A Tripartite Tribute to George Steinbrenner, by Patrick Walsh

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Patrick Walsh is a Princeton, New Jersey, based baseball writer, enthusiast, and historian, who's work has been published the world over in publications like the CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, BARROW STREET, and the HUDSON REVIEW, among others. He is also a life-long runner that has run dozens of marathons, including nine consecutive Boston Marathons dating back to 2002. His work will be featured here from time to time. You can find his work on his website, which is linked here. This work is reprinted with Patrick's kind permission.]


Catholic Church Considers Beatifying Steinbrenner

VATICAN, ROME: In somewhat unusual circumstances, the Catholic Church, under pressure from its dioceses in the greater New York area, is considering beatifying the late George Steinbrenner, deceased owner of the New York Yankees. Beatification is the first step in canonization, or the process of making a person a saint.

Father Federico Esposito, a Vatican spokesman, said, "It's unbelievable how many petitions and requests we've received from Yankees fans, especially from your states of New York, New Jersey, and Florida. All the supplicants say that Mr. Steinbrenner was such a great man for making their team a winner after spending so much time in Purgatory."

If Steinbrenner is beatified, he will be under the gun to be responsible for three verifiable miracles. Vatican spokesman Esposito has already stated that so-called miraculous comebacks, including wild-card runs and walk-off home runs will not be considered attributable to "The Boss."

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Great Moments in the Life of The Boss: #17, the Smoke-filled Room, 1985

Picture the scene: all 26 Major League owners as well as the two league presidents and the commissioner are sitting around a big table, cigars firmly lodged in their well-jowled jaws. The topic is collusion.

The owners, infuriated with having to pay market prices for talent since 1974, have decided to put an end to free agency. They're going to form a conspiracy whereby all parties agree that when a player becomes eligible for free-agency, no one will buy his services; said player will have to go back to his original team and settle for what they offer him. All the owners clamor for the good-old, parsimonious days of the reserve clause, when things were done properly and players were the property and chattel of the clubs that owned them. All the owners salivate at the idea of making Baseball a plantation system again. All but one, that is: George Steinbrenner....

Cardinals owner, August Busch: "Damn it, George, the Cardinals are the Yankees of the National League! We know what it means to win a World Series too, you know. But we can't let these players and that pinko labor lawyer Miller tell us what to do. You've got to go along!”

Steinbrenner: "Why should me and my Yankees suffer just because you guys are a bunch of skinflints?"

Brewers owner, Bud Selig: "George, I'm just a used cars salesman from Wisconsin, I don't have those deep pockets that you got."

Phillies owner, Bill Giles: "Yeah George, we can't all eat at Delmonico's with silver spoons and finger bowls. You think I like having to pass on the talent? My team's won one--just one--World Series in its entire history."

Steinbrenner: "How is that my fault, Bill? Heck, you just won the Series 5 years ago. You should be happy now. That's enough for a second-rate city like Philly."

[A tussle threatens.]

Commissioner Peter Ueberroth: "Order! Order I say!"

[Order is restored.]

Commissioner Peter Ueberroth: "Now gentlemen, this item on the agenda can't be passed by a simple majority. Each and every one of you must agree to refuse to buy anyone's free agent when that player becomes available. We all have to agree to it in order to break the backs of the labor union. That includes you, George, and your Yankees."

Steinbrenner: "Alright, I'll agree, but I do so under protest! Who ever heard of the most capitalist of organizations--Major League Baseball--refusing to follow the dictates of a free market?"

Commissioner Peter Ueberroth: "Be that as it may, we all agree. Now, don't breathe a word of what’s been said in this room to anyone. Ever!"

[Cigars are extinguished. Collusion begins.]

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George Steinbrenner: The Legacy That Might Have Been

Most of you are too young or too flush with recent Yankees triumphs to remember when George Steinbrenner was a villain and his team a losing concern. Well, it was a period from 1979 to 1995. A fairly long time to hold your breath, bugs. True, the Yankees went to the Series in 1981, but Mike Scioscia--ever the Yankee spoiler--and the Dodgers beat them in 6. Thereafter, the Yankees simply stunk for over a decade, despite all the king's horses and all the king's Benjamins.

The 1980s is the only decade the Yankees didn't win a World Series. Why? Quite simple: George Steinbrenner. Here's a man who took a championship franchise and methodically banjaxed it through impatience, meddling, and overbearing boorishness. Granted, it must've pained his spendthrift heart to go along with all the other owners in collusion from 1985 to 1987. But what about those other years that Steinbrenner let his wealth flow with reckless abandon, scooping up one high-priced mercenary after another? The answer: nada.

Only when the Yankees abandoned the quick-fix, throw-money-at-it approach and returned to fielding the core of the team from their farm system, i.e. Jeter, Rivera, Pettitte, Posada, and Bernie Williams, did they return to the World Series and craft a dynasty.

So after the teary-eyed encomiums and nostalgic tributes are over, maybe some Yankees fans will have an annoying question gnawing at them: how many titles could we have won?

Well, it's quite possible that the Yankees might've won 10, 12, maybe even 15 World Series in the same span as King George's reign if a different owner with the same money, less bombast, and more baseball sense had been running the Empire.

Or if The Boss had agreed to have his ego lobotomized.

PDW

TIM RUSSERT DEAD

Damn! First Jim McKay, and now Tim Russert has left us. Russert, host of Meet the Press since December 1991, died earlier today at the NBC News Washington Bureau while recording promos for this Sunday's edition of said program. No cause of death has been announced, but an autopsy is being conducted.

Newscasting and reporting is often thought of as a cutthroat business, but the tributes from the likes of George Stephanopoulos, Bob Schieffer, Charles Gibson, and Dan Rather (whose remarks, if I can find them, I'll repost later) were very moving. Even the politicians Russert grilled on MTP had nothing but kind words to say. Comments from the Clintons, Barack Obama, and John McCain showed the respect they held for Russert and his style of interviewing.

More information can be found at msnbc.com or on the cable network itself. Watching Keith Olbermann trying to maintain his composure during the special report makes you realize how special Tim Russert was.

Busy Sports News Day . . . and I Missed Most of It

I love umpiring softball, but sometimes it does have its disadvantages. Today was a very sports news day, and I'm just learning about most of it now. Big Brown finished dead last in the Belmont Stakes, forcing horse racing enthusiasts to wait yet another year for a Triple Crown winner. Ana Ivanovic won the women's singles championship at the French Open. In a matter of hours, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer will face off against each other for the third consecutive year. The most important sports news of the day, though, does not involve an athlete, team, or coach. It, unfortunately, is the news of Jim McKay's death.

For 37 years, McKay spanned the globe to bring us a constant variety of sport on ABC's Wide World of Sports. Though he may be best remembered as the host of WWS broadcasts and twelve Olympic broadcasts (including anchoring the coverage of the 1972 Munich hostage crisis), McKay is--arguably--the most underrated sports broadcaster in television history. Sportscasters, including yours truly, have much to learn from Jim McKay's work. He put the events he covered and their participants at center stage. McKay realized that his job was to present the events he covered to the viewer in the simplest way possible while making them seem as if nothing else in the world were important. Simply put, McKay sold the games and not himself. Too often we see a broadcaster try to become the star of the show while putting the athletics on the back burner. Jim McKay never did this, allowing the athletes and the games they played to shine. In the process, he earned the respect of his peers and colleagues as well as the people that tuned in to watch the programs he anchored.

McKay's life story is too deep for me to cover in this blog. If you can find a copy of his autobiography, The Real McKay: My Wide World of Sports, or catch the HBO documentary about his life and career--Jim McKay: My World in My Words--take a look at them, as they give deep insight not only into his career, but into his personal life and the events that shaped both. Both will give the reader/viewer an even deeper appreciation for how wonderful this man truly was. The world has lost a wonderful broadcaster in Jim McKay, but it lost an even better man in him. May God rest his soul, and may he cover the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat from the broadcast booth in the sky.

Here's a 1970's intro to Wide World of Sports.


This is a clip from 1991 from the 30th anniversary episode of WWS.

RANDOM CRAP SINCE THE LAST POST

Wow! It REALLY has been a long time since we've visited this page, hasn't it? Much has happened since September 25. The Saints are almost back at .500 (3-4 as of this post), the Bears are proving to be who we thought they were, O. J.'s back in trouble, Halloween has come and gone, and Fall Break has come to an end.



Speaking of Halloween, here is a picture of me in my Halloween get-up. I was inspired to dress as Robert Goulet as a tribute to the wonderful baritone that sadly and tragically passed away the day before. Turns out, I wasn't too sucessful in imitating the late-star of Camelot and the Naked Gun series. I was told I looked like Freddie Mercury, Burt Reynolds, and Super Mario. I'll let you be the judge.



Tell me. Who do you think I resemble with that horrible moustache? Robert Goulet (bottom left), Freddie Mercury (bottom center), or Burt Reynolds (bottom right), or none of the above.

More to come upon my return from Philadelphia tomorrow. For now, I shall leave you with this.

FORMER PRINCETON BASKETBALL COACH DEAD AT 84

Former Princeton men's basketball coach Willem "Butch" van Breda Kolff died in a Spokane, Washington nursing home yesterday at the age of 84. van Breda Kolff coached future Senator Bill Bradley during his tenure at Princeton, which included winning four Ivy League championships. His son Jan became a successful player and coach in his own right.

For more, see ESPN's article, or check out Princeton Basketball News , run by our friend, the one and only Jon Solomon.

WHEEL OF FORTUNE & JEOPARDY MARATHONS THIS WEEKEND ON GSN

For those of you that missed it, GSN will run marathons of WHEEL OF FORTUNE and JEOPARDY! this weekend in honor of the late Merv Griffin. WHEEL will run tomorrow from 9:00 A.M. CDT until 3:00 P.M. CDT. Episodes shown will include an early Chuck Woolery daytime program and Vanna White's first episode from December 13, 1982. The JEOPARDY! marathon will consist of episodes from 2002's Million Dollar Masters tournament.

This game show fan's dream has come true, but he'll be on a softball field during the marathons.