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He's not drooling. He just spit the bit.
I suspect that I'm more intensely aware of the relationship between "New York's imagination" and the Mets/Yankees than you are, by nature of living in New York as an avid baseball fan for the entirety of the 1980s and 1990s. I can't speak much for the early 1970s, when the Mets had just come from "worst franchise in baseball history" territory to "Miracle Mets," but I can tell you that in the 1980s, the Yankees were a huge, huge brand.
Even in Queens, an NL borough with enormous representation of Met fans, it was far from difficult to find Yankee fans or the Yankee brand.
Yeah, just like when a manager gets tossed from a game but just hangs out in the tunnel behind the dugout and keeps making all the decisions anyway. I guess Bobby Cox won't be going into the HOF. Is there still time to cancel Whitey Herzog's induction?
I suspect that I'm more intensely aware of the relationship between "New York's imagination" and the Mets/Yankees than you are, by nature of living in New York as an avid baseball fan for the entirety of the 1980s and 1990s. I can't speak much for the early 1970s, when the Mets had just come from "worst franchise in baseball history" territory to "Miracle Mets," but I can tell you that in the 1980s, the Yankees were a huge, huge brand.
Even in Queens, an NL borough with enormous representation of Met fans, it was far from difficult to find Yankee fans or the Yankee brand.
That's wonderful, but as you can see by the fuller context of the post that you were replying to, by "at the time" I was specifically referring to the time that Steinbrenner bought the team, at which point the Mets had just outdrawn the Yankees by over 2 to 1, and had added insult to injury by having Yogi Berra as their manager. The Yankees were a colorless mix of good and not-so-good players whose hold on the city's imagination was best reflected in their first sub-1,000,000 attendance since the days of Snuffy Stirnweiss and Tuck Stainback. At the point that Steinbrenner entered the scene, it's little exaggeration to say that the Mets owned New York.
An awful idea, as the presence of any mummified corpses at the Hall of Fame will only result in numerous visitors asking the staff why Bud Selig seems so subdued.
It's an exaggeration IMHO. What you say is all true, but there's really nothing there that shouted "PERMANENT!"(**) The Mets were a good team with appealing players, their stadium and location fit the times better, and the Yankees were a good, not great team that had contended in 1972. The Yankees played in a crumbling stadium in an awful neighborhood and in 1972 people were fleeing crumbling stadiums in awful neighborhoods in droves.
If the two secular changes discussed upthread -- cable TV and the re-urbanization of the country -- hadn't occurred, the Yankees would have continued to put out good, very good, and great baseball teams but would never have become "TEH YANKEES!!" Steinbrenner not moving them to Jersey was more luck than plan.(*)
(**) Beyond the general doom and gloom that permeated the times and particularly places like New York City and the South Bronx.
(*) As was his acquisition of the Yankees in the first place, since by all accounts he wanted the Indians, but -- in yet another twist of luck -- lost out in the bidding.
I wouldn't - and didn't - make that case. But you're still welcome to mock facts as you see fit.
That's not hard to do, when the facts being presented in opposition to Steinbrenner's candidacy are for the most part so ludicrously cherry picked and devoid of overall context.
The case for Steinbrenner remains straightforward: For ten million dollars, he bought a franchise that was a distant second in popularity within his own city, and after 33 years the Yankees are the most valuable franchise in American professional sports, worth over 100 times what he paid for it, and restoring the Yankee brand to a level not seen since the early 50's. Since he bought the team, it's had 7 championships, 11 pennants, and 19 postseason appearances, while compiling the best overall record in baseball.
The case against Steinbrenner pretty much consists of three major points: Any Yankee owner could have done it; all he did was throw money at everything; and he's a bad, bad man. We'll see how all this plays out with the voters.
I think if you look, many other franchises have gone up 100 times in value since 1973 -- possibly even the Indians, his first choice in 1973.
The case against Steinbrenner pretty much consists of three major points: Any Yankee owner could have done it; all he did was throw money at everything; and he's a bad, bad man. We'll see how all this plays out with the voters.
And a strong case it is. It's possible to imagine other guys who wouldn't have won as much as Steinbrenner. He did do little more than throw money at everything. He isn't a bad, bad man, but he is a twice-suspended felon and did associate with a known gambler for nefarious ends utterly at odds with the spirit of baseball.
He's been an entertaining and charismatic figure that I've enjoyed. Rich guys will do the favors they will for other rich guys, but he isn't a Hall of Famer.
I think if you look, many other franchises have gone up 100 times in value since 1973 -- possibly even the Indians, his first choice in 1973.
The average MLB franchise was worth $10.13 million in 1970. That would have placed the Yankees roughly in the middle of the pack at the time Steinbrenner bought the team. The Yankees today are valued at $1.6 billion by Forbes, which is more than three times that of the average MLB team, and nearly twice as high as the runnerup (at $878M) Red Sox and third place (at $858M) Mets. Combine that with the Yankees' on-field success since 1973 and I doubt if the negatives are likely to outweigh them.
Rich guys will do the favors they will for other rich guys, but he isn't a Hall of Famer.
Since when do the owners have Hall of Fame ballots?
Like Rose, he should have read the rules posted in the clubhouse. You consort with gamblers, you are out of the game.
Oh come on, if Carl Pohlad wants to give Bud Selig a secret under-the-table loan who are you to judge?
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