Should the Famous George Steinbrenner be in the Hall of Fame?

In a little over two weeks, there is a possibility that George Steinbrenner, the longtime owner of the New York Yankees, will be elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. The late Steinbrenner is one of ten candidates on the “Today’s Game” committee, which is tasked with evaluating the Cooperstown credentials of players, managers and executives who had a significant impact on the game in 1988 or later.

The Today’s Game Committee consists of a 16-person panel of media members, baseball executives and Hall of Famers. If 12 of the 16 members of the panel vote for a specific candidate, that candidate will elected into the Hall of Fame.

This is the fourth time that Steinbrenner has been on the Hall of Fame ballot via the current or previous iteration of what used to be known as the Veterans Committee. Voting totals aren’t specifically reported on these ballots but we do know that Steinbrenner didn’t come very close to the Hall in any of his three previous times on the ballot.

If getting into the Hall of Fame were merely about being famous, George M. Steinbrenner III would have made it into Cooperstown a long time ago. The flamboyant and bombastic Yankees Principal Owner was far better known than the vast majority of players who donned the Yankee pinstripes during his 38-year reign as The Boss of the Bronx Bombers.

Steinbrenner, who owned the Yankees since 1973, passed away on July 13, 2010, dying of a heart attack.

The Case for George Steinbrenner for the Hall of Fame

It’s easy to see both sides of the Steinbrenner Hall of Fame argument. The “pro” side is that, besides presiding over 7 World Series titles, Steinbrenner played an active role in promoting the growth in the game and player salaries.

Throughout his tenure as the Yankees owner, Steinbrenner was intimately involved in the recruitment of free agents. His relentless pursuit of players and willingness to open his wallet forced the rest of the league to catch up and grow.

Under Steinbrenner’s reign atop the Yankees organization, the franchise won 11 American League pennants and 7 World Series Championships, by far the most of any organization. It was King George’s relentless wooing of free agent Reggie Jackson that brought the star right fielder to the Bronx. Jackson helped the Yankees back to the Fall Classic, was the MVP of the ’77 World Series and became known forever as Mr. October.

The Boss always needed the newest, shiniest object and he pursued the top free agents with the competitive spirit that he demanded of those players. Never content to rest on his laurels, he was always looking to make the Yankees better.

After Sparky Lyle (the A.L. Cy Young Award winner) helped lead the Yankees to that ’77 World Series title, Steinbrenner signed free agent closer Rich Gossage, ostensibly to fortify the bullpen but in reality to replace Lyle. The Goose helped the Yankees get back to the Fall Classic in 1978 and was on the mound when the Yankees won their second consecutive title.

The 1980 Yankees won 103 games but lost in the ALCS to the Kansas City Royals. Steinbrenner’s response was to open his wallet again to make the team better. He signed outfielder Dave Winfield to a 10-year contract.

Steinbrenner, demanding to a fault, changed managers 20 times in his first 20 years. After Joe Torre was hired, however, to be the Yankee skipper for 1996, a remarkable period of stability ensued. Torre lasted 12 years on the job. Winning 4 World Series Championships in 5 seasons was the kind of result that George Steinbrenner was looking for.

George Steinbrenner and 11 partners bought the Yankees for $10 million in 1973 (Steinbrenner’s share of the purchase was $800,000). Today Forbes estimates the Yankees are worth $4 billion.

If you tried to explain the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s in Major League Baseball — if you tried to tell the history of the sport — you could not do it without talking about the role of George Steinbrenner, unless you chose to willfully ignore his impact… He was to Major League Baseball what Cornelius Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie were to the United States’ financial system.

— Buster Olney, espn.com (December 3, 2016)

Steinbrenner was so famous that he became a recurring character (played off-camera by Larry David) on Seinfeld, the most popular TV comedy in history.

The Case Against George Steinbrenner for the Hall of Fame

The “con” side of putting George Steinbrenner into the Hall is that he did more as much harm as good during his tumultuous and tyrannical tenure as the Yankees owner. He was suspended twice by the Commissioner of Baseball. He hired and fired managers with such comedic frequency (Billy Martin in particular) that he made money in TV commercials using the line “you’re fired,” long before a well-known reality TV show host popularized the phrase again.

Steinbrenner drove some of his managers to drink with his non-stop meddling. He feuded with those managers (again, Martin in particular, who he fired five times). The battles with Martin were legendary and spawned a famous series of Miller Lite beer commercials.

He made an enemy of Yankee icon Yogi Berra after firing him unceremoniously just 16 games into the 1985. King George changed managers so often that it reduced him at times to not much more than a cartoon tyrant.

Steinbrenner belittled his players when they didn’t perform to his exacting standards. The Boss famously referred to Winfield as “Mr. May” when he struggled during the 1981 World Series.

If you’re too young to remember the way George Steinbrenner ran the Yankees in the 1970’s and 1980’s, it’s not dissimilar to the way Donald Trump conducts himself as President of the United States. Like President Trump, King George was an irrepressible force of nature who had legions of adoring fans but also scores of detractors who considered him an embarrassment to the game and to the Yankees.

Will The Boss Get a Plaque in Cooperstown?

If history is any guide, the answer is “no.” Steinbrenner has been on three different Veterans Committee ballots and has never gotten enough notes to even be reported by the Hall of Fame. Each 16-person committee is allowed to vote for just 4 of the 10 candidates on the ballot. In order to get inducted into the Hall, a candidate needs 12 out of 16 votes.

One of the quirks of the current Veterans Committee process (today called the “Eras Committees”) is that players appear on the same ballot with owners, general managers and managers. So, the current ballot, besides featuring Steinbrenner, also has six players and three managers on it. Although I believe Lee Smith will make the Hall and would be in favor of Orel Hershiser’s induction, none of the players (the others are Will Clark, Albert Belle, Harold Baines, and Joe Carter) has an overwhelming case.

The same is true for the three managers on the ballot (Charlie Manuel, Davey Johnson, and Lou Piniella, who was hired and fired twice by The Boss).

Anyway, this is what happened the last three times King George was eligible for the Hall. In 2016, longtime commissioner Bud Selig and highly respected General Manager John Schuerholz sailed into the Hall, with no other candidate getting more than 7 votes (Piniella got those 7 and has at least a decent chance of making it this year).

In 2014, the exercise of having a ballot and a vote was a waste of time. Three of the five winningest managers in history (Tony La Russa, Bobby Cox and Torre) were also on the ballot. All three got 16 out of 16 votes, leaving just crumbs for the other 7 candidates, which also included Billy Martin.

In 2011, the first time the late Steinbrenner was on one of these ballots, longtime General Manager Pat Gillick was inducted into the Hall, with former players’ union head Marvin Miller falling one vote short and none of the other candidates getting enough votes for the Hall to report the totals.

Conclusion

I’d like to play a game here. Imagine that in the years after the end of the Trump presidency, the Smithsonian decides to create a Presidents’ Hall of Fame. This new Hall of Fame is created whether the Trump presidency ends in 2021, 2025 or next month.

So, the Smithsonian convenes a panel of 16 historians (with equal partisan diversity). The historians are allowed to vote “yes or no” for up to 15 of the first 45 Presidents of the United States. Like Baseball’s Hall of Fame, a 75% “yes” vote is required.

Can you possibly imagine that Donald Trump would get 75% of that vote? To be fair, if it was a truly bipartisan panel, could you imagine that Obama, Bush or Clinton would get 75% of that vote? The answer is obvious a resounding “no.”

I present this as an analogy to George Steinbrenner as a Hall of Fame candidate. The man was a polarizing figure. People loved him or hated him.

If you were a Yankees fan, you loved him. You might have shaken your head every once in awhile about some of the things he would say or about the managerial firings but you loved that he would spend money to win, that he cared about winning as much as you did.

If you were a fan of a team that competed against the Yankees, more likely than not you hated George Steinbrenner. You envied that he spent millions on free agents while your mid-market owner didn’t. You hated that he was a blowhard, a bully, an embarrassment to the sport. When he paid a gambler (Howie Spira) to dig up dirt on Dave Winfield, you said “atta boy” when Commissioner Fay Vincent suspended him for it.

Every Veterans Committee panel contains 5 of 6 MLB owners or executives who are not in the Hall of Fame. Depending on who the panelists are, the odds are that there will be some that felt that Steinbrenner played with a stacked deck by owning the franchise in the nation’s biggest media market. Some might be bitter at how fiercely The Boss resisted revenue sharing.

The point is that I find it hard to think that a panel of 16 people will have 12 “yes” votes for George Steinbrenner, although this might be his best chance. This particular ballot is relatively weak, with no obvious choice. The list of players will be stronger the next time the “Today’s Game” Committee is convened, with Fred McGriff and Larry Walker likely to join the ballot as 10-year casualties of the BBWAA voting process.

Personally, if I were one of the twelve members on the current committee, I would be a “yes” on George. As Olney wrote, the Hall of Fame is about the history of the game. George Steinbrenner is one of the most significant historical figures of the last quarter of the 20th century. I don’t think it will happen but The Boss has my vote.

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