George Steinbrenner

The Boss is dead. Long live the Boss.

That's basically how it went on July 13, 2010, when George Steinbrenner died of a heart attack in Tampa, nine days after turning 80. He'd spent 37 years running the Yankees -- longer than anyone else in franchise history -- and by the time he passed, the team he bought for $10 million was worth roughly $1.6 billion. Seven championships. Eleven pennants. Two suspensions. Five separate tours of duty for one manager. A federal conviction and a presidential pardon. Somehow all the same guy.

The Cleveland Kid Who Bought a Baseball Team

Derek Jeter's Yankees and Lou Gehrig's Yankees don't have much in common with the guy who ran both of them, at least not on paper. Steinbrenner was born July 4, 1930, in Rocky River, Ohio, the son of a Great Lakes shipping magnate. He went to Culver Military Academy, graduated Williams College with an English degree in 1952, and did two years in the Air Force. Then he went into the family business -- shipping, then the American Ship Building Company, which he eventually took over and grew into one of the biggest shipbuilders on the Great Lakes.

His only previous sports venture was the Cleveland Pipers, a franchise in the short-lived American Basketball League that he owned in the early 1960s. It went bankrupt. (Not exactly the résumé you'd expect from the man who'd go on to define what an aggressive, big-market owner looks like.) None of that mattered on January 3, 1973, when Steinbrenner led a 12-man investment group that bought the Yankees from CBS for $10 million. His own stake was $168,000 -- less than 2% of the purchase price. He was still the managing partner, the loudest voice in the room, and within six weeks, the guy who'd promised to stay out of baseball decisions was ordering players to cut their hair.

Buying Championships, One Free Agent at a Time

Steinbrenner didn't invent free agency, but he figured out faster than anyone what to do with it. When Catfish Hunter became a free agent in December 1974 on a contract technicality, Steinbrenner signed him for $3.75 million over five years -- an absurd sum at the time, and the first proof that a market for star talent even existed. Two years later he went bigger, signing Reggie Jackson to a five-year deal reportedly worth somewhere around $3 million. The Yankees won the pennant in 1976, their first World Series appearance since 1964, then beat the Dodgers back-to-back in 1977 and 1978.

That 1978 team is the one everybody remembers, and not just for the ring. Reggie called himself "the straw that stirs the drink." Billy Martin, the manager, hated him for it. Steinbrenner hated Martin, loved Martin, fired Martin, rehired Martin -- five times total, across 1978, 1979, 1983, 1985, and 1988, a cycle so absurd it got its own book (Sparky Lyle and Peter Golenbock's The Bronx Zoo, published the year after the chaos peaked). Steinbrenner fired managers the way other people change their freakin' socks. More than 20 changes over 37 years, 19 of them by 1990 alone. Somewhere in there he earned the nickname that stuck for the rest of his life: the Boss. He didn't hate it. He leaned into it.

The Felon Who Ran the Flagship Franchise

Here's the part that doesn't make the highlight reel. In April 1974, a federal grand jury indicted Steinbrenner on 14 counts tied to illegal corporate contributions to Richard Nixon's re-election campaign. He pleaded guilty that August to a felony conspiracy count and a misdemeanor count -- and to pressuring his own employees to lie about it to a grand jury. Commissioner Bowie Kuhn suspended him for two years, later reduced to about 15 months, and Steinbrenner was back running the club in time for the 1976 pennant chase. Ronald Reagan pardoned him in 1989, after Steinbrenner reportedly helped the FBI on a couple of unrelated investigations.

A convicted felon ran the sport's most visible franchise for nearly 15 years before that pardon came through. (Baseball has a character clause for the Hall of Fame ballot. Steinbrenner is basically the reason voters remember it exists.) It's the single biggest reason Cooperstown keeps saying no.

The Feud That Took 14 Years to End

Steinbrenner's cruelest moment wasn't even about money. On April 28, 1985, sixteen games into the season, he fired Yogi Berra as manager -- after promising Berra in spring training that his job was safe no matter what. Berra found out from a subordinate, not Steinbrenner himself, and he was livid enough to swear he'd never set foot in Yankee Stadium again as long as Steinbrenner ran the place. He meant it. Fourteen years passed before Steinbrenner drove out to Berra's museum in Montclair, New Jersey, and apologized to his face.

It's over ... fourteen years is long enough. I forgive you, George.

Steinbrenner called it the worst mistake of his life. He wasn't wrong, and the fact that it took him a decade and a half to say so tells you plenty about the man.

Banished, and the Dynasty That Followed Anyway

The Berra fiasco was petty. What came next was worse. Steinbrenner spent years feuding with Dave Winfield over money owed to Winfield's charitable foundation, and rather than settle it like an adult, he paid a small-time gambler named Howard Spira $40,000 to dig up dirt on his own player. Commissioner Fay Vincent had no choice -- he banned Steinbrenner from day-to-day operations on July 30, 1990, and fans at the Stadium actually cheered when the news hit the scoreboard. Nineteen managerial changes and a last-place finish will do that to a fanbase.

The ban lasted until March 1, 1993. In the meantime, GM Gene Michael did something Steinbrenner never would've allowed: he protected the kids. Jeter, Rivera, Bernie Williams, Pettitte, Posada -- all of them stayed put instead of getting flipped for a rental veteran. (It's one of the great ironies in franchise history: the most meddlesome owner the sport has ever seen had to get removed from the building before his own farm system could produce a dynasty.) Steinbrenner came back to an organization that had rebuilt itself without him, hired Joe Torre to manage it, and mostly had the sense to leave it alone. The 1996 title was his first in 18 years. Torre lasted 12 years -- by far the longest anyone managed under Steinbrenner, and more than double his next-longest tenure -- and won four titles in his first five seasons.

The Last Act

By 2003, the signs were showing. Steinbrenner fainted at a memorial service for football great Otto Graham. By 2006, at the groundbreaking for the new Yankee Stadium, he looked frail enough that reporters asked directly if he'd had a stroke. "No, I did not have a stroke," he told them. "I am not ill. I work out daily." Nobody really believed him, and by 2007 his sons Hank and Hal were quietly running more and more of the operation -- what George himself reportedly called letting "the young elephants in the tent." MLB approved Hal as the club's controlling owner in November 2008. (Hank got baseball ops and the "Baby Boss" nickname; Hal got the ledgers. Neither one fired a manager five times.) George kept the chairman title, but the day-to-day Boss act was over.

He got one more ring. The Yankees beat Philadelphia in the 2009 World Series -- Ring No. 7, in the brand-new Stadium that opened that spring -- and Steinbrenner was too sick to be there for most of it. He died the following July. Two months after that, on September 20, 2010, the Yankees dedicated a plaque to him in Monument Park -- seven feet by five feet, 760 pounds, the largest plaque in the Park's history and the first monument unveiled at the new Stadium. Only five other people in franchise history have earned a full granite monument instead of a plaque: Miller Huggins, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle, and Joe DiMaggio. Steinbrenner is the only owner in that company.

Key Moments

Frequently Asked Questions

How much did George Steinbrenner pay for the Yankees?

Steinbrenner led a 12-member investment group that bought the Yankees from CBS for $10 million on January 3, 1973. His own personal stake was just $168,000 -- less than 2% of the total purchase price. By the time he died in 2010, the franchise was worth roughly $1.6 billion.

Why is George Steinbrenner not in the Baseball Hall of Fame?

Despite seven World Series titles and 11 pennants as owner, Steinbrenner has been rejected on multiple Hall of Fame ballots -- the Expansion Era Committee in December 2010 and the Today's Game Era Committee in December 2016, both times falling well short of the votes needed. His 1974 federal conviction for illegal campaign contributions to Richard Nixon's re-election campaign and his 1990 suspension for paying a gambler to investigate Dave Winfield are the character issues most often cited by voters.

How many times did George Steinbrenner fire Billy Martin?

Five times. Martin managed the Yankees in 1975-78, 1979, 1983, 1985, and 1988, getting fired (or forced out) after each stint before Steinbrenner brought him back again -- except the last time, in 1988. It's the most famous hire-fire cycle in franchise history and one of the defining stories of the "Bronx Zoo" era.

Why was George Steinbrenner suspended from baseball?

Twice. Commissioner Bowie Kuhn suspended him for roughly 15 months starting in 1974 over his federal conviction tied to illegal Nixon campaign contributions. Commissioner Fay Vincent banned him from day-to-day Yankees operations on July 30, 1990, after Steinbrenner paid gambler Howard Spira $40,000 to investigate outfielder Dave Winfield; that ban lasted until March 1, 1993.

Who took over the Yankees after George Steinbrenner?

His sons Hank and Hal Steinbrenner began assuming day-to-day control starting in 2007 as their father's health declined. MLB formally approved Hal as the club's controlling owner in November 2008, with Hal overseeing business operations and Hank overseeing baseball operations. George remained chairman until his death in July 2010.

He was petty, paranoid, occasionally cruel, and legally a felon for most of two decades. He was also the reason the Yankees stopped being a punchline and became the standard every other franchise in sports measures itself against. Both things are true at once, and the Boss never once tried to pretend otherwise. The plaque in Monument Park is the biggest one out there. Cooperstown's is still empty.