Big Stein

George Steinbrenner died 10 years today; immediately after on that same day I finished the Bill Madden bio and then wrote this about Big Stein:

George Steinbrenner is the closest I can come to believing in a God - or, I should say, guardian angels. I say that because here's a guy that throughout his term as Yankee owner was on the wrong side of every single possible decision when it came to obtaining players, and I mean to a comical, almost 100% degree, and yet won seven World Series rings and made billions of dollars. It's no coincidence that all of the Yankees World Series titles came after Steinbrenner had been forced away from any kind of decision-making, be it the 1977-78 titles (forced out of baseball because of funny Nixon donations), the 1996-98-99-00 titles (forced out of baseball by Fay Vincent because of the Winfield scandal) and finally 2009 due to his health. Each time when he was forced out, his minions that he blasted on a daily basis were able to quietly put together these championship teams without having the Boss fuck things up, and each time he came back the team slid back to NOT winning championships; nothing more sums all this up better than Steinbrenner, after Mo Rivera threw away the 2001 World Series, went up to Brian Cashman, who had won 4 championships in 5 years and had come inches away from another, and snarled at him "You had your chance, now we're doing it my way." And they did, and those became the Sheffield/Giambi/Brown years in the desert with no world Series titles.

Incredible. Seven rings, and amassing a fortune in the billions after buying into the team with only $168,000 of his own money, all while being, as I quoted Kuhn a few days ago, a Titanic in search of an iceburg. So much so that it really does make you think that someone on high was looking out for this motherfucker. Why him, I don't know, but man.  Almost nothing about Steinbrenner made any sense, which is what makes him such a frustrating, mercurial, lovable character that will be talked about as long as baseball is talked about.