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.I've spent my years since reading the Bill Madden book on Steinbrenner believing that the Yankees' decision to start using their young players was made once he'd had been suspended by Major League baseball, but in this incredible Mike & the Mad Dog interview below (you're welcome) from 1990 Steinbrenner literally says he's decided to start playing the young players to build for the future, something in his own mind that had been unthinkable up to that point.
So is it possible that I've been wrong this entire time? On one hand I thought it'd be difficult to say since almost exactly one month after this interview Steinbrenner was banned from day-to-day control of the Yankees by Major League Baseball, which is when I'd always thought they decided on moving towards younger players now that Big Stein was removed from the picture. So I asked my bff, ChatGPT, what the data shows for the games between the Mike & the Mad Dog interview & the start of his suspension and here it is:
Here’s how it plays out, just looking at June 25–July 30, 1990:I'll be honest - my mind is 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯. I mean this is like watching Get Back & realizing after 50 years that no, Paul McCartney and/or Yoko Ono did not break up The Beatles (a realization so sacred I’m not even gonna smear the beauty of it by suggesting you read all about what I thought of it starting with PART ONE OF SINGLE GREATEST LIVE-BLOGGING BLOG POST OF ALL TIME, you’re welcome very much); just incredible.
1. The “we’re going young” moment
• June 25, 1990 – On Mike and the Mad Dog (the episode you linked), Steinbrenner says he’s scrapping the usual blueprint and wants to play and develop younger players (the “youth movement” line). Four days later, the roster starts to change in a way that totally lines up with that.
2. Immediately after: Kevin Maas arrives
• June 29, 1990 – The Yankees call up Kevin Maas, 25, from Columbus. He debuts that day against the White Sox and plays again on June 30.
• Over the next month he’s not just a token call-up — he becomes a regular and starts mashing, fast enough that by later in the season he sets a record for the fewest at-bats to reach 10 home runs.
So within a week of that June 25 interview, a rookie takes a big role at first/DH while Mattingly’s back is bothering him.
3. Mid-July: Oscar Azócar and the “Baby Bombers” vibe
• July 17, 1990 – Oscar Azócar (25) is called up and debuts with the Yankees.
• July 18, 1990 – In his first start, Azócar goes 3-for-4 with a homer against the Royals. A later retrospective notes that in that game the rookie trio Azócar, Maas, and Jim Leyritz combined for six hits and three runs, and describes them explicitly as part of a Yankees “youth movement.”
Multiple later pieces (Captain’s Blog, Vice, etc.) look back at 1990 and call this stretch a mid-season youth movement built around Maas, Azócar, and Leyritz, sometimes even nicknaming them “Baby Bombers” despite them being mid-20s.
4. Contemporary coverage: by late July, the kids really are playing
A Los Angeles Times piece in early August 1990, looking back at Steinbrenner’s last days in power, says the Yankees had indeed moved into a youth-movement mode and specifically lists:• Kevin Maas (1B)as young players who had “become regulars in the lineup,” with more kids expected in September.
• Jim Leyritz (3B/C)
• Oscar Azócar (OF)
Another LA Times minor-league piece dated August 3, 1990 quotes a Yankees farmhand saying he’d “heard the story that George decided to try a youth movement” and notes that this season the Yankees had promoted Maas, Leyritz, Azócar, Bob Geren, and Alan Mills — explicitly tying those call-ups to Steinbrenner’s decision.
Those articles are important because they’re contemporaneous (not just looking back years later) and they clearly treat the youth movement as real, not just talk.
5. Did he really stick with it before the ban?
Steinbrenner’s suspension from day-to-day control is announced July 30, 1990.
Between June 25 and July 30:
• The Yankees do call up and play:
• Kevin Maas (up June 29, in the lineup right away),
• Oscar Azócar (debut July 17, starting and producing by July 18),
• Jim Leyritz (already up earlier, but now part of that young core getting real time).
• Beat writers and national media are already describing what’s happening as a youth movement and explicitly tying it to Steinbrenner’s decision to go young.
• The “kids” were mostly mid-20s rookies, not 20-year-old phenoms, and the team was still terrible overall.
So:
• In strict “did he stick with what he said for that month?” terms:
Yeah. Once he announced the shift, the Yankees did bring up younger players and actually play them, and that continued right up through and past his ban.
• In big-picture “did Steinbrenner reinvent himself as a patient youth-development guy?” terms:
Not really; the real, sustained commitment to building with youth is more associated with Gene Michael & Stick’s front office after Steinbrenner was removed.
But if you’re talking about that specific Mike & the Mad Dog interview a month before the ban: there’s solid evidence that it wasn’t just bluster. The youth movement we remember from 1990 — Maas / Azócar / Leyritz — is basically the thing that happened on the field in the weeks after he said it.
It's a little strange that ChatGPT threw this in:
• In big-picture “did Steinbrenner reinvent himself as a patient youth-development guy?” terms:
Not really; the real, sustained commitment to building with youth is more associated with Gene Michael & Stick’s front office after Steinbrenner was removed.
I think the real question would simply be, "would Steinbrenner have had the patience to keep the Youth Movement going?", which is debatable; what doesn't seem to be debatable at all is whether or not he started in that direction after saying he would.
CRAZY GUYS AMIRITE??!?!?!?!?!
On a side note, how incredible is this interview???!?!?? Both a product of its time & the very being that was Mike and the Mad Dog (a show that wasn't even a year old at this point!), it's crazy to listen to after getting used to sports "journalism" today - Mike & Doggie have no problem going after Steinbrenner like rabid hounds (Mike: "George, have you finally driven the Yankees into the ground?"), Steinbrenner has no problem giving it right back while also being incredibly open, admitting mistakes like you’d never hear anyone do today, everybody was really funny, and you just know that after they were done they all couldn’t wait to do it again sometime. Incredible. I love and miss Mike and the Mad Dog so much I’m not even gonna smear their names by suggesting you read about my love in the SINGLE GREATEST BLOG POST OF ALL TIME, you’re welcome very much. 😔
Listen to the interview below or on Apple Podcasts HERE YOU'RE WELCOME, EARTH!
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