Fading From the Scene

At the end of the winter meeetings there is little talk of huge, long-term contracts.  Maybe there are no $200 million dollar players this year, but it’s also because the loudest, brashest owner, who drove that market for years, isn’t there any more.  Actually there are two owners, giants in their time, who are fading from the scene.  They both defined an era; their legacies as different as Frost and Nixon.

When George Steinbrenner bought the New York Yankees in 1973 for a mere $10 million, they were a troubled franchise overshadowed by the Amazing Mets.  The Mets had Tom ‘Terrific’ Seaver as a face plate more winning than anything the Yankees could drag from a depleted organization.  Steinbrenner reversed field and turned that relatively modest investment into the most successful sports franchise of the past three decades–worth an estimated $1.5 billion now.

Though Steinbrenner quickly transformed the Yankees, winning back-to-back World Series titles in ’77 and ‘78, he brought with him immediate controversy.  He had players like of Thurman Munson, Graig Nettles, Willie Randolph and Ron Guidry, but he also had close ties to Richard Nixon whose career in right field ended in shame.  Steibrenner was suspended for two years by Bowie Kuhn after his illegal campaign contributions to Richard Nixon were disclosed.

Steinbrenner was pardoned by Ronald Reagan and returned to the helm of the Yankees.  He ran his team quickly into the ground, making conflict with players and coaches his watchword.  Billy Martin managed the championship teams, but there was not room–even in New York City—for those two flawed personalities to co-exist.  The 1980′s were seldom good for Steinbrenner and the Yankees. 

Steinbrenner’s legacy for high-handed, ugly confrontation with those who worked for him, and cavalier disregard for the economics of his fellow owners made him loved by few, hated by many.  He trashed his players and managers mercilessly in the press.  Yet with over-the-top contract offers well in excess of what others were willing to contemplate, he had no trouble luring the very best to wear the pinstripes. 

In a less visible media market, one that he created largely himself, Ted Turner bought the Atlanta Braves in 1976.  He immediately linked baseball revenues and cable television, establishing a model that started the game down a path of un-parallelled prosperity.  But Turner did not achieve notable results with his team for almost two decades.  Twice his teams lost more than 100 games. 

Turner sold his team in 2005, another significant success story.  But the early years of Turner’s ownership saw dysfunction as out-sized as anything Steinbrenner achieved, though in a sleepy southern town it drew less attention.  After firing his manager, Turner went into the dugout for a week to manage his team personally.  He denounced the limited skill set of managers long before Billy Beane. 

I lived in Atlanta in the 70′s and 80’s when Brave’s tickets were available behind the dugout at game time and crowds seldom exceeded 10,000 fans.  Hometown fans were rare and often as not those in attendance sported jerseys and caps of the opposing team.  Fast forward to 1991 when the Braves started a 15-year run where they made the playoffs every year except once.  It was a remarkable turnaround. 

It occurred as Ted Turner disassociated himself from management of the Braves.  The further he got away from the team, the better it got.  He had real business interests to manage as he expanded his Atlanta media corporation into a conglomerate with an international foot print.  His creation of CNN alone will make his name synonomous with media innovation, regardless whether buffalo burgers catch on or not.

Steinbrenner’s Yes Network–like all the others–owes its origins to Turner.  To the degree that cable revenues and viewership have supported an expansion of the game both financially and in terms of fans, Turner has played a significant role.  There was a brief period in the early 1990′s when the Braves were winning and one of the only teams on cable television.  They truly were “America’s Team” for a brief period, and some kids from remote areas still have a soft spot for them as their home team.

Other owners, other business men have followed Turner’s path.  They carved off the viewership that Turner once enjoyed.  There are now dozens of cable news channels and dozens of team-owned cable stations.  Turner’s innovations have marked far more than baseball.  They have altered our culture and way of life.  

Steinbrenner does not have the larger than life reputation outside of baseball.  In that way he is a throw back to old-school owners who depended upon the game for their fame or notoriety.  Yet both men will be lionized as trail blazers.  Both will be recognized for the huge contributions they made to the game when they were still active in the game.  Turner’s will be more long lasting, but I am not certain he will get the recognition as quickly as Steinbrenner.

Steinbrenner’s legacy is the outlandish contracts that other owners have been forced to match and ticket prices through the roof to pay for them.  But the New York media will never let him be remembered as anything but a hero.  And he will likely achieve that status for more quickly than Turner.  

Ultimately Steinbrenner will never live on the quiet end of the street.  In the same odd way that Richard Nixon’s fame lives on rather more famously than his shame, Steinbrenner’s legacy will be a positive one.  It is almost as if Nixon himself is smiling on old George, even if it’s up from you know where.