Big Stein

[Napoleon]

George Steinbrenner has passed.

As much as I hate the Yankees may he rest in peace.

My dad was a huge Yankee’s fan and when I asked him how he could root for a team with him at the helm he said “he is temporary and someday he will be gone and the Yankees will remain.”

George was a native Clevelander and in fact there are many minority owners in the area’s Jewish community (I know several part owners) and I have a funny story to share later from an attorney I use to work with who represented George before he left.

PS "Costanza, where’s my Paisano’s calzone ?"

[extramundane]

Clearly not everyone is broken up over this news

http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/2932/500xsteinbrennerlikebut.jpg

[dando]

Greatest move he ever made was to sign Drew Henson to a baseball contract away from UM. :gomer: :thumbup:

RIP, Big George.

EDIT: tough week for Yankees fans....first Bob "the voice of God" Sheppard and now Big George.

-Kevin

[SteveH]

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[Napoleon]

So the story.

Steinbrenner owned and ran a shipbuilding company in Lorain, Ohio, the next major population concentration on Lake Erie west of Cleveland, and was constantly in battles with his unionized work force. He was represented by an attorney who years later I worked with who was very prominent in the area, and who is since deceased.

Any ways we are BS one day and he launches into this story how George was POed at his workers and had hatched this plan to retaliate by welding the doors of the bathrooms shut so they couldn’t get in and then runs the plan past this attorney who says “George, you can’t weld the workers out of using the bathrooms!” and proceeds to talk George down from his crazy ass plan.

Pure Steinbrenner!

I mentioned that a good chunk of the minority ownership in the Yankees is owned by Clevelanders (and by the way, yes they wear official World Series winner rings, that is how you can tell they are not BS you). One evening I was drinking at a club with some people, one of which was the son of a prominent local business man who George had come to raise funds from to buy the Yankees, and we got him going over the amounts involved and what the return worked out for the others and it was astounding how good of an investment it would have been for not really a whole lot of money.

NY Times Obit. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/14/sports/baseball/14steinbrenner.html?hp=&pagewanted=print)

[SteveH]

His family owns Balmoral Park (http://www.balmoralpark.com/History.cfm?Cat=G)(horse racing), south of Chicago in Crete IL.

[Napoleon]

This didn’t occur to me but I saw someone mention elsewhere that George’s timing was impeccable with Baseball’s All Star Game tonight.

[TrueBrit]

This didn’t occur to me but I saw someone mention elsewhere that George’s timing was impeccable with Baseball’s All Star Game tonight.

Which will make the game even more cringe-worthy...:thumdown:

People that wouldn't have crossed the street to piss on him if he was on fire will now talk about what a wonderful person he was...:shakehead

[Don Quixote]

Which will make the game even more cringe-worthy...:thumdown:

People that wouldn't have crossed the street to piss on him if he was on fire will now talk about what a wonderful person he was...:shakeheadYep, I think I may have to miss the festivities tonight.

[dando]

Yep, I think I may have to miss the festivities tonight.

Did you now he was a grad assistant on Woody's staff for the '54 national champs? I just learned that today.

-Kevin

[Don Quixote]

I just saw that today. Also, his wife's name is on the side of the shoe connected with the band center. Who knew?

[Andrew Longman]

I mentioned that a good chunk of the minority ownership in the Yankees is owned by Clevelanders (and by the way, yes they wear official World Series winner rings, that is how you can tell they are not BS you)

In NY we call them the Tampa Mafia. They are his transplant Ohio cronies down there who were always mucking up what Cashman and Michaels were trying to do in NYC (though Cashman got them under control in recent years)

[Andrew Longman]

I just saw that today. Also, his wife's name is on the side of the shoe connected with the band center. Who knew?

Donated millions to tOSU and other causes, including to hard luck stories he just happened to read about in the paper. All anonymously.

Why he wouldn't pay a few hundred thousand bucks to Winfield's charity (as contractually promised) is beyond me. It never made sense.

[Napoleon]

In NY we call them the Tampa Mafia. They are his transplant Ohio cronies down there who were always mucking up what Cashman and Michaels were trying to do in NYC (though Cashman got them under control in recent years)

You are likely thinking of other non-Clevelander partners. I went back after my original post and found a list of limited partners and Clevelanders, at least recently, hold a smaller amount of the outstanding LP interest then I would have guessed, but it just so happens that I know all of them, so I overestimated based on what I guess you could call the iceberg principal. You know “hey if I know 4 people with ties to when he was shopping the ownership/are owners then there must be dozens I don’t know about”.

For example this story in today’s Cleveland Plain Dealer (http://www.cleveland.com/ohio-sports-blog/index.ssf/2010/07/post_120.html) that I scanned through seems to mention local ownership in only 2 paragraphs, the 3rd and 4th in the section called “Correled Luus”. The person I discuss in my post at #5 as telling me about the deal that was offered to potential investors is a son of the person discussed in that 3rd paragraph. I am familiar with both people in the 4th paragraph and negotiated heavily with the second person in that paragraph on a deal around 13 or 14 years ago. He has since died and I have dealt with his son, who is maybe 5 or more years younger then me, socially fairly recently. He now has the World Series rings and I understand he is now a part owner of the Yankees.