Steinbrenner: Cleveland native restored Yankee mystique

George steinbrenner, 80

Associated Press

New York

He was baseball’s bombastic Boss.

He rebuilt the New York Yankees dynasty, ushering in the era of multimillion-dollar salaries and accepting nothing less in return than World Series championships.

He fired managers. Rehired them. And fired them again.

He butted heads with commissioners and fellow owners, insulted his players and dominated tabloid headlines — even upstaging the All-Star game on the day of his death.

George Michael Steinbrenner III, who both inspired and terrorized the Yankees in more than three decades as owner, died Tuesday of a heart attack at age 80.

“He was and always will be as much of a New York Yankee as Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford and all of the other Yankee legends,” baseball commissioner Bud Selig said.

Once reviled by fans for his overbearing and tempestuous nature, Steinbrenner mellowed in his final decade and became beloved by employees and rivals alike for his success.

Steinbrenner was taken from his home to St. Joseph’s Hospital in Tampa, Fla., and died about 6:30 a.m.

“George was a fierce competitor who was the perfect fit for the city that never sleeps — colorful, dynamic and always reaching for the stars,” former President Bill Clinton said.

Yankees captain Derek Jeter added: “He expected perfection.”

While Steinbrenner grew up in the Cleveland area as a Yankees fan, his first passion was football. He fondly recalled watching the Browns on winter days, and many believe the NFL’s must-win-today mentality shaped how he approached all sports. New York was 11 years removed from its last championship when Steinbrenner, then an obscure son of an Ohio shipbuilder, headed a group that bought the team from CBS Inc. on Jan. 3, 1973, for about $8.7 million net.

In 371/2 years as owner, Steinbrenner whipped a moribund $10 million team into a $1.6 billion colossus that became the model of a modern franchise, one with its own TV network and ballpark food business.

Under his often brutal but always colorful reign, the Yankees won seven World Series championships, 11 American League pennants and 16 AL East titles, going on spectacular spending sprees that caused Larry Lucchino, president of the rival Boston Red Sox, to dub Steinbrenner’s Yankees the “Evil Empire.”

He moved the Yankees from their tradition-rich “House that Ruth Built” into a new $1.5 billion Yankee Stadium. Call it the “House the Boss Built.” He appeared there just four times: the April 2009 opener, the first two games of last year’s World Series and this year’s home opener, when Jeter and manager Joe Girardi went to his suite and personally delivered his seventh World Series ring.

“He was very emotional,” son Hal Steinbrenner said then.

Steinbrenner’s larger-than-life outbursts transcended sports and made him a pop culture figure whose firings were parodied on the TV comedy “Seinfeld” and even by Steinbrenner himself in commercials.

“George was The Boss, make no mistake,” said Berra, the Hall of Famer who ended a 14-year feud with Steinbrenner in 1999. “He built the Yankees into champions, and that’s something nobody can ever deny. He was a very generous, caring, passionate man. George and I had our differences, but who didn’t? We became great friends over the last decade and I will miss him very much.”

Steinbrenner’s death, about 14 hours before the first pitch of the All-Star game in Anaheim, Calif., was the second in three days to rock the Yankees. Bob Sheppard, the team’s revered public address announcer from 1951-07, died Sunday at 99.

Forbes now values the Yankees at $1.6 billion, trailing only Manchester United ($1.8 billion) and the Dallas Cowboys ($1.65 billion).