Richard Pennant, 1st Baron Penrhyn (1737 – 21 January 1808) was a slave owner, anti-abolitionist Member of Parliament (MP) and Irish peer.

Richard Pennant was educated at Newsome's academy in Hackney and Trinity College, Cambridge. He was MP for Petersfield from 1761 to 1767, then becoming one of Liverpool's members from 1767 to 1780, and again from 1784 until 1790 when he offered his seat to Sir Banastre Tarleton who continued his anti-abolitionist activities. He was prominent in the development of the Welsh slate industry. He was created 1st Baron Penrhyn of Penrhyn in the county of Lough in 1783, however this did not disqualify him from standing for elections to the Westminster House of Commons as his peerage was Irish.

Pennant owned vast properties in Caernarvonshire and six sugar plantations in Jamaica, where he owned over six hundred enslaved workers. He inherited half of his North Wales estate from his wife, Ann Susannah Pennant ''nee'' Warburton; the daughter of General Hugh Warburton, the other half from his father, John Pennant (Warburton's business partner). On his death, Richard's entire estate was inherited by his second cousin, George Hay Dawkins (1763–1840), who subsequently adopted the surname of Dawkins-Pennant. Dawkins' daughter Juliana and her husband were named as co-heirs of the estate on the condition that they also took the surname Pennant (which they duly accepted). Dawkins' son-in-law, Edward Gordon Douglas, was later created 1st Baron Penrhyn of Llandygai.

References

{{S-ttl | title = Baron Penrhyn | years = 1783–1808 }}

Category:1737 births Category:1808 deaths Category:Barons in the Peerage of Ireland Pennant, Richard Category:Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge

cy:Richard Pennant, Barwn 1af Penrhyn

Name	Dick Williams
Position	Outfielder / Third baseman / Manager
Bats	Right
Throws	Right
Birth date	May 7, 1929
Birth place	St. Louis, Missouri
Death date	July 07, 2011
Death place	Las Vegas, Nevada
Debutdate	June 10
Debutyear	1951
Debutteam	Brooklyn Dodgers
Finaldate	September 22
Finalyear	1964
Finalteam	Boston Red Sox
Stat1label	Batting average
Stat1value	.260
Stat2label	Home runs
Stat2value	70
Stat3label	Runs batted in
Stat3value	331
Stat4label	Games managed
Stat4value	3,023
Stat5label	Win–loss record
Stat5value	1,571–1,451
Stat6label	Winning %
Stat6value	.520
Teams	Brooklyn Dodgers (–, ) Baltimore Orioles (–) Cleveland Indians () Baltimore Orioles () Kansas City Athletics (–) Baltimore Orioles (–) Boston Red Sox (–) As manager Boston Red Sox (–) Oakland Athletics (–) California Angels (–) Montreal Expos (–) San Diego Padres (–) Seattle Mariners (–)
Highlights	2× World Series champion (, ) 1967 Sporting News Manager of the Year
Hofdate	2008
Hofmethod	Veterans Committee }}

Richard Hirschfeld "Dick" Williams (May 7, 1929 – July 7, 2011) was an American left fielder, third baseman, manager, coach and front office consultant in Major League Baseball. Known especially as a hard-driving, sharp-tongued manager from 1967–69 and 1971–88, he led teams to three American League pennants, one National League pennant, and two World Series triumphs. He is one of seven managers to win pennants in both major leagues, and joined Bill McKechnie in becoming only the second manager to lead three franchises to the Series. He and Lou Piniella are the only managers in history to lead four teams to seasons of 90 or more wins. Williams was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2008 following his election by the Veterans Committee.

Biography

Playing career

After growing up in St. Louis, Missouri, and Pasadena, California, Williams signed his first professional contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, and played his first major league game with Brooklyn in 1951. Initially an outfielder, he separated a shoulder making a diving catch early in his career, weakening his throwing arm. As a result, he learned to play several positions (he was frequently a first baseman and third baseman) and became a notorious "bench jockey" in order to keep his major league job. He appeared in 1,023 games over 13 seasons with the Dodgers, Baltimore Orioles, Cleveland Indians, Kansas City Athletics and Boston Red Sox. A right-handed batter and thrower, Williams had a career batting average of .260 with 70 home runs.

He was a favorite of Paul Richards, who acquired Williams four different times between 1956 and 1962 when Richards was a manager or general manager with Baltimore and the Houston Colt .45s. Williams' stay in Houston during the 1962-63 offseason was brief, because he was soon traded to the Red Sox for another outfielder, Carroll Hardy.

His two-year playing career in Boston was uneventful, except for one occasion. On June 27, 1963, Williams was victimized by one of the greatest catches in Fenway Park history. His long drive to the opposite field was snagged by Cleveland right fielder Al Luplow, who made a leaping catch at the wall and tumbled into the bullpen with the ball in his grasp.

Managerial career

An "Impossible Dream" in Boston

On October 14, 1964, after a season during which Williams hit a career-low .159, the Red Sox gave him his unconditional release. At 35, Williams was at a career crossroads: Richards gave him a spring training invitation but no guarantee that he would make the 1965 Astros' playing roster; the Red Sox offered Williams a job as playing coach with their Triple-A farm team, the Seattle Rainiers of the Pacific Coast League. Looking to begin a post-playing career in baseball, Williams accepted the Seattle assignment. Within days, a shuffle in 1965 affiliations forced Boston to move its top minor league team to the Toronto Maple Leafs of the International League. This caused Boston's Triple-A manager, Edo Vanni, a Seattle native, to resign in order to remain in the Pacific Northwest. With an unexpected opening for the new Toronto job, Williams was promoted to manager of the 1965 Leafs. As a novice pilot, Williams adopted a hard-nosed, disciplinarian style and won two consecutive Governors' Cup championships with teams laden with young Red Sox prospects. He then signed a one-year contract to manage the 1967 Red Sox.

Boston had suffered through eight straight seasons of losing baseball, and attendance had fallen to such an extent that owner Tom Yawkey was threatening to move the team. The Red Sox had talented young players, but the team was known as a lazy "country club." Williams decided to risk everything and impose discipline on his players. He vowed that "we will win more ballgames than we lose" — a bold statement for a club that had finished only a half-game from last place in 1966. In spring training he drilled players in fundamentals for hours.

The Red Sox began 1967 playing better baseball and employing the aggressive style of play that Williams had learned with the Dodgers. Williams benched players for lack of effort and poor performance, and battled tooth and nail with umpires. Through the All-Star break, Boston fulfilled Williams' promise and played better than .500 ball, hanging close to the American League's four contending teams — the Detroit Tigers, Minnesota Twins, Chicago White Sox and California Angels. Outfielder Carl Yastrzemski, in his seventh season with the Red Sox, transformed his hitting style to become a pull-hitter, eventually winning the 1967 AL Triple Crown, leading the league in batting average, home runs (tying Harmon Killebrew of the Twins), and RBI.

In late July, the Red Sox rattled off a ten-game winning streak on the road and came home to a riotous welcome from 10,000 fans at Boston's Logan Airport. The Red Sox inserted themselves into a five-team pennant race, and stayed in the hunt despite the loss of star outfielder Tony Conigliaro to a beanball on August 18. On the closing weekend of the season, led by Yastrzemski and 22-game-winning pitcher Jim Lonborg, Boston defeated the Twins in two head-to-head games, while Detroit split its series with the Angels. The "Impossible Dream" Red Sox had won their first AL pennant since 1946. The Red Sox extended the highly talented and heavily favored St. Louis Cardinals to seven games in the 1967 World Series, losing to the great Bob Gibson three times.

Despite the Series loss, the Red Sox were the toasts of New England; Williams was named Major League Manager of the Year by ''The Sporting News'' and signed to a new three-year contract. But he would not serve it out. In 1968, the team fell to fourth place when Conigliaro could not return from his head injury, and Williams' two top pitchers — Lonborg and José Santiago — were injured. He began to clash with Yastrzemski, and with owner Yawkey. In September 1969, with his club a distant third in the AL East, Williams was fired with nine games left in the season.

Two titles in a row in Oakland

After spending 1970 as the third base coach of the Montreal Expos, Williams returned to the managerial ranks the next year as boss of the Oakland Athletics, owned by Charlie Finley. The iconoclastic Finley had signed some of the finest talent in baseball – including Catfish Hunter, Reggie Jackson, Sal Bando, Bert Campaneris, Rollie Fingers and Joe Rudi – but his players hated him for his penny-pinching and constant meddling in the team's affairs. During his first decade as the Athletics' owner, 1961-1970, Finley had changed managers a total of ten times.

Inheriting a second-place team from predecessor John McNamara, Williams promptly directed the A's to 101 victories and their first AL West title in 1971 behind another brilliant young player, pitcher Vida Blue. Despite being humbled in the ALCS by the defending World Champion Orioles, Finley brought Williams back for 1972, when the "Oakland Dynasty" began. Off the field, the A's players brawled with each other and defied baseball's tonsorial code. Because long hair, mustaches and beards were now the rage in the "civilian" world, Finley decided on a mid-season promotion encouraging his men to wear their hair long and grow facial hair. Fingers adopted his trademark handlebar mustache (which he still has to this day); Williams himself grew a mustache.

Of course, talent, not hairstyle, truly defined the Oakland Dynasty of the early 1970s. The 1972 A's won their division by 5½ games over the White Sox and led the league in home runs, shutouts and saves. They defeated the Tigers in a bitterly fought ALCS, and found themselves facing the Cincinnati Reds in the World Series. With the A's leading power hitter, Jackson, out with an injury, Cincinnati's Big Red Machine was favored to win, but the home run heroics of Oakland catcher Gene Tenace and the managerial maneuvering of Williams resulted in a seven-game World Series victory for the A's, their first championship since 1930, when they played in Philadelphia.

In 1973, with Williams back for an unprecedented (for the Finley era) third straight campaign, the A's again coasted to a division title, then defeated Baltimore in the ALCS and the NL champion New York Mets in the World Series – each hard-fought series going the limit. With their World Series win, Oakland became baseball's first repeat champion since the 1961-62 New York Yankees. But Williams had a surprise for Finley. Tired of his owner's meddling, and upset by Finley's public humiliation of second baseman Mike Andrews for his fielding miscues during the World Series, Williams resigned. George Steinbrenner, then finishing his first season as owner of the Yankees, immediately signed Williams as his manager. However, Finley protested that Williams owed Oakland the final year of his contract and could not manage anywhere else, and so Steinbrenner hired Bill Virdon instead. Williams was the first manager in A's franchise history to leave the team with a winning record after running it for two full seasons.

From Southern California to Montreal and back

California Angels

Seemingly at the peak of his career, Williams began the 1974 season out of work. But when the Angels struggled under manager Bobby Winkles, team owner Gene Autry received Finley's permission to negotiate with Williams, and in mid-season Williams was back in a big-league dugout. The change in management, though, did not alter the fortunes of the Angels, as they finished in last place, 22 games behind the A's, who would win their third straight World Championship under Williams' replacement, Alvin Dark.

Overall, Williams' Anaheim tenure turned out to be a miserable one. The Angels did not respond to Williams' somewhat authoritarian managing style and finished last in the AL West again in 1975. They were 18 games below .500 (and in the midst of a player revolt) when Williams was fired in July 1976. While managing the Angels, he once held a practice in the lobby of his team's hotel using only wiffle balls and bats; the point was to demonstrate that his hitters were so weak, they could not break anything in the lobby.

Montreal Expos

When Williams switched to the National League, however, he regained his winning touch. In 1977, he returned to Montreal as manager of the Expos, who had just come off 107 losses and a last-place finish in the NL East. After cajoling them into improved, but below .500, performances in his first two seasons in Montreal, Williams turned the 1979-80 Expos into pennant contenders. The team won over 90 games both years, but finished second each time to the eventual World Champion (the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1979 and the Philadelphia Phillies in 1980). The Expos, with a fruitful farm system and young All-Stars such as outfielder Andre Dawson and catcher Gary Carter, seemed a lock to contend for a long time to come.

But Williams' hard edge alienated his players and ultimately wore out his welcome. He labeled pitcher Steve Rogers a fraud with "king of the mountain syndrome" – meaning that Rogers had been a good pitcher on a bad team for so long that he was unable to "step up" when the team became good. Williams also lost confidence in closer Jeff Reardon, whom the Montreal front office had acquired in a much publicized trade with the Mets. When the 1981 Expos performed below expectations, Williams was fired during the pennant drive. With the arrival of his easy-going successor Jim Fanning, who restored Reardon to the closer's role, the inspired Expos made the playoffs for the only time in their 36-year history in Montreal. However, they fell in heartbreaking fashion to Rick Monday and the eventual World Champion Los Angeles Dodgers in a five-game NLCS.

San Diego Padres

In 1982, Williams took over another chronic loser, the San Diego Padres. By 1984, he had guided the Padres to their first NL West Division championship. In the NLCS, the NL East champion Chicago Cubs – making their first postseason appearance since 1945 – won Games 1 and 2, but Williams' Padres took the next three games in a miraculous comeback to win the pennant. In the World Series, however, San Diego was no match for Sparky Anderson's Detroit Tigers, a team that had won 104 games during the regular season (having gone a record 35-5 by late May) and swept the Kansas City Royals in the ALCS. Although the Tigers won the Series in five games, both Williams and Anderson joined Dark, Joe McCarthy, and Yogi Berra as managers who had won pennants in both major leagues (Tony La Russa joined this group in 2004 and Jim Leyland followed suit in 2006).

The Padres fell to third in 1985, and Williams was let go as manager just before 1986 spring training. His record with the Padres was 337–311 over four seasons. As of 2011, he was the only manager in the team's history without a losing season. His difficulties with the Padres stemmed from a power struggle with team president Ballard Smith and general manager Jack McKeon. Williams was a hire of team owner (and McDonald's restaurant magnate) Ray Kroc, whose health was failing. McKeon and Smith (who also happened to be Kroc's son-in-law) were posturing to buy the team and viewed Williams as a threat to their plans. With his San Diego tenure at an end, it appeared that Williams' managerial career was finished.

Final seasons in uniform

In 1986, the Seattle Mariners, another perennial loser, called on Williams to be manager. When the Mariners lost 19 of their first 28 games under Chuck Cottier, Williams came back to the American League West for the first time in almost a decade. The Mariners showed some life that season and almost reached .500 the following season. However, Williams' autocratic managing style no longer played with the new generation of ballplayers. Williams was fired from his last managing job with Seattle 23-33 and in sixth place in June 1988. Williams' career won-loss totals were 1,571 wins and 1,451 losses over 21 seasons.

In 1989, Williams was named manager of the West Palm Beach Tropics of the Senior Professional Baseball Association, a league featuring mostly former major league players 35 years of age and older. The Tropics went 52-20 in the regular season and ran away with the Southern Division title. Despite their regular season dominance, the Tropics lost 12-4 to the St. Petersburg Pelicans in the league's championship game. The Tropics folded at the end of the season, and the rest of the league folded a year later.

He remained in the game, however, as a special consultant to George Steinbrenner and the New York Yankees. In 1990, Williams published his autobiography, ''No More Mister Nice Guy''. His acrimonious departure in 1969 distanced Williams from the Red Sox for the remainder of the Yawkey ownership period (through 2001), but after the change in ownership and management that followed, he was selected to the team's Hall of Fame in 2006.

Williams's number was recently retired by the Fort Worth Cats. The Cats were a popular minor league team in Fort Worth and Williams played there while he was working his way through the Dodgers system. The Cats merged/disbanded around 1960 but in recent years returned as an independent minor league team. The "New" Cats retired Williams' number.

Managerial statistics

70 76 71 60 62 68 48 89 57 87 86 65 72 37 81 81 70 79 75 84 33 1571

rowspan="2"	Team !! rowspan="2"|Year !! colspan="4"|Regular Season !! colspan="4"|Post Season
! Won !! Lost !! Win % !! Finish !! Won !! Lost !! Win % !! Result
1967 Boston Red Sox season>BOS	1967		92	|	.568	1st in American League	3	4	.429	1967 St. Louis Cardinals season>St. Louis Cardinals
1968 Boston Red Sox season>BOS		86	|	.531	4th in American League	-	-	-	-
1969 Boston Red Sox season>BOS		82	|	.536	3rd in AL East	-	-	-	-
1971 Oakland Athletics season>OAK		101	|	.627	1st in AL West	0	3	.000	1971 Baltimore Orioles season>Baltimore Orioles
1972 Oakland Athletics season>OAK		93	|	.600	1st in AL West	7	5	.583	1972 World Series>World Series
1973 Oakland Athletics season>OAK		94	|	.580	1st in AL West	7	5	.583	1973 World Series>World Series
1974 California Angels season>CAL		36	|	.429	6th in AL West	-	-	-	-
1975 California Angels season>CAL		72	|	.447	6th in AL West	-	-	-	-
1976 California Angels season>CAL		39	|	.406	4th in AL West	-	-	-	-
1977 Montreal Expos season>MON		75	|	.463	5th in NL East	-	-	-	-
Montreal Expos>MON		76	|	.469	4th in NL East	-	-	-	-
1979 Montreal Expos season>MON		95	|	.594	2nd in NL East	-	-	-	-
1980 Montreal Expos season>MON		90	|	.556	2nd in NL East	-	-	-	-
1981 Montreal Expos season>MON		44	|	.543	2nd in NL East	-	-	-	-
1982 San Diego Padres season>SDP		81	|	.500	4th in NL West	-	-	-	-
1983 San Diego Padres season>SDP		81	|	.500	4th in NL West	-	-	-	-
1984 San Diego Padres season>SDP		92	|	.568	1st in NL West	4	6	.400	1984 Detroit Tigers season>Detroit Tigers
1985 San Diego Padres season>SDP		83	|	.512	3rd in NL West	-	-	-	-
1986 Seattle Mariners season>SEA		58	|	.436	7th in AL West	-	-	-	-
1987 Seattle Mariners season>SEA		78	|	.481	4th in AL West	-	-	-	-
1988 Seattle Mariners season>SEA		23	|	.411	7th in AL West	-	-	-	-
colspan="2"	Total	|	1451	.520		21	23	.477	Won 2 World Series

Induction to the Baseball Hall of Fame

Dick Williams was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in December 2007, and was inducted on July 27, 2008.

Personal life

His son, Rick Williams a former minor league pitcher and Major League pitching coach is currently a professional scout for the Yankees. Before Dick Williams became a Major League manager in 1967, he successfully appeared on the television quiz shows The Match Game and the original Hollywood Squares. According to Peter Marshall's ''Backstage with the Original Hollywood Squares'', Williams won $50,000 as a contestant on the latter show. Marshall's son, Pete LaCock, played nine seasons (1972–1980) in the Major Leagues — but never for Williams.

Arrest

In January 2000, Williams pleaded no contest to indecent exposure charges in Florida. This occurred just weeks before the Baseball Hall of Fame Veterans Committee's vote in that year's inductees.

"What happened to me down in Fort Myers when I was arrested evidently hurt me quite a bit," Williams told the New York Times in a telephone interview. "What came out on that in the papers was not true. I was not masturbating on the balcony. I'm going to issue a statement about it so the explanation goes across the country."

Death

Dick Williams died of a ruptured aortic aneurysm at a hospital near his home in Henderson, Nevada on July 7, 2011.

References

Cooper, Steve, ''Red Sox Diehard,'' 1967 season retrospective. Boston: Dunfey Publishing Co., 1987.

Stout, Glenn and Johnson, Richard A., ''Red Sox Century.'' Boston and New York: Houghton-Mifflin Co., 2000.

Williams, Dick, and Plaschke, Bill, ''No More Mr. Nice Guy: A Life of Hardball.'' San Diego: Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovitch, 1990.

External links

Baseball Hall of Fame: Williams' Career Marked by Turbulence, Success

Old-school Williams had blueprint for success

Long road for Williams ends in Cooperstown

BaseballLibrary - biography, career highlights and SABR bibliography

Category:1929 births Category:2011 deaths Category:Deaths from aortic aneurysm Category:National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees Category:Major League Baseball managers Category:Boston Red Sox managers Category:California Angels managers Category:Montreal Expos managers Category:Oakland Athletics managers Category:San Diego Padres managers Category:Seattle Mariners managers Category:Major League Baseball third base coaches Category:Major League Baseball left fielders Category:Baltimore Orioles players Category:Boston Red Sox players Category:Brooklyn Dodgers players Category:Cleveland Indians players Category:Kansas City Athletics players Category:Baseball players from Missouri Category:Toronto Maple Leafs (minor league baseball) managers Category:Montreal Expos coaches

fr:Dick Williams (baseball) ja:ディック・ウィリアムズ fi:Dick Williams

Name	George Steinbrenner
Width	200px
Birth name	George Michael Steinbrenner III
Birth date	July 04, 1930
Birth place	Rocky River, Ohio, U.S.
Death date	July 13, 2010
Death place	Tampa, Florida, U.S.
Death cause	Heart Attack
Occupation	Owner of New York Yankees (MLB), businessman, investor, entrepreneur
Alma mater	Williams College ,Ohio State University
Party	Republican
Spouse	Elizabeth Joan Zieg
Parents	Henry G. Steinbrenner IIRita Haley
Children	Hank SteinbrennerHal SteinbrennerJessica SteinbrennerJennifer Steinbrenner-Swindal }}

George Michael Steinbrenner III (July 4, 1930 July 13, 2010) was an American businessman who was the principal owner and managing partner of Major League Baseball's New York Yankees. During Steinbrenner's 37-year ownership from 1973 to his death in July 2010, the longest in club history, the Yankees earned 7 World Series titles and 11 pennants. His outspokenness and role in driving up player salaries made him one of the sport's most controversial figures. Steinbrenner was also involved in the Great Lakes shipping industry.

Known as a hands-on baseball executive, he earned the nickname "The Boss." He had a tendency to meddle in daily on-field decisions, and to hire and fire (and sometimes re-hire) managers. Former Yankees manager Dallas Green gave him the derisive nickname "Manager George."

He died after suffering a heart attack in his Tampa home on the morning of July 13, 2010, the day of the 81st All-Star Game.

Early life and education

Steinbrenner was born in Rocky River, Ohio, the only son of Rita (née Haley) and Henry George Steinbrenner II, who had been a world-class track and field hurdler while at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, from which he graduated in engineering in 1927, first in his class. The elder Steinbrenner later became a wealthy shipping magnate who ran the family firm operating freight ships hauling ore and grain on the Great Lakes. George III was named after his paternal grandfather, George Michael Steinbrenner II. Steinbrenner has two younger sisters, Susan and Judy.

Steinbrenner entered Culver Military Academy, in Northern Indiana, in 1944, and graduated in 1948. He received his B.A. from Williams College in Massachusetts in 1952. While at Williams, George was an average student who led an active extracurricular life. He was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. He was an accomplished hurdler on the varsity track and field team, and served as sports editor of ''The Williams Record'', played piano in the band, and played halfback on the football team in his senior year. He joined the United States Air Force after graduation, was commissioned a second lieutenant and was stationed at Lockbourne Air Force Base in Columbus, Ohio. Following honorable discharge in 1954, he did post-graduate study at Ohio State University (1954–55), earning his master's degree in physical education.

He met his wife-to-be, Elizabeth Joan (pronounced Jo-Ann) Zieg, in Columbus, and married her on May 12, 1956. The couple had two sons Hank Steinbrenner and Hal Steinbrenner, and two daughters Jessica Steinbrenner and Jennifer Steinbrenner-Swindal.

Pre-Yankees career

While studying at Ohio State, he served as a graduate assistant to legendary Buckeye football coach Woody Hayes. The Buckeyes were undefeated national champions that year, and won the Rose Bowl. Steinbrenner served as an assistant football coach at Northwestern University in 1955, and at Purdue University from 1956 to 1957.

In 1957, Steinbrenner joined Kinsman Marine Transit Company, the Great Lakes shipping company that his great-grandfather Henry had purchased in 1901 from The Minch Transit Company, which was owned by a family relation, and renamed. Steinbrenner worked hard to successfully revitalize the company, which was suffering hardship during difficult market conditions. In its return to profitability, Kinsman emphasized grain shipments over ore. A few years later, with the help of a loan from a New York bank, Steinbrenner purchased the company from his family. He later became part of a group that purchased the American Shipbuilding Company, and, in 1967, he became its chairman and chief executive officer. By 1972, the company's gross sales were more than $100 million annually.

In 1960, against his father's wishes, Steinbrenner entered the sports franchise business for the first time with basketball's Cleveland Pipers, of the ABL. Steinbrenner had hired John McClendon, who became the first African American coach in professional basketball and persuaded Jerry Lucas to join his team instead of the National Basketball Association. McClendon had led Tennessee A&I; University to three straight NAIA small college championships in the late 1950s. The Pipers switched to the new professional American Basketball League in 1961; the new circuit was founded by Abe Saperstein, owner of the Harlem Globetrotters. The league and team experienced financial problems, and McClendon resigned in protest halfway through the season; however, the Pipers had won the first half of a split season. Steinbrenner replaced McClendon with former Boston Celtics star Bill Sharman, and the Pipers won the ABL championship in 1961-62. The ABL folded in December 1962, just months into its second season. Steinbrenner and his partners lost significant money on the venture, but Steinbrenner paid off all of his creditors and partners over the next few years.

With his burgeoning sports aspirations put on hold, Steinbrenner turned his attention to the theatre. His involvement with Broadway began with a short-lived 1967 play, ''The Ninety Day Mistress'', in which he partnered with another rookie producer, James Nederlander. Whereas Nederlander threw himself into his family's business full-time, Steinbrenner invested in a mere half-dozen shows, including the 1974 Tony Award nominee for Best Musical, ''Seesaw'', and the 1988 Peter Allen flop, ''Legs Diamond''.

New York Yankees career

The Yankees had been struggling during their years under CBS ownership, which had acquired the team in 1965. In 1972, CBS Chairman William S. Paley told team president E. Michael Burke the media company intended to sell the club. As Burke later told writer Roger Kahn, Paley offered to sell the franchise to Burke if he could find financial backing. Steinbrenner, who had participated in a failed attempt to buy the Cleveland Indians from Vernon Stouffer one year earlier, was brought together with Burke by veteran baseball executive Gabe Paul.

On January 3, 1973, Steinbrenner and minority partner Burke led a group of investors, which included Lester Crown, John DeLorean and Nelson Bunker Hunt, in purchasing the Yankees from CBS. For years, the selling price was reported to be $10 million. However, Steinbrenner later revealed that the deal included two parking garages that CBS had bought from the city, and soon after the deal closed, CBS bought back the garages for $1.2 million. The net cost to the group for the Yankees was therefore $8.8 million.

The announced intention was that Burke would continue to run the team as club president. But Burke later became angry when he found out that Paul had been brought in as a senior Yankee executive, reducing his authority, and quit the team presidency in April 1973. (Burke remained a minority owner of the club into the following decade, but as fellow minority owner John McMullen stated, "There is nothing in life quite so limited as being a limited partner of George Steinbrenner.") Paul was officially named president of the club on April 19. It would be the first of many high-profile departures with employees who crossed paths with "The Boss." At the conclusion of the 1973 season, two more prominent names departed: manager Ralph Houk, who resigned and took a similar position with the Detroit Tigers; and general manager Lee MacPhail, who became president of the American League.

The 1973 off-season would continue to be controversial when Steinbrenner and Paul sought to hire former Oakland Athletics manager Dick Williams, who had resigned immediately after leading the team to its second straight World Series title. However, because Williams was still under contract to Oakland, the subsequent legal wrangling prevented the Yankees from hiring him. On the first anniversary of the team's ownership change, the Yankees hired former Pittsburgh Pirates manager Bill Virdon to lead the team on the field.

Steinbrenner quickly became famous for his rapid turnover of management personnel. In his first 23 seasons, he changed managers 20 times (Billy Martin alone was fired and rehired five times). He also employed 11 general managers over 30 years. He was equally famous for pursuing high-priced free agents and then feuding with them. In July 1978, Billy Martin famously said of Steinbrenner and his $3 million outfielder Reggie Jackson, "The two were meant for each other. One's a born liar, and the other's convicted." The comment resulted in Martin's first departure, though officially he resigned (tearfully), before Yankees President Al Rosen could carry out Steinbrenner's dictum to fire him.

Another notable Steinbrenner policy was his military-style grooming code: All players, coaches, and male executives were forbidden to display any facial hair other than mustaches (except for religious reasons), and scalp hair could not be grown below the collar. (Long sideburns and "mutton chops" were not specifically banned.) The policy led to some unusual and comical incidents.

During the 1973 home opener against the Cleveland Indians, as the Yankees, caps removed, were standing at attention for the National Anthem, Steinbrenner, in the owner's box next to the New York dugout, noticed that several players' hair was too long for his standards. As he did not yet know the players' names, he wrote down the uniform numbers of the offenders (Thurman Munson, Bobby Murcer, and Sparky Lyle), and had the list, along with the demand that their hair be trimmed immediately, delivered to Houk. The order was reluctantly relayed to the players.

In 1983, at Steinbrenner's behest, Yankee coach Yogi Berra ordered Goose Gossage to remove a beard he was growing. Gossage responded by shaving away the beard but leaving a thick exaggerated mustache extending down the upper lip to the jaw line, a look Gossage still sports to this day.

The most infamous incident involving facial hair occurred in 1991. Although Steinbrenner was suspended, the Yankee management ordered Don Mattingly, who was then sporting a mullet-like hair style, to get a hair cut. When Mattingly refused he was benched. This led to a huge media frenzy with reporters and talk radio repeatedly mocking the team. The WPIX broadcasting crew of Phil Rizzuto, Bobby Murcer, and Tom Seaver lampooned the policy on a pregame show with Rizzuto playing the role of a barber sent to enforce the rule. Mattingly would eventually be reinstated. Coincidentally, ''The Simpsons'' episode "Homer at the Bat", which was filmed earlier that year, included Mattingly as a guest star who is suspended from play by Mr. Burns for his sideburns being too long, despite shaving the area of his head above where side burns grow. In 1995, Mattingly again ran afoul of the policy when he grew a goatee. Steinbrenner publicly criticized him for it and Mattingly eventually trimmed it to a mustache. Mattingly was clean-shaven later as a coach with the Yankees.

David Wells occasionally wore a goatee and informed the media he would be willing to pay any fine to do so.

During the 1981 World Series, Steinbrenner provided a colorful backdrop to the Yankees' loss of the series. After a Game 3 loss in Los Angeles, Steinbrenner called a press conference in his hotel room, showing off his left hand in a cast and various other injuries that he claimed were earned in a fight with two Dodgers fans in the hotel elevator. Nobody came forward about the fight, leading to the belief that he had made up the story of the fight in order to light a fire under the Yankees. After the series, he issued a public apology to the City of New York for his team's performance, while at the same time assuring the fans that plans to put the team together for 1982 would begin immediately. He was criticized heartily by players and press alike for doing so, as most people felt losing in the World Series was not something requiring an apology.

Campaign contributions to Nixon and pardon

The "convicted" part of Billy Martin's famous 1978 "liar and convicted" comment referred to Steinbrenner's connection to Richard Nixon; in 1974 Steinbrenner pleaded guilty to making illegal contributions to Nixon's re-election campaign, and to a felony charge of obstruction of justice. He was personally fined $15,000 and his company was assessed an additional $20,000. On November 27 of that year, MLB Commissioner Bowie Kuhn suspended him for two years, but later reduced it to fifteen months. Ronald Reagan pardoned Steinbrenner in January 1989, one of the final acts of his presidency.

Dave Winfield controversy

After the 1980 season, Steinbrenner made headlines by signing Dave Winfield to a 10-year, $23 million contract, making Winfield baseball's highest-paid player. In 1985, Steinbrenner derided Winfield's poor performance in a key September series against the Toronto Blue Jays:

This criticism eventually became somewhat of an anachronism, as many believed Steinbrenner made the statement following the 1981 World Series. Part of that comment later led Ken Griffey Jr. to list the Yankees as one team he would never play for.

On July 30, 1990, Steinbrenner was banned permanently from day-to-day management (but not ownership) of the Yankees by MLB Commissioner Fay Vincent for paying a gambler named Howie Spira $40,000 to dig up "dirt" on Winfield. Winfield had sued the Yankees for failing to contribute $300,000 to his foundation, a guaranteed stipulation in his contract. (Vincent originally proposed a 2-year suspension, but Steinbrenner wanted it worded as an "agreement" rather than a "suspension" to protect his relationship with the U.S. Olympic Committee; in exchange for that concession, Vincent made the "agreement" permanent.) After considerable negotiation with Vincent's office, Robert E. Nederlander, one of Steinbrenner's theatre partners and a limited partner in the Yankees organization, became the managing general partner.

In 2001, Winfield cited the Steinbrenner animosity as a factor in his decision to enter the Hall of Fame as a representative of his first team, the San Diego Padres, rather than the team that brought him national recognition, the Yankees.

Reinstatement and championship years

Steinbrenner was reinstated in 1993. Unlike past years, he was somewhat less inclined to interfere in the Yankees' baseball operations. He left day-to-day baseball matters in the hands of Gene Michael and other executives, and allowed promising farm-system players such as Bernie Williams to develop instead of trading them for established players. Steinbrenner's having "got religion" (in the words of ''New York Daily News'' reporter Bill Madden) paid off. After contending only briefly two years earlier, the 1993 Yankees were in the American League East race with the eventual champion Toronto Blue Jays until September.

The 1994 Yankees were the American League East leaders when a players' strike wiped out the rest of the season. Similarly, a players' strike had cut short their 1981 playoff effort.

The team returned to the playoffs in 1995 (their first visit since 1981) and won the World Series in 1996. The Yankees went on to win the World Series in , and . The Yankees lost to the Arizona Diamondbacks in .

The Yankees made the playoffs every season through , winning the AL Pennant in seven games over the 2003 Boston Red Sox. In 2003, they won the ALCS but lost the World Series to the Florida Marlins, which denied Steinbrenner, who had won the Stanley Cup in June of that year as part-owner of the New Jersey Devils, the distinction of winning championships in two major sports leagues in the same year.

The Yankees' demise was furthered by the postseason collapse of 2004. While leading the eventual World Champion Boston Red Sox three games to none (3-0) and 3 outs away from winning Game 4, the Red Sox stunned the Yankees and the baseball world by coming back to win Game 4 and then the next three games and sweeping the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series. In , the Yankees ended their post-season run with a third place finish in the American League East. However, in , the Yankees defeated the Philadelphia Phillies in the World Series to win a 27th championship, seven of which had been won under Steinbrenner's ownership.

Retirement

From 2006 to his death, George Steinbrenner spent most of his time in Tampa, Florida, leaving the Yankees to be run by his sons Hank and Hal Steinbrenner. Hank in particular shows similar traits to his father.

After ceding day-to-day control of the team, Steinbrenner made few public appearances and gave no interviews. Associates and family members refused to comment on rampant speculation concerning his declining health, specifically rumors that he was suffering from Alzheimer's disease. The Yankees went to great lengths to prevent anyone outside Steinbrenner's immediate family and closest business associates from speaking to him, or even getting a glimpse of him on the rare occasions when he made an appearance at Yankee Stadium. Temporary curtains were set up to block views of his entry and exit routes, and no one was allowed near the vehicles transporting him. The press elevator carrying media members downstairs to the interview areas were shut down before he arrived, and again toward the end of the game while he departed.

Steinbrenner made a rare appearance in the Bronx on the field for the 79th All-Star Game on July 15, 2008. Wearing dark glasses, he walked slowly into the stadium's media entrance with the aid of several companions, leaning upon one of them for support. He later was driven out on to the field along with his son Hal at the end of the lengthy pre-game ceremony in which the All-Stars were introduced at their fielding positions along with 49 of the 63 living Hall of Famers.

In subsequent occasional visits to spring training, regular-season games, and other outings, he used a wheelchair.

On April 13, 2010, Derek Jeter and Joe Girardi privately presented the first 2009 World Series Championship ring to Steinbrenner in his stadium suite. He was "almost speechless", according to reports.

George Steinbrenner's estimated net worth was $1.15 billion USD in 2009 according to the Forbes 400 List in Forbes magazine issued in September 2009.

George Steinbrenner was the first owner of a baseball team to sell cable TV rights (to MSG Network).

In 1997, the Yankees signed a 10-year, $97 million deal with Adidas. A dispute with MSG over the cable rights fee ended with the creation of the Yankees' own YES Network.

George Steinbrenner has been able to grow the Yankees from a $10 million franchise to a $1.2 billion heavyweight. In 2005, the Yankees became the first American professional sports franchise to be conservatively estimated as being worth over one billion dollars. If one adds up the revenue of $1.2 billion valuation of the 36% Yankees owned YES Network to the team revenue (the other 64% is owned by Goldman Sachs and the former New Jersey Nets owner which is also a minority owner of the ballclub), they far surpass even the Dallas Cowboys in total estimated value.

Off the field

In addition to being an intense boss to his on-field employees, Steinbrenner was also known for pressuring and changing off-field employees (including various publicity directors), sometimes chewing them out in public. Longtime Cardinals announcer Jack Buck once quipped that he had seen Steinbrenner's yacht and that, "It was a beautiful thing to observe, with all 36 oars working in unison." Former sportscaster Hank Greenwald, who called Yankee games on WABC radio for two years, once said he knew when Steinbrenner was in town by how tense the office staff was.

He usually kept his complaints about the team broadcasters he approved of (except for the YES Network crew, who have generally not been his direct employees) out of the newspapers. However, he was known to be upset with the sometimes blunt commentary of former broadcaster Jim Kaat and former analyst Tony Kubek.

The 1986 World Series was called "Steinbrenner's nightmare," because it was a showdown between two of the Yankees' biggest rivals, their cross-town rival New York Mets and their most hated rival, Boston Red Sox. As a result, Steinbrenner wrote articles in ''The New York Post'' on the World Series. The Mets won that World Series, which relieved many Yankee fans.

Steinbrenner had a reputation as a domineering boss. Only three Yankee employees were continuously employed from the start of Steinbrenner's ownership in 1973 until the end of his tenure. One of those is long time Head Athletic Trainer Gene Monahan, who recently missed his first spring training in 48 years after being diagnosed with cancer.

Harvey Greene, the Yankees' Director of Media Relations from 1986-1989, talked about the experience of working under Steinbrenner: :"When the team was on the road, you’d come back to your hotel late at night, and if your phone light was on, you knew that either there had been a death in the family or George was looking for you. After a while, you started to hope that there had been a death in the family."

George Steinbrenner was involved with thoroughbred horse racing from the early 1970s. He owned Kinsman Stud Farm in Ocala, Florida and raced under the name Kinsman Stable.

Charitable work

Steinbrenner gave to many charitable causes. He often donated to the families of fallen police officers in the Tampa Police Department and the NYPD in addition to college scholarships for many poor children. During the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, Steinbrenner comforted United States Olympic Swimming medalist Ron Karnaugh through his father's death and maintained a relationship with him until his death. At his residence in Tampa, Steinbrenner supported numerous individuals and charities including the Boys and Girls Club as well as the Salvation Army. Mel Stottlemyre recalled that during his myeloma cancer treatment at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital he had mentioned in passing to Steinbrenner how he regretted not being able to watch Yankee games from his room. Stottlemyre heard that Steinbrenner went all the way to Mayor Rudy Giuliani to ensure he was able to watch the broadcasts from his room. Steinbrenner had also donated $1 million to St. Joseph's Children's Hospital where a wing was named in his honor.

In the media

Despite Steinbrenner's controversial status he poked fun at himself in the media. His frequent firings and rehirings of manager Billy Martin were lampooned in a '70s Miller Lite beer commercial in which Steinbrenner tells Martin "You're fired!" to which Martin replies "Oh, no, not again!" After one of Martin's real-life rehirings, the commercial was resurrected, only with Steinbrenner's line redubbed to say "You're ''hired!"''

He hosted ''Saturday Night Live'' on October 20, 1990 at the same time his former outfielder and Yankee manager, Lou Piniella, led the Cincinnati Reds to a World Championship. In the opening sketch, he dreamt of a Yankees team managed, coached, and entirely played by himself. In other sketches, he chews out the ''SNL'' "writing staff" (notably including Al Franken) for featuring him in a mock Slim Fast commercial with other ruthless leaders such as Saddam Hussein and Idi Amin and plays a folksy convenience store manager whose business ethic is divergent from that of Steinbrenner.

In ''The Simpsons'' episode "Homer at the Bat", Mr. Burns fires Don Mattingly for refusing to shave sideburns only Burns could see. It is often assumed that this was a parody of an argument Steinbrenner and Mattingly had in real life with regards to Mattingly's hair length. However, the episode was actually recorded a year before the suspension actually occurred, and was nothing more than a coincidence. As Mattingly walks off the baseball field, he states, "I still like him [Burns] better than Steinbrenner."

He appeared as himself in the Albert Brooks comedy ''The Scout''. In 1991, he played himself in an episode of Good Sports, with Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O'Neal.

In the 1994 computer game ''Superhero League of Hoboken'', one of the schemes of the primary antagonist, Dr. Entropy, is to resurrect George Steinbrenner.

After a public chastising of Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter for "partying too much," the two appeared in a Visa commercial club-hopping. A 2004 Visa commercial depicted Steinbrenner in the trainer's room at Yankee Stadium, suffering from an arm injury, unable to sign any checks, including that of his then-current manager Joe Torre, who spends most of the commercial treating Steinbrenner as if he were an important player.

George Will once described Steinbrenner as an "error machine" and a "baseball dumb-o-meter."

Steinbrenner also was a fan of professional wrestling. He wrote the foreword of the 2005 Dusty Rhodes autobiography and was a regular at old Tampa Armory cards in the 1970s and 1980s. In March 1989, he appeared in the front row of the WWF's ''Saturday Night's Main Event'' broadcast, even interacting with manager Bobby "The Brain" Heenan at one point (Heenan remarked about the guy he managed in the ring at the time to Steinbrenner "I've got a ring full of Winfield"). At WWF WrestleMania 7, Steinbrenner, WWF owner Vince McMahon, and NFL announcer Paul Maguire filmed a skit with the trio debating instant replay. He was also present in the front row of an edition of ''WCW Monday Nitro'' in early 1998 when the event took place in Tampa.

At the funeral of his long time friend Otto Graham in December 2003, Steinbrenner fainted, leading to extensive media speculation that he was in ill health.

''New York Daily News'' cartoonist Bill Gallo often cited Steinbrenner's German heritage by drawing him in a Prussian military uniform, complete with spiked helmet, gold epaulettes and medals, calling him "General von Steingrabber."

In ESPN's miniseries ''The Bronx is Burning'', he is portrayed by Oliver Platt.

Seinfeld caricature

Steinbrenner appeared as a character in the situation comedy ''Seinfeld'', when George Costanza worked for the Yankees for several seasons. Lee Bear portrayed the character, and Larry David provided voice-over performances whenever the character spoke. Steinbrenner's full face was never shown, and the character was always viewed from the back in scenes set in his office at Yankee Stadium. The character appeared in the following episodes: "The Opposite", "The Secretary", "The Race", "The Jimmy", "The Wink", "The Hot Tub", "The Caddy", "The Calzone", "The Bottle Deposit", "The Nap", "The Millennium", "The Muffin Tops", and "The Finale".

The fictional Steinbrenner talked nonstop, regardless of whether anyone was listening, and sometimes referred to himself as "Big Stein". The team owner was known for eccentric decisions, such as cooking jerseys, threatening to move the team to New Jersey "just to upset people", scalping his owner's box tickets, wearing Lou Gehrig's uniform pants (and panicking about "that nerve disease" being contagious), trading several players to Frank Costanza's dismay, and canceling a meeting because he wanted George Costanza to get him an eggplant calzone. In "The Wink", the Steinbrenner character mentions all of the people he fired, saying Billy Martin four times, and mentions then-current manager Buck Showalter, but then quickly swears Costanza to silence. Though intended as a joke, the comment proved prophetic: A few weeks after the episode aired, Steinbrenner replaced Showalter as manager with Joe Torre.

Steinbrenner's involvement with ''Seinfeld'' began when he refused a request to make a cameo appearance and permit a Yankees pennant to appear; the show nonetheless used the pennant. A year later, Steinbrenner was asked to permit a Yankees uniform to appear on the sixth-season "The Chaperone". The owner was still angry about the unauthorized pennant, and knew so little about the show that after reading the script he believed George Costanza had been named after him as an insult. He refused to permit the uniform's use unless the character was renamed. After watching the show and enjoying both it and the Costanza character, however, Steinbrenner approved the uniform, and later maintained that he was a fan of the show and that "Costanza is always welcome back." He filmed three scenes for the ''Seinfeld'' season 7 finale, "The Invitations", but they were edited out when the time of the original episode ran longer than the allowed time. They are on the ''Seinfeld'' Season 7 DVD Disc 4.

Jerry Seinfeld said after Steinbrenner's death: “Who else could be a memorable character on a television show without actually appearing on the show? You felt George even though he wasn’t there. That’s how huge a force of personality he was."

Honors

Steinbrenner was awarded The Flying Wedge Award, one of the NCAA’s highest honors.

In 1992, Steinbrenner was presented with Tampa's most prestigious civic service award, the Tampa Metro Civitan Club's Outstanding Citizen of the Year Award.

In 2000, Steinbrenner was honored as Grand Marshal at the German-American Steuben Parade on Fifth Avenue in New York City. At this largest German-American event in the country, he was greeted by tens of thousands who celebrated him as an outstanding American of German heritage.

The Steinbrenner Band Hall at the University of Florida was made possible by a gift from George and Joan Steinbrenner in 2002. The facility was completed in 2008 and serves as The Pride of the Sunshine's rehearsal hall and houses offices, instrument storage, the band library and an instrument issue room.

A new high school in Lutz, Florida, which opened for about 1600 students in August 2009, is named George Steinbrenner High School. Steinbrenner was a generous contributor to the Tampa Bay area.

Legends Field, the Yankees' Spring Training facility in Tampa, was renamed George M. Steinbrenner Field in March 2008 in his honor by his two sons, with the blessing of the Hillsborough County Commission and the Tampa City Council. The entrance to the new Bryson Field at Boshamer Stadium at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has also been named for Steinbrenner and his family. A life-size bronze statue of Steinbrenner was placed in front of the stadium in January 2011.

Steinbrenner appeared on the 2011 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot.

Death

On July 13, 2010, the morning of the 2010 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, George Steinbrenner died of a heart attack at St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa, Florida. His death came nine days after his 80th birthday, two days after the passing of long time Yankee Stadium public address announcer Bob Sheppard, and eight days before that of former Yankee manager Ralph Houk. On July 14, the Yankees announced that players and coaches would wear a Steinbrenner commemorative patch on the left breast of their home and road uniforms, and a Bob Sheppard commemorative patch on the left arm.

The Steinbrenner family added a monument to Monument Park on September 20, 2010 to honor Steinbrenner. He is buried at Trinity Memorial Gardens in Trinity, Florida.

References

External links

George: The Poor Little Rich Boy Who Built The Yankee Empire

The List: Steinbrenner's Worst ESPN

George M. Steinbrenner III: #380 Richest American

FBI file on George Steinbrenner

Outstanding Citizen of the Year; Past Winners, Tampa Metro Civitan Club.

George Steinbrenner at Find A Grave

Steinbrenner's basketball bio

George Steinbrenner Dies

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