george steinbrenner

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Yankee fans, and truthfully, any baseball fan will know the book titles that author Peter Golenbock has penned over the course of his career. To name just a few, you have The Bronx Zoo: The Astonishing Inside Story of the 1978 World Champion New York Yankees, then you could turn to Dynasty: The New York Yankees, 1949-1964, or finally pick up a copy of Number 1 Billy Martin.  In reality, you have to check out his Amazon page because he covers a wide range of topics from baseball to NASCAR to Gator football to Tony Curtis and more.  You will find something of interest.

On this episode of Cover the Bases, we are here to talk with Peter about George: The Poor Little Rich Boy Who Built the Yankee Empire.  As we talk in the wake of the New York Yankees 27th World Championship, there was a major presence who was missing at the trophy presentation – George Steinbrenner.  It has come to the point where he physically and mentally cannot attend too many games, and power of ownership has been ceded to his sons Hank and Hal Steinbrenner.  This is now the seventh World Championship of the Steinbrenner regime, and this book chronicles George’s life as a little boy, through his formative years in college and the military, up through early attempts at owning sports franchises, to his days as owner of the New York Yankees.

This book is a comprehensive and complete account of George’s life story as Peter describes it, because he began to collect his information and interview individuals who were central figures way back in 1980.  This has allowed Peter to include elements from those who are no longer with us.

Peter states that he was “born with the baseball gene”, which has compelled him to return again and again to writing about baseball.  He was fortunate enough to have met Jackie Robinson through his Uncle.  Peter has had a rare opportunity, all the way back to 1972, when he received his first contract to write a book about baseball, right at the time of George’s takeover of the Yankees.

George’s story is intriguing because it is just as much about style as it is results.  No one can complain about the fact that he took over a team that was not winning at all, and has now delivered seven championships.  Meanwhile, he was such a meddlesome micro-manager he famously had issues with every employee on and off the field.  He hated to have rookies play on his team, and made trades that were detrimental in the long run.  Finally, he was involved in situations that resulted in getting suspensions from baseball for his actions.  It was during theses suspensions when George could not interfere that the Yankees, that they would build the foundations to achieve their most success! [click to continue…]

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