The 'Yankee Clipper'
Dies at $1.5 Billion  

By U. Netanya Tokef
Obituary Editor

NEW YORK, N.Y. – New Yorkers, congenitally unable to distinguish between persons of real distinction and loudmouthed bullies (Remember Rudolph the Devoted Family Man? Whining Ed? Good-time Eliot Spitzer?), have made surprisingly fulsome obsequies upon hearing the news that pardoned felon and the South Bronx's most successful holdup artist, George Steinbrenner, had at long last struck out.

 
The late Yankee owner, shown here debating whether to fire Billy Martin for the ninth time.

As for the rest of us, let's just say we haven't seen much of a run on Kleenex in the last 24 hours.  Perhaps that's because most people under 35, if they've heard of the old tyrant at all, know him as a faceless ranter on "Seinfeld" reruns.

The panegyrics said that George had transformed the world of baseball, although it was more a matter of scale than real change.  There had been imperious rich schmucks owning and running baseball teams before: Does the name Harry Frazee strike a familiar note?  Past owners had spent money lavishly to build winners and had not been above chiseling a few million out of the home town to build stadiums.  But baseball plutocrats of yore paled in comparison to the Tampa Bay buccaneer.

Having used the money he made building government-subsidized hulks in Cleveland, it didn't take long for George, by virtue of being the biggest and loudest prick in the South Bronx, to establish himself as the Yankees' unlovable overlord.

He was known for lavish spending on players and politicians, the latter taste leading to a conviction for illegal campaign contributions and obstruction of justice and an eventual pardon by fellow, but better-natured, Republican Ronald Reagan.

New Yorkers loved him because like them he ran his mouth constantly and reveled in throwing his weight around, even when he hit many-time Yankee skipper Billy Martin in the bourbon bottle. His attention deficit disorder would have done credit to an eighth-grade crack baby, and would lead him to rant at subordinates, such as professional athletes, for a bad at-bat.  

 
The good citizens, um, inhabitants, of the South Bronx want to pay their respects to dead Yankee owner George Steinbrenner by naming their beautiful new park after him. 

However, being the oldest established baseball team in America's number one media market at the dawn of the cable TV bonanza did arm Steinbrenner with a mighty bankroll that he could and did use to outbid other teams for talent.  Often, these players would perform like highly-compensated professionals and shiny rings would follow. About as often, the most competent would fall out of favor with the labile Steinbrenner and beat feet, like Joe Torre.

It was George's penchant for spending the Yankee cable loot that created the disaster that is Major League Baseball today, divided as it is into a few big-market haves (fortunately including the Olde Towne Team) and 20-odd small-market patsies whose role is akin to the five white guys who used to suit up against the Harlem Globetrotters.

But yelling and screaming and spending money didn't really distinguish George from 50,000 other New Yorkers.  What won the Yankee Clipper his place in history was his brazen robbery of $1,500,000,000 from the schmucks, sometimes referred as the taxpayers of the State of New York. For about 20 years, George, having graciously concluded that the handsome stadium that the city had rebuilt in the '70's was not adequate for his bankroll [Surely, purposes? – Ed.], blustered and bullied for years to get the public to build him a shiny new one.

He claimed variously that he was going to move the Yankees to New Jersey (The hated New Jersey Yankees? It was good for a laugh.), Eleventh Avenue in Manhattan over the rail yards, upstate New York, and Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.  The South Bronx, he constantly bitched, was too dangerous, too hard to get to (except for the two subway lines, the expressway that ran outside the front door, and the railroad line next to it), too – you know, not really congenial to rich addled white men.

Eventually, a generation of political hacks bought for nothing more than some box seats and hot wings approved a plan to build a suitably palatial (and revenue-generating) palace on parkland next to the existing stadium, and then rebuild the parks on the site of the demolished House that George Cratered.  Suddenly, the South Bronx didn't seem so bad to the Yankee caudillo.

The stadium was duly built atop David Ortiz's jersey, but somehow the money ran out before the peons of the South Bronx got their park. Who saw that one coming? It had to be one of the greatest clip jobs in New York history.

Perhaps George's most lasting effects are not limited to baseball.  His brand of bluster, bullying, outright criminality, and nobbling politicians has become standard operating procedure for 21st century capitalism.  From Jeff Skilling to Bernie Eggers to Joe Cassano, management by screaming and browbeating has become as emblematic of modern day enterprise as the management styles of Henry Ford and Tom Watson were in theirs.

The good news for wannabe bullying CEO's?  Steinbrenner's tactics pay off big and some girls, like the hard to please Maureen Dowd, seem to think they're adorable.  So if you want to score big, shout like George.