George Steinbrenner

Last week one of baseball leaders passed away, New York Yankee owner George Steinbrenner. He earned seven World Series titles and 11 pennants during his ownership. His larger-than-life outbursts transcended sports and made him a pop culture figure whose firings were parodied in commercials and on the TV comedy “Seinfeld”. Even Jerry Seinfeld said “Who else could be a memorable character on a television show without actually appearing on the show? That’s how huge a force of personality he was”. Peter Golenbock wrote “George the Poor Little Rich Boy who built the Yankee Empire” and Bill Madden wrote “Steinbrenner the last lion of Baseball”, both books are available via LINKcat. We have the 1977 World Series on DVD with all six games against the Los Angeles Dodgers. (That was the season when George took advantage of the new free-agency rules and got Reggie Jackson.) Reggie’s five home runs in the series broke a 15-year Yankee championship drought. We also have the 2007 ESPN miniseries “The Bronx is Burning” which also looked at George Steinbrenner and the Yankees during 1977.