Steinbrenner and Cooperstown: Quit Quacking

Goose Gossage started the discussion during his induction ceremony last summer and now support is growing among owners and pundits for George Steinbrenner’s enshrinement in the Hall of Fame. The Yankee fastballer who struck out Carl Yastrzemski to win the legendary 1978 tie-breaker was remarkably fulsome, describing the Boss as the greatest owner in baseball history because of his steadfast commitment to putting the best players on the field.

His comments prompted me to remember something Steinbrenner said 30 years ago: “Goose should do more pitching and less quacking.”

I’m happy to stipulate that Steinbrenner is an important, even seminal figure in one respect. Donald Coffin of the Society for American Baseball Research describes him as a revolutionary figure in the arena of economics and sport.

The Boss negotiated a sizeable television contract for the Yankees and eventually set up his own network, developments and precedents that fueled the growth of revenue sharing and the luxury tax with lasting and mostly positive implications for the game.

Steinbrenner’s stewardship of his club on the field was downright disturbing, however, even disgraceful. As badly as he wanted to win, he never learned how to do it in thirty-five years of trying. In the 1980s his penchant for signing expensive free agents and trading for aging veterans while neglecting new player development destroyed baseball’s premier franchise.

It was the first decade since the 1910s that the Yankees failed to win a championship. George Will advised other teams to carefully observe what the Boss did and then do the opposite. He said Steinbrenner was an “error machine” and “dumbo-o-meter.”

If any executive should be going to Cooperstown wearing a Yankees cap, it is Fay Vincent, the former Commissioner who inadvertently rescued the Yankees from sinking into oblivion with the Atlantics and the Gothams when he banned Steinbrenner from baseball in 1990. Although the exile lasted just three years, it gave the front office the time it needed to draft and develop Jeter, Posada, Williams, Pettitte, and Rivera who became the homegrown core of the dynasty of the 1990s.

Today’s squad, in contrast, reflects Steinbrenner’s short-term approach to team-building. John Harper’s characterization of the Yankee farm system as ‘barren’ may be overstating it a bit, but surely Baseball Prospectus 2008 is right to say the team does not know how to draft and develop hitters and fielders.

Some are saying Steinbrenner should be in the Hall because Tom Yawkey and other dubious figures are there already. But that was then and this is now, as they say. One would like to think that progress in baseball, while it may be hesitant and easily reversible, is at least possible. The Red Sox owner was enshrined despite his manifold failings because he was a great benefactor of the Hall.

His posthumous induction was a lavish “thank you.” In today’s world, being an old boy with deep pockets should not suffice for admittance to Cooperstown. It has been a long time since the admissions committee at Harvard Law looked favorably upon a gentleman’s C.

He was controversial and had his detractors but Walter O’Malley, who was inducted into the Hall with Gossage, establishes a more plausible standard for evaluating Steinbrenner and other owners and executives who come along. O’Malley not only built a winning franchise that was the most profitable of its day, but he also fostered the integration of baseball and pioneered its westward expansion.

He played a pivotal role in the globalization of baseball by cultivating ties with Japan and the Caribbean long before anyone else thought to do such a thing. When a reporter asked him what he would like to be remembered for, O’Malley replied, “I want to be remembered for planting a tree.”

America can be a sentimental country and disreputable figures with staying power frequently earn the public’s grudging admiration. Richard Nixon, to whose Presidential campaign Steinbrenner illegally contributed, tried to destroy the Republic with Watergate but later earned plaudits as an elder statesman of sorts and was treated to some impressive oratory at his funeral.

Steinbrenner has been on the stage for a long time, too, and the encomiums are starting to flow freely and abundantly as they tend to do. Let the floodwaters descend if they must, but let’s try to reserve admission to Cooperstown for those trustees of America’s pastime who take the long-term view of what is good for their clubs and good for the game.