RIP George Steinbrenner

I think there's a whole generation of people for whom George Steinbrenner was George Costanza's eccentric boss first, Yankees owner second.

Either way, the guy was ruthless as an owner, but let's try to view this in the best possible light. He bought the Yankees for a mere $10m in the early 70s, and today they are worth more than $1.5b (twice the value of any other baseball team). When he bought the team, they were on their post-Mantle/Berra downhill swing, but within just a few years he had signed guys like Reggie Jackson and Catfish Hunter and the Yankees had won another World Series. They went on to win the Series 7 times during his reign. It's true that the guy basically went out and bought championships, but he did it because he wanted the Yankees to win. Similar to someone like Mark Cuban, he ran the team like a fan would. He took the huge revenue generated by the most prestigious franchise in all of sports, and he reinvested it in the team to make them great. He didn't line his pockets or build huge shopping complexes in the Bronx like some owners have done in similar situations. Instead he took the money and went out and paid the best players in the game to come and win in New York. As a baseball fan, I can only hope that whatever regimes succeed him in the years to come will treat the cornerstone of American sports, the New York Yankees, with the same honor and respect that Mr. Steinbrenner did.