Sugar Daddy George

Few years back I read an article that argued Michael Jordan was the worst thing to happen to basketball.  The consensus best to ever play the game screwed it up?   Here's why.  Jordan spawned a generation of wanna-bes.  Jordan could put his team on his back and win a game all by himself. Win a championship on his own.  Stephon Marbury and Alan Iverson come to mind immediately.  Immensly talented but not talented enough to do it on their own.

George Steinbrenner, who passed away today, is being called by some the best owner in baseball history.  Maybe the best in the history of sport.  But Steinbrenner might, like Jordan,  be the the worst thing to happen to the game.

When I first started out in radio I refered to Steinbrenner as "Sugar Daddy George".  He was baseball's candy man.  If he wanted a player he would simply out bid anyone else who who showed a hint of interest. Sugar Pops wanted to win at all cost.  Cost being the operative word.

As a business man, pure genius.  He bought the Yankees, who had become a standing joke in baseball, for 10 million dollars in 1973.  37 years later the Yankees have a list price of 1.6 billion.  At first I thought Stienbrenner was New York's version of The Maple Leaf's Harold Ballard.  Loud, in your face, I do it my way.  But really, there was no comparison between Stienbrenner and Ballard.  Ballard had a product that was worth far more than he ever realized.  Stienbrenner took an underachieving team and turned it into  the most marketable, most watched, most loved and most hated franchise in sports.  He started his own television network.  Why buy ball park food from someone else when he could start his own company?  So he did.  A 200 million dollar payroll?  Nickles and dimes compared to the return.  He had the guts to gamble and he won big.

Now in hockey and football teams are inspired to aspire to The Patriots, The Steelers, The Red Wings, The Penguins.  That's because of the salary cap.  What you have to do in the NFL and the NHL  is be as smart or smarter.  But Stienbrenner, like Jordan, brings a different set of rules to the table.  Be like Mike?  You can't.  You don't have the talent.  Spend like George?  Uh, Uh.  You don't have  the resources.

And that's where Steinbrenner screwed things up for everyone else.  By driving up salaries he took the fun out of things for a lot of fans in a lot of cities.  The Blue Jays are the classic example.  They can't dazzle you with dollars like Sugar Daddy's Yankees. The Blue Jays can't win their division when at best they ante up is half the Yankees payroll.  

Sure,  I know people will point to the Tampa Rays.  They got to a World Series.  They're contending this year.  But take this to Savings and Loan.  More than one of those good young Rays will end up on the Steinbrenner payroll when their free agency years come up. Tampa wont be able to compete. The Red Sox can.  But you can argue that it was Stienbrenner's money madness that forced the Sox to spend.  You can argue that Stienbrenner had a lot to do with lifting "the curse of the Babe"  with Boston winning it's first World Series since another Yankee owner plucked the Babe out of Bean Town.

Even if you're not a sports fan you probably know who Stienbrenner is.  George Costanza's meetings with "The Boss" when George worked for the Yankees are television lore.  That speaks volumes about his and the Yankees impact. As Jim Nasyum reminds me in his comment Stienbrenner even traded George, for chicken.

Stienbrenner didn't  always win.  But over the past 37 years no other owner, no other team matches the Yankees 16 division titles, 11 Junior Loop pennants and 7 world series rings.  For me, Sugary Daddy George remains an enigma.  You have to admire what the man accomplished even though he ruined it for the rest of us. Which gave us a team we love to hate.