Steinbrenner - Hall of Fame?

I can’t see how anyone could justify putting Steinbrenner in the HOF. He was a flamboyant, forceful personality, but in the history of baseball plenty of owners fit that description. It’s difficult to think of anything he did that would merit his inclusion in the HOF.

However, it’s interesting that you should bring this up today, because I just read a column by Mike Lopresti in which he advocates inducting Dr. Frank Jobe into the HOF because of all the careers he saved with his Tommy John surgery. Lopresti calls his selection a “no-doubter,” and I have to agree. For his revolutionary impact on the game, Dr. Jobe definitely deserves to be in.

In the same column, Lopresti also comes out in favor of HOF membership for Steinbrenner, Commissioner Bud, and Marvin Miller. I agree with him about Marvin Miller, but I sure hope Bud never makes it. Putting Bowie Kuhn in the Hall was bad enough.

I read a Mike Lopresti column this morning in which he presents four candidates for the HOF based on their historical significance to baseball: Steinbrenner, Commissioner Bud, Marvin Miller, and Dr. Frank Jobe. I’ll leave the discussion of Bud and Miller to others, but

Steinbrenner will fall in the Executive Category for the HoF and he easily meets any criteria for enshrinement compared to others in that category. This does not just include owners, but other executives as well.

What do you mean by

the sinking feeling that Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera would have played most of their careers for other teams because Steinbrenner would have traded them.

I suspect there is a story there I have never heard

but my initial reaction is yes. The Yankees are widely regarded as the gold standard by which other teams are judged, not only from a baseball standpoint, but sport media and entertainment as well. That, coupled with their success under his ownership, is quite a legacy. Say what you will about his style (and I never really liked the man much personally myself), but he was iconic in the truest sense.

for being so great.

I think he will get in and his resume says he should. But in my Opinion he was nearly as horrible as Pete Rose when it came to what he did to Reggie and Dave Winfield.

I mean, Joe Morgan is in the Hall of Fame………

Owned the Yankees for all the rest of the 20 World Series’ they have won. Ruppert until 1939 and Webb and Topping until 1964. (Larry McPhail, who IS in the Hall for other reasons, was a partner of Webb and Topping for a couple of years, but they bought him out)

Why should Steinbrenner get in if the other owners aren’t?

You can’t think of Steinbrenner and NOT think of Major League Baseball.

That means HOF to me.

Team won 11 pennants and 7 championships while he was owner and all but one came when he was actively involved in day-to-day affairs. Refused to accept losing.

This is about the only thing that makes him special. It’s not enough of a reason to induct him.

Set standard for the BUSINESS of baseball with cable network, licensing and other money-making avenues.

I feel someone like Ted Turner has a more deserving case simply because he had a big hand in spreading the popularity of his team just by putting them on a cable network. Philip Wrigley could not have envisioned his Cubs being widely available on cable television when he made the WGN decades ago. Both somewhat paved the way for what the YES Network is today.

Under the “It’s a museum, not a shrine” argument (similar to Time naming Stalin "Man of the Year or Voldemort doing "terrible, but great things) no one had more influence on the way baseball players are paid and how free agency works than Steinbrenner. Argument should also be used to put in Marvin Miller, Pete Rose, and every steroid user.

I also feel that Marvin Miller’s exclusion is criminal. Without Miller, there is no free agency. I have to say his contribution to the free agency era is ten times greater than anything Steinbrenner ever did. Steinbrenner figured that he could make the Yankees great again by taking advantage of free agency? So what. If Miller can’t get into the Hall of Fame, why even use this as a reason to support Steinbrenner?

Made the Yankees, the signature franchise in baseball, relevant again. When he bought the team in 1973, it was a Knicks (two NBA titles in three years); Nets (Dr. J); Jets (Namath) and Mets (Just won the pennant) town. Within three years, had the Yanks in World Series.

This is probably the biggest deal of all. The problem is that it begs the question why it matters.

On to the cases against:

Very few owners are in the Hall anyway and those that are are mostly founding father types or men like Connie Mack who really are in for managing. O’Malley and Yawkey are the exceptions and Yawkey is a joke. An unrepentant racist who had a lousy team despite having the best hitter that ever lived. Posnanski thinks that if Yawkey is in, Steinbrenner should be in and I despise that argument. Just because a bunch of bourbon-soaked idiots voted for one guy doesn’t mean the next guy should be in.

There are plenty of owners that should be in before Steinbrenner.

The whole Dave Winfield, suspended from baseball thing and the sinking feeling that Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera would have played most of their careers for other teams because Steinbrenner would have traded them.

The Dave Winfield incident is the biggest reason to keep him out. The guy was actually banned for this.

Mostly was an idiot in the 1980s.

All Steinbrenner’s legacy proves is that he had the right idea. Winning means everything in professional sports. Just because you spend all sorts of money on free agents and inflate the payroll doesn’t mean you’ll win. The Yankees became another dynasty thanks in large part to the core players that are still with the team.

but I don’t think he belongs. Spending a lot of money and winning championships doesn’t do it for me as an owner.

He didn’t do anything that transformational to baseball. He basically learned after many years to just keep out of the way and sign the checks. Jacob Ruppert if anyone should get in first since he started the whole Yankee dynasty.

The Winfield incident is also a big black mark. Can you really put Steinbrenner in and keep Rose out?

Along with Marvin Miller and the networks, George served as the third part of an Unholy Trinity that created the grossly overpriced and often unwatchable modern game we know, all at the expense of taxpayers nationwide.

I realize that the recent media deification of Steinbrenner is, in part, payback from the networks for all that he did to make baseball the highty-profitable and schedule-filling media spectacle it became in the age of Moneyball. But even the puff pieces we see and hear 24-7 can only do so much to burnish the image of a man who not only sabotaged the efforts of his partners (i.e., the other owners) to control costs, but who also left baseball fans and the general public stuck with the bill.

By making a separate peace with Miller and the “union” back in the 70’s, George was a little like that lone juror at a mob trial who holds out for acquittal a few months before buying that expensive beachfront property in Florida.

He was banned for life from baseball. True, he was reinstated 4 years later, but it still was supposed to be a lifetime ban. As was Steve Howe. It’s all about the dough and greed.

I again want to complain that your polls have no multiple pick options. I’m a paste-a-holic.

sound familiar?

Just because a bunch of bourbon-soaked idiots voted for one guy doesn’t mean the next guy should be in.

I couldn’t agree more.
 As far as George is concerned, basically I look at him as somewhat of a bully with a lot of money.
 I was always happy when a team with a far lesser payroll beat the Yankees. George tried to “buy” his championships and also helped drive up the salaries.
He did, however, revive the Yankees and put them back in high stature, but that doesn’t merit HOF.
 As a non-New Yorker, Steinbrenner was a guy I loved to hate, and a lot of New Yorkers didn’t like him either.
 He was somewhat Like Ross Perot, in that, he was “My way or the highway!”
I never heard of one case where his manager was trying to tell him how to build ships, but he was always telling them how to manage…and firing them…and sometimes rehiring them…and then tell them how to manage again.
HOF? No! I’d consider that “buying” his way in.
Having more money than anyone else and being willing to spend it can make any team better and can make a dynasty. I love to hate the Yankees!
Who was the poorest owner ever to win a World Series? Put that guy in!