Lovely tribute from an unlikely source. Worth clicking through to read, FWIW.

I say bologna. If every owner poured the percentage of his resources into their teams as Mr. Steinbrenner did, there would be far more happy fans in many more cities.

That may be true (not really) but I think you want someone other than a player making that case. All you would get is pretty close to the same results but the players would be a lot richer and I don't see how the fans would be happier with that.

He bought the most storied franchise in sports history for the paltry sum of $8.7 million, and some 30 years later they’re a billion dollar property. That’s absolutely attributable to him.

Well, him, Nixon, OPEC, TV, NYC, NYS, Congress, Al Gore, and a bunch of other things.

The man is correct!

It grates on me that people seem to prefer inoffensive mediocrity to brusque excellence. Steinbrenner falls in the latter (the "excellence" applying to the Yankees as a business, less in his own stint as pseudo-GM).

Of course, I'm not shocked that Schilling recognizes it, since he never struck me as a type that needs his momma' to tuck him in at night with a peck on the nose.

All you would get is pretty close to the same results but the players would be a lot richer and I don't see how the fans would be happier with that.

You might get nicer stadiums. You'd also have baseball do a better job recruiting athletes who might play other sports. Reading the recent Willie Mays book got me thinking about whether Mays would have been a centerfield, a running back, or a point guard if he were a 25 year old today. It wasn't even a matter for him to think about in his day. Jackie Robinson was also probably a better football player than baseball player.

Just more proof that "what have you done for me lately" trumps everything else. If STeinbrenners career arc was reversed would be hailed so highly? Why is it that if you finish a winner everything else gets erased?

You might get nicer stadiums. You'd also have baseball do a better job recruiting athletes who might play other sports. Reading the recent Willie Mays book got me thinking about whether Mays would have been a centerfield, a running back, or a point guard if he were a 25 year old today. It wasn't even a matter for him to think about in his day. Jackie Robinson was also probably a better football player than baseball player.

Fans are happy when the teams wins, plain and simple.

If STeinbrenners career arc was reversed would be hailed so highly?

Possibly more so - the first fifteen years of constant winning and not acting like a jerk would have built up a lot of good will, and then he would have finished with four World Series appearances in his last nine years as an owner.

George Steinbrenner died?

All you would get is pretty close to the same results but the players would be a lot richer

Doubtful. Winning more games puts more people in the seats and generates higher TV ratings, which are important sources of revenue for MLB teams. Of course, there is a certain amount of risk related to that upside compared to doing the minimum required to cash the revenue sharing checks. SCHILLING SPEAKS THE TRUTH!

Doubtful. Winning more games puts more people in the seats and generates higher TV ratings, which are important sources of revenue for MLB teams. Of course, there is a certain amount of risk related to that upside compared to doing the minimum required to cash the revenue sharing checks. SCHILLING SPEAKS THE TRUTH!

Doubtful of what? The players being richer or the results being similar? If everybody spens more money then how does KC get better as compared to the Red Sox and Yankees? Or even just the White Sox? No matter how we shake it teams like the Yankees and Red Sox are going to have an advantage over teams like the Royals and Rays. If the Yankees are spending more money and the Red Sox are spending more money and the Mets are spending more money and the Dodgers are spending more money and the Cubs are spending more moeny and the White Sox are spending more money what is going to be left for the Royals and Pirates to spend their money on? The Derek Bells, Youngs, Mears, and Randas of the world, that is who they'll spend their money on.

If George Steinbrenner had owned the Royals instead of the Yankees the payroll disparity would probably be 2.5-1 instead of 4-1 (or whatever). The Yankees are already and have been Steinbrennerized; if the other teams were the same the payroll gap would be lower.

Steinbrennerized --> Plunging as much money into the team as humanly possible; viewing a sports franchise as something with which to flex the owner's ego, will and vanity instead of as a steady revenue stream.

Steinbrennerized --> Plunging as much money into the team as humanly possible; viewing a sports franchise as something with which to flex the owner's ego, will and vanity instead of as a steady revenue stream.

Why is it assumed that the Yankees are at their payroll limit?

If everybody spens more money then how does KC get better as compared to the Red Sox and Yankees? Or even just the White Sox?

Investing in your business and attempting to put out a better product than your competitors is a pretty basic business plan. I don't know why some think it's not applicable to MLB. Not everyone is willing to trade the increased money at risk for the possibility of increased reward but to suggest that it can't be done seems to ignore a lot of history.

If George Steinbrenner had owned the Royals instead of the Yankees the payroll disparity would probably be 2.5-1 instead of 4-1 (or whatever). The Yankees are already and have been Steinbrennerized; if the other teams were the same the payroll gap would be lower.

Steinbrennerized --> Plunging as much money into the team as humanly possible; viewing a sports franchise as something with which to flex the owner's ego, will and vanity instead of as a steady revenue stream.

But Steinbrenner didn't really do that. It isn't like Steinbrenner dipped into his personal coffers to buy players. He spent Yankee money and perhaps future Yankee money on players and other personnel. It isn't like at the end of every year he had to write a personal check for 20 million becuase of the spending of the Yankees.

Why would fans support and give KC money if they are still at the bottom of the ladder? Fans are not going to turn the turnstiles and move to the KC area and watch them on TV simply because they are spending 80 million dollars a year instead of half of that. Secondly if everybody was spending as much as they could then you probably wouldn't see revenue sharing the way it is now.

Jackie Robinson was also probably a better football player than baseball player.

I'm sure glad the baseball world got to see Jackie. He was a running back, right? Had he been born in 1970 and went to the NFL, odds are his football career would be over the age where his MLB career began. Shelf life of running backs is so short. In a few weeks I'll be drafting my fantasy football team, and as usual there will be plenty of oldtimer jokes directed at 28 year olds who rushed for 1300 yards last year.

Why is it assumed that the Yankees are at their payroll limit?

Plus why is it assumed that the Yankees have always maxed out their payroll limit which I would say is largely untrue. It looks like Steinbrenner for a very long time left money on the table when it came to payroll.

Investing in your business and attempting to put out a better product than your competitors is a pretty basic business plan. I don't know why some think it's not applicable to MLB. Not everyone is willing to trade the increased money at risk for the possibility of increased reward but to suggest that it can't be done seems to ignore a lot of history.

And your competitors doing the same is a pretty basic business expectation. The Royals investing in their team doesn't happen in a vacuum. If the Royals spend 30 million dollars then what is stopping the Nationals from spending 40 million more, the Mets 50 million more and the Red Sox and Yankees 70 million more? So on and so on. MLB is not exactly like all other businesses. It is a zero sum game for the most part. Every year somebody has to finish at the bottom of the pile and finishing at the bottom of the pile hurts your revenue streams. The answer to that is innovation but innovation gets harder and harder as we go along and the lifespan of that edge gets shorter and shorter. For instance Cleveland and Baltimore got an edge by building new stadiums but that has quickly shrunk and vanished since the big boys have followed suit.

All you would get is pretty close to the same results but the players would be a lot richer and I don't see how the fans would be happier with that.

A George Steinbrenner really sticks out when you've got a lot of owners who either just want to pocket as much money as possible, or like to win, but constrain themselves on a budget. A league with 30 Georges might spend a lot more money on players but in the end, the league will play .500, and you'll have the same number of happy and unhappy cities each year. It would be no different if the league were run by 30 Jeffrey Lorias. At least for awhile. 30 Lorias would probably lead to a new league to challenge the existing.

I find it hard to believe that Jackie would be a better football player than a baseball player. Hitting a baseball requires a ton of skill and a ton of practice. Jackie Robinson was a great baseball player, to be great requires a ton of hardwork and practice.

Investing in your business and attempting to put out a better product than your competitors is a pretty basic business plan. I don't know why some think it's not applicable to MLB. Not everyone is willing to trade the increased money at risk for the possibility of increased reward but to suggest that it can't be done seems to ignore a lot of history.

He didn't say it can't be done by a team. He said it can't be done by everybody.

If every team suddenly followed the Steinbrenner path, there would still be the same distribution of good and bad teams, just with higher payrolls. And, in all likelihood, the teams that had fewer resources to begin with (the KCs, the Pittsburghs) would be in the same position they're in now.

If every team suddenly followed the Steinbrenner path, there would still be the same distribution of good and bad teams, just with higher payrolls. And, in all likelihood, the teams that had fewer resources to begin with (the KCs, the Pittsburghs) would be in the same position they're in now.

That is basically my position.

I would also add that at a certain point payroll ratios become meaningless. For instance is a payroll ratio of 2:1 good when the top team is spending 500 million dollars and the bottom team is spending 250 million? Would that bottom team really have that much greater of a chance simply because they are not being outspent by 4:1 but at 250 million to 60 million?

Also how long do you think teams like the Red Sox and Yankees would keep on handing out revenue sharing checks if the Royals suddenly started spending 120 million on their payroll and the Red Sox and Yankees had to increase their payroll to keep up or to maintain their edge? For teams like the Yanks and Sox that is a double slap in the face since they have to pay the Royals to maintain their payroll and have to pay more for players to stay dominant. If that was to happen I would think MLB would go nuclear.

Winning more games puts more people in the seats and generates higher TV ratings, which are important sources of revenue for MLB teams.

The total number of wins by MLB teams is fixed at 2,430 regular-season and 24 postseason games per year.

If every team suddenly followed the Steinbrenner path, there would still be the same distribution of good and bad teams, just with higher payrolls. And, in all likelihood, the teams that had fewer resources to begin with (the KCs, the Pittsburghs) would be in the same position they're in now.

It's fairly obvious that some owners are risk averse and prefer to just cash the checks from revenue sharing, national TV rights and merchandising (while paying themselves and their relatives large salaries at the same time they are crying poverty), so it's not like every investment in your team is going to be matched by 29 other owners. If a team doesn't want to invest in scouting or players, they shouldn't be complaining about the resulting effect on their revenue stream. There's no reason that KC and Pittsburgh couldn't do as well as the Twins.

If every team suddenly followed the Steinbrenner path, there would still be the same distribution of good and bad teams, just with higher payrolls. And, in all likelihood, the teams that had fewer resources to begin with (the KCs, the Pittsburghs) would be in the same position they're in now.

Is there any evidence that Steinbrenner spent more money than the Yankees could afford? I seem to recall a stray stat posted by Posnanski, in which he claimed that Royals and Yankees spent about the same % of their gross revenue on payroll.

It's fairly obvious that some owners are risk averse and prefer to just cash the checks from revenue sharing, national TV rights and merchandising (while paying themselves and their relatives large salaries at the same time they are crying poverty), so it's not like every investment in your team is going to be matched by 29 other owners.

Take it up with Schilling, which is who McCoy was responding to.

If a team doesn't want to invest in scouting or players, they shouldn't be complaining about the resulting effect on their revenue stream. There's no reason that KC and Pittsburgh couldn't do as well as the Twins.

Well, the Twin Cities had 60% more population than the KC metro area in 2008. But even with that, KC's major-league payroll was greater than Minnesota's in 2008 and 2009. The problem with the Royals (relative to the Twins) is that they've done a worse job of spending their money, not that they've refused to do so.

If every team suddenly followed the Steinbrenner path, there would still be the same distribution of good and bad teams, just with higher payrolls.

That's the long and short of it. The Kaycees and the Pittsburghs might sneak in and get a few marginal A-list players once or twice, but it wouldn't happen on a regular basis, not without some deliberate restraint on the part of the handful of truly Big Money teams. The only long range way for a small market team to beat the system is to draft smarter and sign smarter than anyone else. But the draft smarter part has built-in brakes to it, and the sign smarter part is tough to keep up on long term basis---just ask Billy Beane.

This isn't to say that some small and mid-market teams can't rise to the top once in a while, and of course teams like the Cubs can screw up any amount of money, but the bottom line is that it's still a zero sum game, and the Big Market cities will always have natural advantages.

The Yankees are worth so much because they're hugely profitable. They could be spending a lot more money and still be making a profit--though likely a smaller one. I don't get why everyone's fawning over Steinbrenner's insatiable desire to win when he was making the same profit-driven decisions all owners make.

The Yankees are worth so much because they're hugely profitable.

To be fair, Steinbrenner has at least something to do with the fact that the Yankees generate insane amounts of cash. Yes, he had the advantage of being in New York, but he did a very good job of maximizing the team's revenue streams.

EDIT: And at least he put the money he generated back into the team. He could have easily run the team like the Toronto Maple Leafs or the Chicago Bears and just stuffed all that cash in his pockets.

To be fair, Steinbrenner has at least something to do with the fact that the Yankees generate insane amounts of cash. Yes, he had the advantage of being in New York, but he did a very good job of maximizing the team's revenue streams.

Absolutely. He was an excellent businessman as an owner. I just don't get why people attribute this to his desire to win rather than his desire to make money.

Absolutely. He was an excellent businessman as an owner. I just don't get why people attribute this to his desire to win rather than his desire to make money.

The point is that the manner he went about building the franchise resulted in a lot of winning. When Barry Bonds was torching the rest of the league, there were probably people who though his main goal was personal glory, rather than helping the team win. Giant fans didn't care how "selfish" he may or may not have been, because his production in fact did help his team win.

The Yankees are worth so much because they're hugely profitable.

But they're not, really. As I noted a while ago, Forbes had them losing money for six straight years before New Yankee Stadium opened. That leaves aside, of course, the steady increase in franchise value.

Didn't Schilling always say he'd never play in New York? I know that he at least said that on USENET.

My yankee-hating days are behind me, but I still can't get behind this Steinbrenner knob-slobbing.

Someone newsworthy died.
He drastically changed baseball, was a gigantic, dishonest, sleazy jerk, he was a bad boss, and bad at his job.
His teams succeeded because he spent lots of money for men who are a thousand times better human beings as he was.

It's nice that he was kind to some people, and gave tons of money away to charity, but to see him eulogised like this, when great men like John Woodden get glossed over...

re 23 and pos

pos completely misunderstood the numbers. The yankees came down a bit because new yankee stadium was such a gold mine that they couldn't spend it fast enough. The tigers in recent years have been more aggressive in spending their money and because of that they have seen their revenue grow at a faster pace than average.

re 31 I think the yanks' losses were paper losses.

I find it hard to believe that Jackie would be a better football player than a baseball player. Hitting a baseball requires a ton of skill and a ton of practice. Jackie Robinson was a great baseball player, to be great requires a ton of hardwork and practice.

I don't at all find it hard to believe that Robinson was a better athlete than, say, Deion Sanders or Brian Jordan. Jordan made all-star teams in both sports. For that matter, look how well Michael Jordan did when he had his baseball sabbatical - I don't mean that his numbers were actually good, but he started in AA at age 31, and is 6'6" and he managed not to embarass himself. I don't know that Jackie Robinson was a better athlete than Bo Jackson, but the overall package, including the intelligence and competitiveness favors Jackie. Jackie Jensen is another guy who came along in that era, and won an baseball MVP, but probably was a better football player than a baseball player. Frank Thomas was recruited to Auburn on a football scholarship. Jackie Robinson led the NCAA in punt return average in both 1939 and 1940, and still has the 4th best all time punt return average. Polishing the skills is important, but great athletes have speed, coordination and competitive drive that serves them well in pretty much all sports.

In terms of two sport athletes, only the accidents of war and Jim Crow likely prevented Robinson from demonstrating that he was the best of them all. Neither of the two names most frequently mentioned (Sanders and Jackson) were nearly as good as Robinson was in baseball, and while their pro football careers have to be considered as trumping Robinson's college career, the fact is that there's no real reason to believe that Robinson couldn't have succeeded every bit as well in the postwar NFL as he did at UCLA before the war. But obviously given the pressures surrounding his Great Experiment in baseball, there was no way he could have pursued an NFL career simultaneously the way that Jackson and Sanders did.

re 31 I think the yanks' losses were paper losses.

Well, no offense, but I'll take Forbes' estimate over yours.

The Yankees are by far the biggest business in the majors - they have the biggest revenue and the biggest expenses. But it doesn't necessarily follow that they also have the biggest profits, or indeed any profits at all. Some of the biggest businesses in America go for years without profits.

The Yankees spend a ridiculous amount of money in salaries (and as Yankee Redneck may have pointed out on an occasion or two, they also spend a lot in revenue sharing). All that expenditure has to come out of somewhere. Some of you seem to think there's no ceiling on what the Yankees can afford to spend, but of course there is.

and forbes really didn't do anything with the YES revenue or various other little revenues.

His teams succeeded because he spent lots of money for men who are a thousand times better human beings as he was. It's nice that he was kind to some people, and gave tons of money away to charity, but to see him eulogised like this, when great men like John Wooden get glossed over...

Not arguing their relative rankings on the Human-o-Meter, but Steinbrenner was his own Sam Gilbert.

If you listen closely, very closely…you can almost hear Moulty doing a slow clap up in Boston.

*thunk* ... *thunk* ... *thunk*