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    Trump/Steinbrenner: how the Yankees owner fired a president’s ego

    Trump/Steinbrenner: how the Yankees owner fired a president’s egoDonald Trump is exiled in Florida but he was made in New York – in part by a friendship with a controversial baseball ownerWhen Donald Trump was looking to make his mark in 1980s Manhattan, he found a role model up in the Bronx: the New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. Trump was also a professional team owner: his New Jersey Generals competed in the short-lived United States Football League. But though Trump and Steinbrenner would ultimately become good friends, they didn’t get off to the best start.Trump to publish book of letters from Kim Jong-un, Oprah Winfrey and othersRead moreAs Maggie Haberman of the New York Times writes in her bestselling book, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America, the two men sat on the board of the New York State Sportsplex Corporation, which was looking into building new stadiums. Trump was eyeing one in Queens, where the Generals could play.“At a press conference following the board’s first meeting, in 1984, Steinbrenner complained that Trump was hogging the microphone. ‘This isn’t going to be a one-man show or I’m not going to stick around,’ he said, raising his arms to obscure Trump so that photographers could not capture them together.“That show of ego, and willingness to set the terms of debate, did not stop the men from becoming friends, and Trump was a constant presence in the owner’s box at Yankee Stadium.”Years later, Steinbrenner provided inspiration for Trump on his hit TV show, The Apprentice.“He ad-libbed the ‘You’re fired’ line used to dispatch each week’s loser as an apparent, and unacknowledged, homage” to Steinbrenner, Haberman writes, describing how the Yankees owner’s “revolving door of managers was one of New York’s great ongoing tragicomedies.“As he was still trying to figure out how to be a boss of a company, Trump looked upon Steinbrenner – and the ease, even glee, with which he fired people – and other members of Steinbrenner’s social circle as examples. When he had to play an executive on television, Trump adopted Steinbrenner’s voice and recast The Apprentice’s spirit as gleefully punitive.”Memorably, Steinbrenner cashed in on the catchphrase in a 1978 Miller Lite commercial, which shows him clashing with manager Billy Martin.Steinbrenner says: “Tastes great.”Martin insists: “Less filling.”“Billy,” Steinbrenner.“Yeah, George?”“You’re fired,” Steinbrenner says, with a grin.“Not again!” Martin replies, as the two men chuckle.In real life, Martin had five stints as Yankees manager.Steinbrenner and Trump became etched into popular culture – as executives who made firing people an art form.In 2010, following Steinbrenner’s death, Jim Caple on ESPN wrote: “During his prime, Steinbrenner single-handedly raised the national unemployment rate by a percent, firing managers so regularly that he made Donald Trump look like the head of a teachers union.”Trump told the writer Mark Leibovich Steinbrenner had been his best friend, calling him a “big time winner”. Those comments were published in 2017, when Trump had taken Steinbrenner’s human resources philosophy to the White House, dispensing with officials the way Steinbrenner fired executives and managers.However, when, in 1973, the syndicate Steinbrenner led bought the Yankees, he gave no indication he would be so involved in personnel matters.“‘I won’t be active in the day-to-day operations of the club at all,” he said, making arguably the least accurate prediction in sports business history.“We plan absentee ownership as far as running the Yankees is concerned,” Steinbrenner added. “We’re not going to pretend we’re something we aren’t. I’ll stick to building ships.”Steinbrenner’s stint with the Yankees did feature one thing more scarce in Trump’s business career: eye-catching financial success. His group bought the team from CBS for a measly $10m. Last year, Forbes pegged the Yankees’ value at $6bn.There was a reason for the bargain price. Steinbrenner, then 42, chairman of the American Ship Building Company and part‐owner of the NBA’s Chicago Bulls, purchased the most successful franchise in baseball at close to rock bottom, at least by its standards. The year before, the Yankees finished fourth in the American League East and drew just 966,000 fans: their first time under a million since the second world war, when attendance was down across baseball. Steinbrenner’s group got the Yankees for less than the small-market Cleveland Indians had recently fetched.Around the same time, Steinbrenner and Trump both got into trouble with the US justice department.In 1973, the department sued Trump’s real estate firm for discriminating against Black tenants and thereby violating the Fair Housing Act, a case eventually settled.The following year, the justice department indicted Steinbrenner for illegal contributions to Richard Nixon’s 1972 re-election campaign. That case ended in a guilty plea in August 1974, two weeks after Nixon resigned, and Steinbrenner being suspended from running the team. (Trump would also befriend Nixon – he will include 25 letters from the former president in a book due out in April.)Untouchable review: Trump as ‘lawless Houdini’ above US justiceRead moreSteinbrenner wound up returning the Yankees to the pinnacle, spending liberally on star players, especially in the early years of free agency, and winning 11 pennants and seven World Series titles.In 2006, with the Yankees on their way to a ninth straight AL East title, Trump threw out the ceremonial pitch at Fenway Park before a game against the Boston Red Sox. In August 2020, as president, he said he had canceled plans to throw the opening pitch at Yankee Stadium, also against the Red Sox – citing his “strong focus” on the coronavirus pandemic. The Times said no invitation was made for that specific game.We’ll never know how Trump would have been received. But he has weighed in from the peanut gallery himself. In 2013, with the Yankees on their way to a first playoff miss in five seasons, he called out the team.“The Yankees are sure lucky George Steinbrenner is not around,” Trump tweeted, before going back to the firing imagery that marked both men’s careers.“A lot of people would be losing their jobs.”
    Frederic J Frommer’s books include Red Sox vs Yankees: The Great Rivalry and You Gotta Have Heart: Washington Baseball from Walter Johnson to the 2019 World Series Champion Nationals
    TopicsNew York YankeesDonald TrumpMLBBaseballUS sportsUS politicsRepublicansfeaturesReuse this content More

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    Ron DeSantis blocks funds for Tampa Bay Rays after team’s gun safety tweets

    Ron DeSantis blocks funds for Tampa Bay Rays after team’s gun safety tweetsFlorida governor defends vetoing funds for training facilityRays had joined Yankees in tweeting about gun safety The governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, has defended his veto of $35m in funding for a potential spring training site for the Tampa Bay Rays, after the Major League Baseball team used social media to raise awareness about gun violence after mass shootings in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas.“I don’t support giving taxpayer dollars to professional sports stadiums,” DeSantis said on Friday, when asked about the veto of the sports complex funding. “Companies are free to engage or not engage with whatever discourse they want, but clearly it’s inappropriate to be doing tax dollars for professional sports stadiums. It’s also inappropriate to subsidize political activism of a private corporation.”On 26 May, in the wake of what they called “devastating events that took place in Uvalde, Buffalo and countless other communities across our nation”, the Rays said they would donate $50,000 to the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund and use their social media channels to offer facts about gun violence. The New York Yankees also used social media to address the shootings, during a game between the two teams last week.On Friday, citing an unnamed source, CNN reported that DeSantis’s decision to block the funding was influenced in part by the Rays’ tweets about the shootings.pic.twitter.com/9DpyuwEzJo— Tampa Bay Rays (@RaysBaseball) May 26, 2022
    In Uvalde, an 18-year-old gunman armed with a semi-automatic rifle killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school. The shooting happened days after a gunman shot and killed 10 people at a supermarket in Buffalo.“In lieu of game coverage and in collaboration with the Tampa Bay Rays, we will be using our channels to offer facts about the impacts of gun violence,” the Yankees said in a statement.“The devastating events that have taken place in Uvalde, Buffalo and countless other communities across our nation are tragedies that are intolerable.”The Rays said shootings “cannot become normal”.Throughout their game last Thursday, both teams posted facts about gun violence on their social media pages, with links to sources and helpline numbers. Neither team posted the result of the game.Following the Uvalde shooting, Steve Kerr, coach of the NBA’s Golden State Warriors, refused to talk about basketball at a pre-game news conference, instead calling for stricter gun control legislation.02:55DeSantis has made culture war issues including gun control a calling card in his rise to prominence as a possible Republican candidate for president.On another front on Friday, DeSantis announced that the Special Olympics had dropped a coronavirus vaccine mandate for its forthcoming games in Orlando, after he moved to fine the organization $27.5m for violating a state law against such rules.The Special Olympics competition in Florida is scheduled to run from 5 to 12 June.At a news conference in Orlando, DeSantis said: “In Florida, we want all of them to be able to compete. We do not think it’s fair or just to be marginalizing some of these athletes based on a decision that has no bearing on their ability to compete with honor or integrity.”The Florida health department notified the Special Olympics of the fine in a letter on Thursday that said the organization would be fined $27.5m for 5,500 violations of state law, for requiring proof of coronavirus vaccination for attendees or participants.Florida law bars businesses from requiring documentation of a Covid-19 vaccination. DeSantis has strongly opposed vaccine mandates and other virus policies endorsed by the federal government.In a statement on its website, the Special Olympics said people who were registered but unable to participate because of the mandate could now attend.TopicsMLBTampa Bay RaysNew York YankeesBaseballUS sportsRon DeSantisUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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    Ilhan Omar at odds with Stacey Abrams over Georgia All-Star Game boycott

    The Minnesota representative Ilhan Omar has backed Major League Baseball’s decision to move its All-Star Game from Georgia over a restrictive new voting law. But in doing so she placed herself at odds with another leading progressive, the voting rights campaigner Stacey Abrams.Abrams, who suffered a narrow defeat in the Georgia gubernatorial race in 2018, commended the MLB’s decision on Friday but said she was disappointed the game was being relocated.“I respect boycotts,” she said, “although I don’t want to see Georgia families hurt by lost events and jobs. Georgians targeted by voter suppression will be hurt as opportunities go to other states. We should not abandon the victims of [Republican] malice and lies – we must stand together.”On Saturday the PGA Tour and the PGA of America made similar arguments when they said they would not move events scheduled for Georgia this summer. The Masters, perhaps the biggest event in golf, begins in Augusta, Georgia this week.Many observers question the accepted wisdom that big sporting events bring economic benefits but on Sunday, on CNN’s State of the Union, Omar was asked if she agreed with Abrams.“We know that boycotts have allowed for justice to be delivered in many spaces,” Omar said. “The civil rights movement was rooted in boycotts. We know that apartheid ended in South Africa because of boycotts.“And so our hope is that this boycott will result in changes in the law because we understand that when you restrict people’s ability to vote, you create a democracy that isn’t fully functioning for all of us, and if we are to continue to be beacon of hope for all democracies around the world we must stand our ground.”Conservatives have protested the MLB decision to take the All-Star Game away from Georgia. On Friday, Trump told supporters they should “boycott baseball” in return.Among other measures, the Georgia law applies restrictions to early and mail-in voting, measures likely to affect minority participation.Republicans have countered Democratic protests by saying the law merely seeks to avoid electoral fraud, which Donald Trump claimed was rampant in his defeat by Joe Biden in Georgia and elsewhere – a lie repeatedly laughed out of court.Omar was asked if other states which do not even allow early or mail-in voting should examine their own laws.“They certainly should,” she said. “I mean, Minnesota is not No1 in voter turnout and participation because we are special, even though we are. It’s because we have made voting accessible for people. And it is really important that every single state, we examine their voting laws and make sure that voting is accessible to everyone.”Omar also referred to pending federal legislation which seeks to counter moves by Republican-led states. The For the People Act, technically known as HR1, has passed the House but seems unlikely to pass the 50-50 Senate unless Democrats reform or abolish the filibuster, under which bills must attract 60 votes to pass.“It’s also going to be really important for us to continue to push HR1,” Omar said, “which makes [voting] accessible nationwide and strengthens our democracy.” More

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    Trump and Carlson lead backlash as MLB pulls All-Star Game from Georgia

    Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson led rightwing backlash after Major League Baseball said it would not play its All-Star game in Georgia because of a new law that restricts voting rights in the state.The former president and the Fox News host some say is his Republican political heir thereby ranged themselves against current president Joe Biden and the Democrat he served as vice-president, Barack Obama.“Baseball is already losing tremendous numbers of fans,” Trump said in a statement, “and now they leave Atlanta with their All-Star Game because they are afraid of the radical left Democrats.“… Boycott baseball and all of the woke companies that are interfering with free and fair elections. Are you listening Coke, Delta and all?”Coke and Delta are among companies which have expressed concern over the Georgia law, which restricts early and mail-in voting, measures seen to target minority voters likely to back Democrats.Laws under consideration in other Republican-run states have attracted criticism from corporate America. The Georgia law was passed by Republicans after Biden won the state against Trump and Democrats won both Senate runoff elections in January.Referring to the segregation of the post-civil war south, Biden called the law: “Jim Crow in the 21st century.”In his own statement on Saturday, Obama congratulated MLB “for taking a stand on behalf of voting rights for all citizens”.He also said: “There’s no better way for America’s pastime to honor the great Hank Aaron, who always led by example.”Aaron, known as the Hammer, was a long-time MLB home-run record holder who played for the Atlanta Braves and endured racist abuse throughout his life in the sport. He died in January, aged 86.MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said he had “decided that the best way to demonstrate our values as a sport is by relocating this year’s All-Star Game and MLB draft” from the home of the Atlanta Braves.“Major League Baseball fundamentally supports voting rights for all Americans and opposes restrictions to the ballot box.”The move was not without precedent. In 2016 North Carolina lost the right to host high-profile NCAA college events over a bill which restricted rights for transgender people.On Friday night Carlson, who some say could be a contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 if Trump does not run again, claimed MLB “believes it has veto power over the democratic process”.Before MLB acted, Biden said he would support moving events from Atlanta. Carlson said that showed the president was “willing to destroy even something as wholesome as the country’s traditional game purely to increase the power of his political party”.The chief of the MLB players union has indicated support for the move. In a statement on Friday, the New York Yankees great and Miami Marlins chief executive Derek Jeter said: “We should promote increasing voter turnout as opposed to any measures that adversely impact the ability to cast a ballot … We support the commissioner’s decision to stand up for the values of our game.”Georgia governor Brian Kemp – a bête noire for Trump over his refusal to overturn Biden’s win – said MLB had “caved to fear, political opportunism and liberal lies”. He also decried “cancel culture”, a key Republican talking point.Stacey Abrams, who Kemp beat in a 2018 election he ran as Georgia secretary of state, said she was “disappointed” the All-Star game would not be played in the state.But Abrams, who campaigns for voting rights and has become an influential figure in the national Democratic party, also said she was “proud of [MLB’s] stance on voting rights” and “urged events and productions to come and speak out or stay and fight”.Also on Friday, nearly 200 companies signed a statement expressing concern at moves to restrict voting rights in Republican-run states.Many observers pointed out that the political ramifications of MLB’s decision to move the All-Star Game will be stronger than the economic fallout, given that coronavirus-related restrictions would have placed limits on capacity at the event this year.A leading professor of sports economics warned that MLB could risk losing the support of conservatives in a fanbase which skews right.“After the country’s top professional basketball and football leagues embraced the Black Lives Matter movement last year,” Andrew Zimbalist of Smith College told the New York Times, “they faced organised boycotts from conservatives, though the effort ultimately had little effect. And baseball’s fanbase is older and whiter than basketball’s or football’s.” More