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Andy Pollin Contact Andy |
In the end, the game comes down to one thing: man against man. May the best man win. ~ Sam Huff |
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Hopefully We Haven't Just Seen It
Sep 01, 2010 -- 10:28amA couple of weeks ago, the hope was that the only way Stephen Strasburg and Tommy John's names would be linked is career wins. John flirted with 300 and may even get consideration down the line for the Hall of Fame. Now they go arm and arm so to speak. Strasburg, the pitcher who was handled like fine china since his signing just over a year ago, is having the ligament surgery that was pioneered on John's pitching arm more than 35 years ago. The Nationals thought they had taken every precaution to prevent this. Obviously something was missed.
Throwing a baseball 100-miles-an-hour is a God-given gift. You can build arm strength, but it only takes you so far. So with all the modern technology, knowledge gained over time about preventing injuries and the built-in talent Strasburg has, could the phenom been allowed to blow out his arm? Its baffling and frustrating. And what makes it even worse, Strasburg pitched enough this year to show you he is in fact that good. Or maybe was.
The Nationals keep throwing numbers at us about the success rate of the Tommy John surgery. How pitchers often come back and pitch better after having it. Jordan Zimmerman, fresh off the surgery, went six innings, struck out nine and gave up only one hit over six in a game at Florida this week. But that's no guarantee that Strasburg will have similiar results. Plus let's see how Zimmerman performs over the long haul.
Speaking of long haul. We've waited a long time to get excited about baseball and a pitching phenom in this town. Let's hope we still get to see it and haven't just seen it.
The Kid
Was interested to learn that 22-year-old Gregg (no relation to Gregg with two g's Williams) Sussman has won a contest at WFAN in New York to host a weekly show. He's from the New York area, but just graduated from the University of Maryland where he worked at the campus radio station. Seems he beat out several thousand contestants for the job.
Hearing about this took me back to the days when I was among the original staffers at WFAN, which became the nation's first all-sports radio station on July 1, 1987. Although I wasn't the youngest member of the on-air staff, I was among the youngest at 28. Still, I had been working in radio for nearly a decade. In those days, nobody was getting on the air - especially in New York - without extensive experience.
John Chanin, a long-time ABC radio veteran, assembled the original staff. Now over the last 23 years we have come to learn that sports passions are local and the best hosts are generally natives of the area they broadcast in. Mike Francesa and Chris "Mad Dog" Russo became the gold standard for sports radio during the 19 years they did the Mike and the Mad Dog show on WFAN during the afternoon drive hours. Both grew up in New York. But without the value of that kind of hindsight, Chanin figured that New York being the number one market in the country, would respond best to the top national guys in the sports business.
His orginal lineup included Greg Gumbel, who had just left ESPN to work for the Madison Square Garden Network, ABC veteran Jim Lampley and Pete Franklin, who was the sports talk kingpin of Cleveland. Francesa, who was working as researcher at CBS, tried to get in the door but was told they were looking for national names. Mike managed to hook on as part of a Saturday college football show and make his way up the chain, but it took a couple of years to do it.
As the years have gone by and the sports radio business has exploded with hundreds of stations all over the country, Chanin's idea of big and national has gone by the wayside. The national stuff is handled in off hours by 24-hour networks like ESPN, Fox and Sporting News Radio. Just about everybody on our air staff at ESPN 980 grew up here. Tony Kornheiser and Thom Loverro are both New Yorkers, but spent decades covering the local sports scene for the daily newspapers in town.
Anyway, it tells something about how long the sports radio business has been around when a kid who was born after the birth of WFAN, can get on the air right out of school. Young and local beats old and national every time.
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Eighteen is too Many
Aug 26, 2010 -- 11:22amAfter we finish the 16-game NFL season this year and whatever is left of the 2011 season following the expected lockout, you can bank on an 18-game schedule in 2012. There is, as Commissioner Roger Goodell says, "overwhelming support for the concept" from the owners. Translation: done deal.
While we can all agree that four preseason games is too many, where is the line on what is too many regular season games? At what point does the Golden Goose get overcooked? One of the best things about the NFL season is that every single game means something. And sometimes when you seem out of it, you can get right back in. We've seen two Redskin teams in the last five years go from 5-6 and 5-7 to make the playoffs. Would an 18-game season increase or decrease the chances of something like that happening again? Hard to say.
How about the 2008 Redskins who started off 6-2. It was bad enough watching them go 2-6 in the second half. Can you imagine having to endure a 2-8 finish? When a team is good, you're anxious for them to get going in the playoffs. When a team is really bad, you want the season over as quickly as possible. Four and 12 was bad enough, anybody for 4-14 last year?
When the NFL last expanded the regular season schedule to 16 games in 1978, it made total sense. Until then, teams played six preseason games. In 1975, the Redskins played seven of them including the Hall of Fame game on August 2nd. The last preseason game was played on September 12th. That's a month and a half of games - seven of them - half the number of the entire regular season. It was a joke. Especially since coach George Allen relied on veterans and rarely had many rookies make his roster. Seven meaningless games to decide a roster that he pretty much had in his mind going in to training camp.
Now, however, the salary cap and the need to build young talent forces you to find new bodies every year. Is two preseason games enough to do it? And if you go with a veteran roster, will they have enough gas left at the end of the season. While Allen was elected to the Hall of Fame off his success with the Rams and Redskins, he won only two playoff games in his entire career. The teams he coached started better than they finished. His last NFL season was the last year that the league played 14 games. How would he have coped with 16 games, much less 18?
Finally, how long can the NFL keep the fire going through the fall and winter calendar? The Super Bowl has already bled in to February. Is March out of the question? The year I was born, the Redskins played a 12-game schedule that started two days before the start of October and ended nearly two weeks before Christmas. Teams that go all the way in an 18-game schedule would nearly double that time frame.
I've raised a number of questions which boil down to this one: how much is too much?
School Daze
I drove my son Jeremy back to college at Indiana University this week. The experience was quite different from when I took him there for his freshman year a year ago. He was excited rather than uneasy. The fraternity (ZBT) that he'd pledged as a freshman would be his new home.
Because I dived in to my radio career so early, I never had the fraternity experience. And I only lived in a dormitory for a year. So I wasn't really prepared for the living arrangement that he's now settling in to. It's an arrangement which he says is, "fine Dad!"
Although he mentioned that he would be living with three other roommates, I figured on a suite of some sort. No! Inside the fraternity house (which granted is a large house) is a room that would be considered a good size for two. That's where Jeremy will spend at least his first semester with three other 19-year-olds with equally questionable hygenic habits. Jeremy is a great kid, but neatness is not his middle name. If the other three guys are in his league, I can only imagine what that place will look like by Halloween.
Many of us who have reached middle age long for the college years. But if you want a cure for the longing, check out Jeremy Pollin's room at the ZBT house. Good luck buddy.
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It's Just Preseason, But...
Aug 18, 2010 -- 11:16amLet's face it, the preseason in the NFL is crap. Commissioner Roger Goodell has pretty much admitted it in his push for an 18-game regular season. When that happens, the preseason will be cut from four games to two. There's no need for four preseason games. So what do we read in to a 42-point output in the opener against Buffalo?
Hard to say. NFL coaches (outside of the Steve Spurrier of course who thought they were important and will always have Osaka) don't try to win exhibition games. Former Oilers and Saints coach Bum Phillips used to say, "If they wanted us to win them, they'd count em." Joe Gibbs never wanted to show anything in the preseason and had no problem losing these games. In fact Gibbs won his first Super Bowl after an 0-4 preseason. And Mike Shanahan, with two Lombardi trophies of his own, knows he doesn't need to win these games.
That said, I believe it was important to Shanahan for the Redskins to score big last weekend. Just as President Jimmy Carter told the nation 30 years ago that we faced "a crisis of confidence," Shanahan stepped in to a situation in need of a confidence boost. In case you've blocked out the last three games of last season from your memory, the Jim Zorn offense was a joke. In national tv games against the Giants and Cowboys at home, they were beaten by a combined score of 62-12. The Dallas game was an offensive embarassment. Just 43 yards rushing. The Skins did score 20 in the season finale, but lost to a San Diego team that was resting all of its regulars for the playoffs.
So just as Shanahan knew he had to stare down and show Albert Haynesworth who's boss, he knew everybody was in need of a "feel good." And while a blowout of a bad Buffalo team in a preseason opener doesn't clean up all the toxic waste from the Zorn days, it is a shot in the arm. Not saying that Shanahan pulled out all the stops, but a big offensive night may have just what the new ball coach ordered. But unlike the "Ol Ball Coach", he won't hang his hat on it.
Bobby Thomson
The news conferences I've attended in my 30-plus years in radio number well into the hundreds, maybe even a thousand. But I've never been to one like this. It took place at Madison Square Garden in New York nearly 20 years ago.
The occassion was to mark the 40th anniversary of the "Shot Heard Round the World." So this would have been October 3, 1991 with both home run hitter Bobby Thomson and home run victim Ralph Branca in attendance. By this time the Giant hero and the Dodger goat had not only become friends, but money-making partners. The advent of shopping channels like QVC allowed them to make some nice money selling autographed baseballs.
Now at most news conferences, the only thing you're handed is a packet of information. But at this one, I received a new baseball and a plastic case for it. Along with the other reporters in attendance, I was invited to ask Thomson and Branca for autographs on the ball. I made sure to get each signature in different color ink.
Twenty years later and days after the death of Bobby Thomson, that is one of the few items of sports memorabilia that I cherish.
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Camp Aint What it Used to Be
Aug 04, 2010 -- 11:04am In a Wall Street Journal story this week about the over-hyping of training camp, Patriots coach Bill Belichick mentioned that camp is nothing like it was when he first came in to the NFL in 1975. That year Belichick said the season didn't start until September 21st, but camp opened July 5th. Two and a half months of camp! Now its only three weeks.
Can you imagine how tedious it would have been 35 years ago to obsess over whether or not Dez Bryant was willing to carry shoulder pads for veterans for two and a half months? Of course ESPN had yet to be invented, not to mention blogs and tweets. So maybe it was more along the lines of the question; if a tree falls in the forrest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
Come to think of it, there may have actually been more to report, but fewer reporters were there to report it. Back in the day, the Redskins held training camp in Carlisle at Dickinson College. It had adequate dining facilities and enough dorm rooms to put up all the players. And in those days, they needed a lot of players. Not only was camp endless, they played six exhibition games. You run through quite a few bodies when you practice that much and play that many games.
So add it up. Long camp, huge roster, grown men cooped up in dorm rooms built for 18 and 19-year-old kids. If you wanted to find stories, you could find them. Problem was, the only reporters were generally beat guys from the newspapers who were interested in keeping up good relationships with players. Certainly things went on that were noticed, but unreported.
Breaking curfew was the mischief of the day. Sonny Jurgensen remembers sneaking out of camp during the mid-60's with coach Otto Graham's son who was working as a training camp assistant. That way if they got caught, the punishment wouldn't be severe. Sonny and the Skins didn't have much respect for the coach anyway. Behind his back they called him "Toot", Otto inside out.
Now you might ask yourself, why would they need so much training camp time if the season was only 14 games? Training camp served to get the players in to shape. Not just football shape, in shape. Mini camps weren't invented until the 70's and only a few knew anything about conditioning. Most linemen didn't even lift weights. Baltimore Colts Hall of Famer Artie Donovan, lifting a can of Schlitz, once said to me, "this is the heaviest thing I ever lifted between football seasons."
So here we are, a decade in to the 21st century, and players are not only expected to be in shape, but top shape before they can even take the field. Albert Haynesworth's struggle to pass a conditioning test may be more about his power struggle with coach Mike Shanahan, but it is a test that you have to be in football shape to pass. Years ago nobody would have passed it on the first day of camp.
Time has passed, time will pass, but will Albert?
Cheez Doodles
Next time you're sitting on the couch, watching the game and licking the orange schmutz from the Cheez Doodles off your fingers, remember the name Morrie Yohai. He created the crunch snack. I can't tell you how much of the product he ate, but Morrie Yohai lived to be 90. He died last week at his home in New York. Rest in peace snack genius. Your creation is finger-licking good.
There's a Couch in My Kitchen
I recently moved my daughter Samantha in to the Woodley Park apartment that she will live in while she attends American University law school. With the help of my son, we were able to get her belongings on a U-Haul truck and get everything moved in to the apartment without any trouble. Well, almost everything.
The last item was a sleeper couch. We had removed the pillows and mattress to lower the weight. There was no problem getting it from the truck to the loading dock to the elevator. Then came the front door of the apartment.
Not being experienced movers, we struggled with the tight fit. Finally after twisting and turning, we came up with the brilliant idea of going directly in to the small kitchen directly in front of the front door. That would have been okay, except for the way that a sleeper couch functions. The spring mechanism that folds out the mattress is very difficult to control. Naturally it sprung out when the couch was placed on it's side, wedging it inside the small space.
Fortunately her roomate was bringing movers the next day when she planned to move in her stuff. With their help, I was able to tie up the spring mechanism and move the couch in to the living room.
But for 24 hours, Samantha was able to say when asked about her new apartement, "It's great, except there's a couch in my kitchen!"
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Twenty Years of Preseason Drama
Jul 21, 2010 -- 12:03pmWhile what happens to Albert Haynesworth promises to provide plenty of training-camp drama, there always seems to be a summertime something when it comes to Washington D.C.'s favorite football team. In fact every year seems to bring some time of distraction. Here are the highlights from the last 20.
1990 - Coming off a second-straight season of missing the playoffs, rumors had begun that Coach Joe Gibbs would retire at the end of the season. Gibbs addressed the situation by saying he had been re-engergized by a family ski vacation and that, "They'll have to usher me out. I still feel good about what I'm doing." It didn't stop NBC's Will McDonough from reporting on the pregame show before the season opener that Gibbs was planning to quit. This time Gibbs gave it a more emphatic, "I plan to be here forever."
1991 - Mark Rypien was coming off his second full season as the starting quarterback and thought he had earned a contract extension with a sizable raise. The front office still had it's doubts about the former sixth-round draft pick and told him to prove his worth by playing out the last year of his deal. Since free agency had not yet entered the NFL, the Skins didn't fear losing him. In Ryp's "show me" season, he showed them a Super Bowl MVP.
1992 - Even with the incredible success of 1991, Rypien became a lengthy training-camp holdout. He even flirted with Bruce McNall's Toronto Argonauts in the CFL. He finally reached a deal, but showed up late and out of shape. After 28 touchdown passes and 11 interceptions in '91, Rypien's numbers dropped to 13 and 17 as the Redskins barely made the playoffs.
1993 - After the shocking retirement of Joe Gibbs in March, new coach Richie Petitbon promised, "business as usual." But it wasn't long before business started to get ugly. Art Monk skipped mini camp in a bitter contract dispute, before finally agreeing to a one-year deal. Wilbur Marshall, a thorn in Petitbon's side, was sent to Houston in a deal that was bungled by general manager Charley Casserly. After improperly agreeing to pay part of Marshall's salary, Commissioner Paul Tagliabue stepped in an penalized the Redskins in compensation. Instead of a first and fifth rounder, the compensation was lowered to third and fifth round picks. Things really began to unravel when star left tackle Jim Lachey tore his ACL in the first preseason game and was out for the year.
1994 - After an offseason house cleaning that included Petitbon and most of the veterans from the Super Bowl years, Norv Turner took over wearing two rings from his work as an offensive coordinator in Dallas. His first draft was what he hoped would be his new Troy Aikman, Heath Shuler. Slow on the uptake, the last thing Shuler could afford to do was to miss training camp. He did. After missing two weeks of camp, Shuler finally signed a $19.25 million dollar deal on August 2nd. It was the richest rookie contract in NFL history for a guy who turned out to be one of the biggest busts in league history.
1995 - Missing clutch field goals and extra points during the 3-13 rebuilding season of 1994, Chip Lomiller was on shaky ground heading into camp. He lasted until August 8th when Turner said, "I had as much patience as I could," and dumped Lomiller for former Dallas veteran Eddie Murray. First round pick Michael Westbrook didn't show up until a week later, ending his 26-day holdout to sign a 7-year, $18 million dollar deal.
1996 - Throwing for only 13 touchdowns and 19 interceptions in his first two years in the NFL, it was becoming clear that Shuler was a bust. However as a face saver for taking him with the third overall pick, Turner said there would be a quarterback competition in camp between Shuler and Gus Frerotte for the starting job. By watching them play in the first three presesason games, it was clear that there was no competition. Gus was clearly better and was named the starter on August 19th. Shuler would appear for only one more snap as a Redskin. He was booed as he took the field before fumbling a handoff on a reverse to Westbrook near the goal line.
1997 - This was the most dramatic off all Redskin preseasons. Owner Jack Kent Cooke had died in April and by late July, news broke that son John may not be able to keep the team due to the fact that most of his father's estate went to a charitable foundation. This was also the year that Westbrook attacked Stephen Davis with Channel 9 cameras rolling. Westbrook was fined, but not suspended. Turner called the incident, "unfortunate." Plus there was the stalemate with tackle Sean Gilbert, who said that "God" had told him to hold out for $5 million a year. Gilbert sat out the entire season.
1998 - Fractures in the relationship between Casserly and Turner were starting to show. Casserly said that he expected this to be a playoff team with the addition of NFC defensive player of the year Dana Stubblefield in free agency and "Big Daddy" Wilkinson by trade. Turner, even after barely missing the playoffs the previous two years, refused to be as bold. Frerotte, who had banged his head in to the wall and broken his hip late in the previous season, was starting to show he wasn't the answer. Gus was benched in the opener as the Skins lost their first seven. Cooke, trying to save his team, didn't want to deal with dumping Norv and watched him finish strong with wins in six of the last nine games.
1999 - The arrival of new owner Dan Snyder brought drama of its own with Snyder promising quote, "active control" and moving in to an office at Redskins Park. In late July, Casserly and Turner had reached the point where they couldn't be in the same room together and Casserly was shoved out the door. Vinny Cerrato is named Director of Player Personnel. Snyder also indicates that Turner will have to show him before determining his future beyond 1999.
2000 - The circus is in town. Snyder creates controversy by charging fans to attend training camp at Redskins Park. High-priced free agents Bruce Smith, Deion Sanders and Jeff George are seen as the trio who will push the Skins from defending NFC East champs to Super Bowl contenders. To add even more splash, Stephen Davis is signed to a $90 million dollar deal.
2001 - The summer of Marty. New Sheriff Marty Schottenheimer knows he needs to make changes. "Dannyworld" is a memory as Marty moves training camp back to Carlisle. Deion, who says he can't trust Marty as far as he can throw him, retires while managing to keep his $7.5 million dollar bonus. Darrell Green, feeling pressure from the new coach, announces he's retiring, but not before playing the full season.
2002 - Steve Spurrier arrives for his first day of training camp at Carlisle and asks the question, "Why are we here? I think we should be at Redskins Park." Spurrier also pleases veterans like Bruce Smith by holding easy practices with the explaination, "Soldiers don't train with live bullets." After going in to the final preseason game with Osaka star Danny Wuerffel as his starter, the Old Ball Coach announces after the game that he's decided to shuffle the deck and will start Shane Matthews in the opener.
2003 - Loaded up with free agents, several from the Jets, Spurrier begins his second and last Redskin training camp. He realizes that Patrick Ramsey is his best option at quarterback, but refuses to give up on the notion that his former Heisman-winner at Florida, Danny Wuerfful can make his "fun and gun" offense work. Snyder doesn't see it that way and takes the ball out of Spurrier's hand by releasing Wuerfful in the final cuts. Asked why he was left with only Ramsey and Rob Johnson as quarterbacks heading in to the season, Spurrier said he didn't have an answer.
2004 - Drama was pushed aside for a year as the days of wine and roses appeared to have returned. Joe Gibbs was back and all seemed right with the world. Even when tackle Jon Jansen tore his achillies in the preseason opener, there seemed to be little concern. Gibbs would get it done. The only drama question appeared to be, how long will it take to put another Lombardi trophy in the glass case at Redskins Park.
2005 - Safety Sean Taylor's season was in jeapordy. Charged by Miami police with aggrivated assualt with a firearm, Taylor was facing serious jail time. The case was settled in a plea deal after the season. Also, Patrick Ramsey, who Gibbs declared his new starter with three games to go in the '04 season was clearly being outplayed by Mark Brunell. At the first sign of trouble in the opener, Ramsey was sent back to the bench and Brunell was back.
2006 - Clinton Portis dislocates his shoulder in the first preaseason game making a tackle after an interception. He openly questions the coaching staff for even having him in the game for such a meaningless contest. Portis later declars himself out for the opener only to have that vetoed by Gibbs. His season ends early and the Skins finish 5-11.
2007 - Third string, but amazingly still on the roster, Mark Brunell is a Redskin. But the Jason Campbell era has finally begun. Gibbs had said he would stay, "as long as it takes," but at this point some were wondering if they even wanted him to stay. The regular season provided the ultimate drama with the murder of Taylor followed by the December spring to the playoffs with Todd Collins replacing the injured Campbell.
2008 - The Jim Zorn era begins with the new coach recognizing the teams' colors of maroon, black and - with the help of Snyder - yellow. Phillip Daniels tears his ACL on the first day of camp and Vinny Cerratto, now the Vice President of Football Operations and soon-to-be talk show host trades 2nd and 5th round picks to Miami for Jason Taylor.
2009 - Zorn, having lost six of his last eight games the year before, claims he's learned from his experience and is well prepared for his second season on the job. It soon becomes apparent that he isn't prepared, never was prepared and never will be. After the seventh game, he's replaced as a play caller by a former bingo caller from the senior citizens home and spends the next two and a half months as a lame duck.
2010 - Besides Haynesworth and the first camp under Mike Shananhan, who knows? But we do know, it will be something.
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He Got Game. Will He Keep it?
Jul 13, 2010 -- 11:15amNow that the LeBron-Wade-Bosh experiment is off an running in Miami, the number one question is: Can LeBron and/or Wade adjust his game to fit the talents of the other superstar? The number two question is: Has something like this ever happened before?
We'll have to wait and see on the first one. On the second one, there may be a more recent example, but the one that comes to mind is Earl Monroe moving from the Baltimore Bullets to the New York Knicks. He's got a ring, but we missed out on seeing the beauty of one of the prettiest games in NBA history in the second half of Earl "The Pearl" Monroe's career. He gave it up to fit in with the equally talented Walt Frazier.
Monroe has been the second pick of the 1967 draft by the Baltimore Bullets. A playground legend from the streets of Philadelphia, where his nickname was "Jesus", Monroe went on to star at Winston Salem State, averaging 41 points a game as a senior. He was an instant sensation, averaging 24 points a game over his first three years with a spin move that has never been duplicated. In 1968, the Bullets added Wes Unseld and became a contender. With the two stars plus Jack Marin, Gus Johnson and Kevin Loughery, the Bullets made the NBA finals in 1971 and were swept by the Milwaukee Bucks.
In the offseason, Monroe started making noise about his contract while threatening to jump to the Indiana Pacers of the ABA. When he stopped showing up for games early in the 71-72 season, the Bullets were forced to make a move. On November 10, 1971 the unthinkable happened. Monroe was shipped to the Knicks for journeymen Mike Riordan and Dave Stallworth and cash. Monroe and Frazier would form the best backcourt in the league, bar none.
Teaming that duo with the nucleus of the team that had won the NBA title two years earlier made the Knicks the prohibitive favorite, but they lost to the Lakers in the finals to give the great Jerry West his only championship. To be fair, that Lakers team was awesome. They won 33-straight regular season games and their total of 69 wins stood as the record until the Michael Jordan Bulls broke it in 1996.
Finally it all clicked during the 72-73 season and the Knicks beat the Lakers for the title in what would turn out to be Wilt Chamberlain's swan song. However, Monroe who had to change his number from 10 to 15 to accomodate Frazier, also had to change his numbers. Frazier scored 21 a game, while "The Pearl" played sidekick with 15.5 a game. He was finally an NBA champion, but he paid a price for it - a price that he said he regretted years later. Monroe to this day says leaving Baltimore was a mistake.
If you haven't seen the Spike Lee film, "He Got Game", there's a scene that says it all about Earl Monroe. Denzel Washington playing Jake Shuttlesworth, explains to his son played by Ray Allen, how he got the name, Jesus. He tells him it was Monroe's playground nickname that he carried with him to Winston Salem State and the Bullets. And before, as Denzel says, "they put shackles on his game with the New York Knicks." Before that, Monroe was, as Denzel says, "the truth."
Earl Monroe left the Bullets nearly 40 year ago. He got his ring in 1973 and the franchise got one five years later. But each was never the same again. We'll see what happens with LeBron and Wade.
George Steinbrenner
Stop for a second and think how many "headline" owners we've had over the years in sports. Back in the day, Connie Mack both owned and managed the Philadelphia Athletics. He did it for about 50 years. Here in this town, we had Jack Kent Cooke, who hoisted three Super Bowl trophies over a nine-year period. His personality was as big as his success level. But for the most part, the owner doesn't overshadow the team.
Not the case with George Steinbrenner, born appropriately, on the 4th of July. When Steinbrenner bought the Yankees from CBS in 1973 they were terrible. In fact CBS paid $13 million for the team, Steinbrenner paid $10 million. He declared he would be a "hands off" owner and soon proved to be anything but.
Within three years, free agency evolved and its meeting with Steinbrenner proved to be the perfect storm. Stars like Catfish Hunter and Reggie Jackson transformed not just the Yankees, but professional sports. He hired and fired Billy Martin five times. He gave Dave Winfield the biggest contract in professional sports history and then ripped him.
He was big, bold and perfect for the times. And perfect for the city of New York. Check where professional sports are today and where they were when "Big Stein" bought the Yankees and you'll see a world of difference. Rest in peace Boss
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