Steinway

The Steinbrenner book out now by Bill Madden can only be amazing, based on it's subject matter. I mean, if you can write an entire book about George Steinbrenner and make it NOT incredibly entertaining, then you're probably a fucking idiot.

Poking around right now, I found a little tidbit I had never realized. While I had always known that when he bought the Yankees (his share of the $10M price tag was only $168K!!!!) he claimed he was gonna be a hands-off owner, saying he was too busy with his ship-building to worry about the Yankees too much, I never knew what the single incident was that snapped him into being maybe the most hands-on owner in sports:

This was the big bang, the origin of it all. Steinbrenner, when he bought the Yankees in 1973, said he wouldn't become involved in day-to-day operations. That lasted until, uh, until he saw the flowers. On Day One at Yankee Stadium. George explained to the Daily News:

"I walked in and saw flowers on every desk. Freshly cut flowers. I said, 'What the hell is this? Is it Flowers Day? Is it Secretary's Day?' Somebody said, 'Isn't that wonderful? Mr. Burke does this every day for us.' (Former Yankee president) Mike Burke is a guy who I admired tremendously. He was a real heartthrob type of guy. Everybody liked him. I loved him, but for what I wanted, he didn't fit with me. When I saw the flowers, that was the trigger. I got involved."

Ha!!  All the ensuing craziness and history, because of flowers. Awesome.

Anyways, here's every Steinbrenner clip from Seinfeld.