranging everything else around him.
Soon after taking over the team, he decided he didn't like the Yankees wearing long hair. That was the style of the early 1970s, but it didn't matter to him - Steinbrenner told his players, through public pronouncements, that they should visit barber shops more frequently.
He didn't like Dave Winfield and, after trying to humiliate him with the title "Mr. May," got rid of him this year. There is the matter, still pending, of a grievance the California Angels filed against Steinbrenner and the Yankees after trade negotiations were completed.
He did like Reggie Jackson, but the owner humiliated Jackson by once suggesting he take an eye test. Steinbrenner eventually let Jackson leave and later said it was one of his biggest mistakes.
He loved Billy Martin - and fired him five times.
Others left, too. Rickey Henderson and Jack Clark were traded for virtually nothing, and Fred McGriff, Willie McGee, Doug Drabek and LaMarr Hoyt were among the minor-leaguers sent away.
And almost every time a deal soured, Steinbrenner blamed his so-called "baseball people," whose exits sometimes followed.
Then there was the time in 1981 when Steinbrenner ordered 50,000 copies of the Yankees' yearbook pulled from the concession stands because he didn't like his photo. Some said it was the only time he took himself out of the picture.
Let it be said that Steinbrenner does many nice things for people, and that those acts often do not get any recognition. When he read in the newspaper that a popular and star high school athlete in Sarasota, Fla., had been shot dead as an innocent bystander, Steinbrenner paid for the funeral - with the stipulation that no one would be told where the money came from.
"My public relations guys come to me a lot about things and say, `We have to get this out.' And I say, `No we don't,' " Steinbrenner said. "My father always told me that if you do something good and more than two people know about it, you're doing it for the wrong reason."
But plenty of people, including Steinbrenner himself, know the down side all too well.
"It's tough working for me. I know that," he said. "I admit I'm tough on my people. I'm tough on myself."
A real Yankee Doodle Dandy, for sure, born on the Fourth of July and all. Steinbrenner turned 60 on Wednesday.
"There is nothing quite so limited as being a limited partner of George Steinbrenner's," John McMullen, who bought a share of the Yankees in 1974, said in one of the most memorable and telling lines.
McMullen later got out of the partnership and bought the Houston Astros. These days, more and more people seem to want Steinbrenner out.
A CBS-New York Times poll last week showed Steinbrenner had just a 6 percent approval rating among fans in general, while 36 disapproved of him. Among Yankees fans, 10 percent approved and 53 disapproved.
Lately, anti-Steinbrenner chants and signs are more frequent at Yankee Stadium. The banners quickly are taken down by security personnel, but the Bronx cheers, he can't stop. There are, however, fewer people jeering because attendance is down about 5,000 per game this season.
"I think they like to boo George Steinbrenner, I really do," he said. "It hurts me. But it comes with the territory."
What will happen today when he meets with Vincent, a former contemporary at Williams College, is uncertain. At issue will be Steinbrenner's relationship with Howie Spira, who was associated with the David Winfield Foundation, and Steinbrenner's $40,000 payment to Spira.
John Dowd, the Washington lawyer who prepared the report that led to Pete Rose's banishment last year, investigated the Steinbrenner-Spira connection. Harold "Ace" Tyler, one of the most-respected legal minds in the country, was retained by Vincent, and Steinbrenner has hired two top criminal lawyers.
Steinbrenner has been through this before. In November 1974, then-commissioner Bowie Kuhn suspended him for two years for making illegal contributions to Richard Nixon's 1972 election campaign. Edward Bennett Williams, who would later buy the Baltimore Orioles, represented Steinbrenner, and the penalty was reduced to 15 months.
No matter what happens off the field, Steinbrenner's problems on the field are likely to continue. The Yankees are on a pace for their first 100-loss season since 1912 and have become so bad that Steinbrenner turned to a youth movement, something he always said he thought he never would do.
How bad are they? Even when Andy Hawkins pitches a no-hitter, the Yankees lose.
Kind of like the days when Steinbrenner bought the Yankees. Then, they were struggling in the standings and starving at the gate - in 1972, the Yankees drew 966,328, their only time under 1 million since 1945.
When he took over, Steinbrenner promised to put the Yankees back on top. And under the guidance of Gabe Paul, who had built the Indians teams that Steinbrenner admired as a boy growing up in Cleveland, the Yankees got there.
Paul traded for Graig Nettles, Chris Chambliss, Willie Randolph, Ed Figueroa, Mickey Rivers and Bucky Dent, and he urged the signing of free agents Catfish Hunter, Goose Gossage and Jackson - all moves that led to World Series championships in 1977 and 1978, the last back-to-back championships in baseball. Paul could do what he did because he had Steinbrenner's respect, something that not many in the Yankees organization have enjoyed.
Since then, Steinbrenner often has ruled by fear.
Mostly, Steinbrenner's sports foundation came in football, where he was an assistant coach at Northwestern and Purdue. In that sport, instant changes are necessary - the season is short and every loss means a lot.
But baseball is so different. Patience is a virtue, not a vice, and it seemed Steinbrenner never learned that.
Keywords:
PROFILE
by CNB