RIP

George Steinbrenner was more than a baseball team owner, he was a winner. He put a winning team on the field and created a global brand with the Yankees. Its grown so powerful and recognizable that it not only represents a team but also the city and the state of New York. If you didn’t know any better you may think the classic NY was a clothing label.

His teams commanded so much respect among the public that people seemed to forget they lost in 2001 to the D’Backs and 2003 to the Marlins. His late 90’s to early 2000’s teams were so succesful you could hear people everywhere saying “The Yankees always win”. Before last years World Series win I would hear that even though they hadn’t won it all since the 2000 World Series!

George bought the team in 1973 for around 8 Million and now Forbes estimates them to be worth 1.6 Billion! That’s a sound investment if I’ve ever seen one. Still to Steinbrenner the only thing that mattered was winning. He would invest all the profits from the Yankees back into the team. He was so aggressive in pursuing top free agents that it can be argued that he’s responsible for swinging the balance of power from the National League to the American League.

If teams wanted to compete with the Yankees they had better spend money or hire the best and brightest baseball minds to build a farm system. Either way if you wanted to win you were going to have to build a team to beat the Yankees.

RIP George. The game of baseball is better for your contributions.