Steinbrenner: The Last Lion of Baseball [Hardcover]

Bill Madden (Author)

Book Description

Release date: May 11, 2010

No owner has changed the landscape of sports more than New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. From the moment he bought the team in 1973 for $10 million, Steinbrenner's monomaniacal pursuit was to restore the most fabled franchise in baseball history to its former glory. Today the New York Yankees are worth more than $1 billion and are once again world champions.

Award-winning sportswriter Bill Madden traces Steinbrenner from his early days in Cleveland through his years as a shipping magnate, a Nixon fund-raiser, and a champion horse breeder to the fateful moment when he bought the Yankees, even though his father disparaged George's desire to own a professional sports team as a "hobby." Over the next four decades, Steinbrenner's tumultuous reign included his epic battles with Billy Martin, Reggie Jackson, Dave Winfield, even beloved Yankee captain Derek Jeter. His ruthless and free-spending tactics made him a lightning rod for controversy but they also paid off: Steinbrenner's Yankees have won seven championships and remain the gold standard in all sports. In the last few years, with his health declining, the Boss ceded control of the team to his sons, but not before lording over the team's historic transition from the House That Ruth Built to the House That George Built.

Throughout his three decades of covering the Yankees, Bill Madden has cultivated hundreds of sources at every level in the organization, from the many managers and front-office personnel Steinbrenner has fired to the bat boys who are ever present in the locker room. All of them have colorful stories about the man with whom they have enjoyed a love-hate relationship, but it is the Boss himself whose voice rises above the rest. And when Steinbrenner decided to give his final print interview, he spoke to Madden to set the record straight on his extraordinary life and career.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

For longtime baseball fans, this biography of the mercurial owner of the New York Yankees is as painful to read as it is informative. It's hard to relive the contentious and unending hirings and firings of countless players and managers since 1972, when Steinbrenner bought the team from CBS; the owner's run-ins with authorities, from his troubles over contributions to President Richard Nixon's reelection to his efforts to find dirt on the foundation of his star player Dave Winfield; and the impulsiveness, bullying, anger, and underhandedness that have marked Steinbrenner's ownership style. Madden gives less attention than expected to Steinbrenner's career as ship owner and, more surprisingly, to the championship seasons of the last 13 years, though the owner has been less visible in recent years. But he offers an insider's look at how Steinbrenner has run his team, even finding unexpected—certainly underpublicized—humanity in his subject. --Alan Moores

Review

“Madden provides a definitive and captivating biography of ‘The Boss.’” (Kirkus Reviews )

“Definitive, indispensible.... A vivid and entertaining portrait.” (Sports Illustrated )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 480 pages
• Publisher: Harper; First Edition edition (May 11, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061690317
• ISBN-13: 978-0061690310
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (67 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #465,210 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

For more than 30 years Bill Madden has covered the Yankees and Major League Baseball for the New York Daily News. The author of several books about the Yankees, Madden is also the 2010 recipient of the Baseball Hall of Fame's J.G. Taylor Spink Award. He lives in New Jersey.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Workman-like piece of sports journalism June 3, 2010

By tikcuf

Format:Hardcover

Reading this book is like driving by a 10 car pile-up: horrifying, but fascinating nonetheless.

George Steinbrenner in his professional life has, on occasion, exhibited rage, narcissism, and greed. He has been accused of being a coward and a bully. He could also be creative, persuasive, sentimental, and spectacularly generous, and is indisputably one of the most financially successful sports businessmen in history. Thus, his biography - told straight up - makes for compelling reading. And this is what is delivered by the author, Bill Madden, an award-winning sportswriter who covered the NY Yankees beat for decades during the George Steinbrenner era.

This book is about what you would expect from a respected, veteran sportwriter, such as Madden: an excellent piece of reportage and sports journalism. Steinbrenner's story is fascinating stuff, even without analysis or embellishment (and, thus, the book's shortcoming). While a fascinating read, there is virtually no analysis of Mr. Steinbrenner's behavior or mental status, nor of his business genius, no explicit analysis of whether the greatness of the Yankees under his ownership occurred because of, or despite him.

Highly recommended.

29 of 38 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars George, Billie, Reggie -- It's Got It ALL May 11, 2010

By frankbif

Format:Hardcover

If you're a New York Yankee fans, a NY sports fan, a baseball fan, a sports fan in general, or just want to read the humorous and crazy happenings of the New York Yankees under George M. Steinbrenner, this book is a must read. In fact, when you consider the impact today in sports on ticket prices, free agency and player movements, and cable TV and network contracts, the impact that the Yankees and Steinbrenner have had is not to be underestimated.

Bill Madden is the New York Daily News longtime Yankees beat writer and MLB columnist since the 1970's. Madden was there for the "Bronx Zoo" years of the 1970's when contract jealousies, fights, backstabbing, and personal hatred seemed to go hand-in-hand with the winning of those late-1970's Yankee teams. Madden continues into the 1980's, when despite a World Series appearance in 1981 and the signing of the biggest free agent of the decade (Dave Winfield) and one of the all-time Yankee greats in Don Mattingly, the decade was barren for the team. Not until the 1990's (more below) would things turn around.

Madden gives you all the details: how Steinbrenner and a consortium bought the team for $10 million (with George putting up less than $200,000); the crazy antics involving Steinbrenner, Billy Martin, and Reggie Jackson; the plunge into free-agency with Catfish Hunter and later Don Gullet which revolutionized baseball; the seedy antics involving the undermining of his managers, GM's, and team presidents; the Howie Spira episode which got George suspended by Fay Vincent; and how the expulsion from baseball in the 1990's ironically led to the Yankees rebirth. It's all there and a whole lot more.

It is ironic that Steinbrenner has had such phenomenal success with the Yankees, but mediocre success with his other businesses like shipbuilding and horses. Anyone who remained in George's good graces - client or ballplayer - did well by him. For instance, when the Yankees signed their historic 12-year, $500 million contract with MSG Network, it was considered a disaster for MSG. Midway through the deal, it was such a lucrative goldmine for MSG that the Yankees eventually created their own YES Network whose value today might be worth more than the Yankees and the new stadium combined.

Madden is sympathetic to Steinbrenner and his personal like and respect for the man clearly comes through. That does NOT mean that he is not fair or objective, he certainly is. Steinbrenner's many good deeds toward people, even those who he fired, ripped, or treated badly are well-documented here (and there are probably numerous other cases and charities that Madden did not include).

The gradual dissolution of the Joe Torre-Steinbrenner relationship, after the spectacular dynasty of 1996-2003, is also detailed at length. It's easy to see why the current regime, led by sons Hal and Hank, felt no attachment towards keeping Torre after 2007. Steinbrenner's personal side is also explored, along with the humorous recountings of his "Saturday Night Live" hosting and "Seinfeld" appearances (actually, Larry David since George's actual appearance got left on the cutting floor).

Bottom Line: A great read through 4 decades of Yankee and Steinbrenner history, plenty of baseball talk, lots of additional color and information on incidents you heard about but never knew the full story about, and lots of other funny happenings and discussions and behind-the-scenes player trade proposals and firings and hirings that never happened or did happen or which Steinbrenner wanted to happen or didn't want to happen. It's all there and then some. Yankee fans and Yankee haters will both enjoy it.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent and Fair Portrayal of a Difficult Personality May 8, 2011

By CJA VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Madden does an excellent job of investigative journalism in digging out Gabe Paul's secret audiotaped diary and in interviewing scores of people who worked with Steinbrenner. He provides a clear, unbiased narrative. This is not the official Steinbrenner biography, and Madden goes out of his way to be fair.

In some ways, Steinbrenner comes off better than expected. He was a very shrewd businessmen, as shown by his knack for making the exactly right strategic decisions in his shipping business, his acquisition of the Yankees (for only $160,000 of his own cash and for $10 million in all), his embrace of free agency, and his seizure of fantastic TV money via the creation of his own YES network. And he had a brutal upbringing, which will prompt some empathy on the part of the reader.

On the other hand, the tremendous power he gained by virtue of his excellent strategic decisionmaking freed him up to let loose all of his personal indiosyncracies and demons. He's a sentimental man. Some of that is good -- the stories of his charity are legion. But there is a flip side to sentimentality -- the need to give to get; a guilty conscience. One example: he feels bad about cutting Stottlemyre before what was to be his comeback season. This saved the team some money. So Steinbrenner promises to pay Stottlemyre to do rehab, which eases Steinbrenner's guilty conscience. But he never delivers on the promise despite Stottlemyre's reliance, and Stottlemyre is too proud to ask him to deliver. Not until Torre hires Stottlemyre as pitching coach in 1996 does an irate Stottlemyre demand compensation as part of the deal. The tyrant in Stottlemyre demands constant fawning and acknowledgement and follow up from the charitable recipients -- hardly a Christian sentiment.

Steinbrenner frequently comes off as the insane babbling idiot so brilliantly paraodied in Seinfeld. He actually blames two separate General Managers for cancelling games for rainouts -- insisting (while in Cleveland) that it was not raining in New York. His baseball moves are idiotic -- he was saved from dumping Rod Guidry for instance, and he throws away money on aging stars and those who suck up to him. He was the one responsible for picking Sheffield over Guerrero. Sheffield proved to be a tremendous clutch hitter, but Vlad was the superior player and much younger. He does things like overrule his own doctor's advice not to sign a White Sox pitcher (Burns) because of a deteriorated hip. Steinbrenner signs him anyway and Burns never pitched a regular season game.

On the legal front, Steinbrenner's election campaign fraud was gross (i.e., paying employees a fictitious bonus that was then used as to give a campaign contribution in the employee's name) and Steinbrenner ignored edicts against him controlling the team during his suspensions. On the other hand, Madden does an excellent job of portraying Fay Vincent's unfairness in his conduct of the investigation of the Spira scandal that led to Steinbrenner's second suspension. The suspension should have never happened, and Fay Vincent comes off as a bit of a petty tyrant, despite his generally good reputation in the press. In retrospect, MLB was right to get rid of him in favor of Selig.

Madden does not attempt to offer much analysis of Steinbrenner's character and his significance, which is unfortunate. For instance, the thing that bothers me as I read this narrative is how much worse Steinbrenner gets as he ages. There is less and less constraint on his freedom of behavior, and he really lets loose with some very bizarre behavior. Where are his friends in all this? Doesn't someone owe it to him to sit him down and confront him? He's so pathological that at times he resembles an out-of-control alcoholic whom everyone enables. Those close to Steinbrenner are rewarded and seem to be too fearful to attempt to correct him. They'd just as soon have Steinbrenner be Steinbrenner. Well, this kind of thing ends badly -- as Howard Hughes found out when his hangers-on grew to like the idea of him being a recluse so much that they resisted any effort by him to break out of it.

In any event, by the later Torre years, Steinbrenner had a series of strokes that disabled him. At that point, he's no longer the out-of-control bully, but a tragic and weakened figure.

On the whole, very interesting and well done.