Q and A with New York Post Sports Columnist Mike Vaccaro

I caught up with New York Post Sports Columnist Mike Vaccaro on his recent book, The Bosses of the Bronx: The Endless Drama of the Yankees Under the House of Steinbrenner, for a fun Q and A below. Be sure to buy the book at nearby bookstores and online where books are sold. Enjoy.

ML: What’s the main message about George Steinbrenner you wanted to get across in the book?

MV: There’s an entire generation of baseball fans under the age of, say, 40, who don’t remember George as anything other than the elder statesman who was cheered lustily whenever he came to Yankee Stadium. There’s an older generation who remember what Apex George was like but have selective amnesia.

So to me that made for a compelling figure to devote a book to: all the good, all the bad, all the crazy, all the success. George was every bit of all of that and when you have a character like that to place at the center of the narrative, you’re off to a great start.

ML: How close were the Yankees to moving before The Boss bought them and how close were they to moving to New Jersey years later under Stenbrenner’s ownership?

MV: They had one foot out the door. The Giants had already announced their move. The city was broke. The stadium they played in was falling down. The neighborhood in which the stadium stood was struggling. And the Mets were outdrawing the Yankees 2.5-to-1 and were the clear dominant team in New York. CBS had other offers, all of them higher than the Steinbrenner group, but almost all were ready to be swooped away to New Jersey – or even New Orleans, which was building the Superdome and coveted a tenant other than the Saints.

But William Paley, head of CBS, who didn’t want to be known as the man who let the Yankees skip town, was taken by Steinbrenner. When he assured Paley he was committed to keeping them in New York that did the trick. Of course, within a few years Steinbrenner himself began to dally with New Jersey.  It never really got anywhere, but did serve as a cudgel he held over New York’s head for years.

 ML: George Steinbrenner vs. Billy Martin. Who really won?

MV: Well, as long as you have the power to hire and fire then you’re going to have the final word and the final say. So, from that standpoint, Steinbrenner won. But Billy was always the people’s choice and if that bothered George – and it did –  he grew to accept it.

And if Billy hadn’t died on Christmas Day 1989, it’s a near certainty he’d have hired Billy a sixth time early the next season. That reality always haunted George. So maybe in a weird way Billy did win.

ML: Late 1970’s Yanks vs. late 1990’s and into 2003 Yanks dynasty. How were they similar and how were they different (imagine that best-of-seven series)?

MV: They were both stubborn tough outs. You might eat them over 162 or in a short series, but you had to beat them outright, you could ever expect that they’d beat themselves. They had clutch money players all over both rosters and had very good managers.

The 1970s teams thrived on chaos. They seemed to actually enjoy the craziness. I’m not sure the 90s teams would have if that was still George’s bag by then. Bernie Williams will never be concussed with Reggie Jackson in any other way than being a very good player, for instance. He wouldn’t have liked the back page wars

ML: Aaron Judge and Hal Stenbrenner win a ring. George Steinbrenner gets into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Which is more likely?

MV: Judge/Hal. As long as Judge is the cornerstone of the team, they’ll be in play. George only gets a shot once every three years on the Veterans Committee Ballot and he’s yet to get much traction and isn’t expected to get mush more in 2027. I do think he’ll get in eventually, but I think Judge will be retired by then.

ML: One word to describe George Steinbrenner. One word to describe Hal Steinbrenner.

MV: George: fascinating. You can’t pin him down as any one thing. He enjoyed the spotlight every second he was in it and had a singular inability to competent trust even with subordinates he trusted. The book could’ve gone a thousand pages longer just based on him. Hal: stoic. He’s a smart guy who is unaffected by the daily noise of baseball in New York. As he says: his dad was more about the back pages. He’s more about the back room.

ML: Thanks Mike. The book is truly fantastic.

MV: Thanks Mike. It was a fun one to write so I hope people find it equally fun to read.

Jamie Wallace