Friday, July 16, 2010
The Boss Through Story
I read an interesting post by Joel Sherman on his blog speaking of his experiences with the Boss I thought would be good to share. The more you read about George, the more you realize just how unique of an owner he was. Its easy to be put off by someone with such a rough demeanor, and who seemed so irrational at times, but George was more than that. He had a huge ego, but could make fun of himself. He had high expectations, but was just as hard working. Spent millions on his team, and spent millions on charity. I've heard people say that George's contributions to charity were merely a tax write off for his business, and maybe that was so, but typically these are the same people who can't spare the $20 they blew on beer that night when tragedies like Katrina, the tsunami, or the earthquake in Haiti hit. The Yankees, under Steinbrenner, gave $2.5 million to those releif efforts. Many organizations with the kind of money the Yankees had could not be bothered to donate. It all says something about the nature of the Boss.
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2 comments:
I've never understood the tax write off dismissal. It's a deduction not a credit, that means you "save" the amount that would have been taxed, but you're giving away that plus the remaining (larger) percentage. Instead of having say 65 cents on the dollar, you have zero. It just makes it cheaper to give because you are only giving up the 65 cents rather than the whole dollar. The charity still gets it all. Basically the Feds are chipping in 35 cents. Rant over.
I think The Boss deserves more attention for the risks he has taken to make the Yankees into the power house they are. Setting up a T.V. network isn't cheap, in the long run it's paying off, but it was a gamble. So is NYS, along with the new vending company started to support it. I guess he probably didn't have as much to do with recent stuff, but he set up a culture that allows people to have big thoughts and try them. Spending big on players is part of that. You have to have a good product to go along with those investments. On top of that the fans pay good money and want to see good baseball. Obviously not all the big contracts paid off, but he took risks with money he could have pocketed and put winners on the field.
Yeah I didn't agree with all the moves, but when we landed Burnett, Sabathia and Teixeira and traded for Nick Swisher in one off season, I knew the organization had finally gotten the spending spree right. I was iffy about Burnett, but he's been basically what I've expected him to be.
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