George Steinbrenner, Remembered

By: Mike Moran

July 15, 2010

Mike Moran was the chief spokesman for the United States Olympic Committee through thirteen Games, 1980-2002. The Omaha, Nebraska native was the Sports Information Director at the University of Colorado for a decade before joining the USOC in 1978 as it left New York City for Colorado Springs. He was the Senior Communications Counselor for NYC2012, New York City’s Olympic bid group from 2003-2005 and is now a media consultant. Reach him at: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  and read more of his columns at www.coloradospringssports.org

It seemed prudent to wait a bit before speaking about George Steinbrenner and his passing this week while the epic tonnage of writing and reporting was overwhelming the media everywhere, even engulfing the Baseball All-Star game itself with its impact…………this man was truly larger-than-life in every way, perhaps the most accomplished owner in the history of American professional sport, a lightning-rod for controversy and bombast, but an iconic figure whose friendship with, and support of America’s Olympic athletes and his impact on the United States Olympic Committee will become legend, spoken of among the greatest………The Reader’s Digest of my youth carried a regular feature called “The Most Unforgettable Character I Have Ever Met,” and it crossed my mind today that he was mine, while thinking about The Boss and his life, his contributions to the USOC, and how much we all will miss him………in Boston during the summer of 1998, the USOC held a board meeting at the Marriott Copley Place, some 250 people on hand, and a nightmare of airport pickups and traffic delays……….Steinbrenner was due to arrive about dinnertime from New York at the teeming Logan Airport with Red Sox executive John Harrington and George needed to be picked up and delivered to the hotel………our staff was scared by him, and there were no volunteers for the job………I had met George in 1988 in Calgary when he launched his Olympic Overview Commission effort, and enjoyed a very positive relationship with him……….he even gave me a seat in his box at Yankee Stadium during the 1996 World Series, so I jumped at the chance to get the car and pick him up……….when he emerged from the gate and saw me waiting, his reaction was “What are you doing here, did you draw the short straw?”………….then got the usual bear-hug and slap on the back that was his trademark………it did not take long in the suffocating traffic at 5:30 to produce his famed anger, and he was really hot as our car crawled along through one of the tunnels and the minutes rolled by……….”What the hell do we have to get to now?” he said……….we were supposed to go to some museum for a USOC reception, and he was having none of that……..”I’m not going to go and stand around and make small talk over shrimp cocktails and weenies,” he roared, “let’s find some place for dinner.”………….my memory tells me we ended up on the Boston Harbor Pier at Anthony’s Pier 4, which was packed…….but as soon as the host saw him coming, a table was located by the windows and we sat down for what would become an evening never to be forgotten………George, as he always did, began the chat after we ordered (Petrale Sole for me, steak for him) by pelting me with personal questions, “Got a girlfriend?”  then “You look like you’ve gained some weight, do you work out?”…….and “Are you coming to New York this summer?”…………..once he’d had enough of that, the talk turned to his Yankees and Baseball……..most people believed he knew nothing much about the team and its history before 1973 when he bought the Bronx Bombers from CBS for $10 million………but for the next three hours, interrupted only by the arrival of our food and waiters and waitresses sneaking over for an autograph (they would whisper that since they were in Boston and worked there, would he simply sign the napkin or card and leave it discreetly on the chair when he left?), we talked about the Yankees, their magnificent history and the immortals, Ruth, Mantle, Dickey, Gehrig, Maris, Ford, Berra, and the rest of the Gods that wore pinstripes………he knew everything about each one and more, and he told stories never heard in my life about the stadium and the scores who inhabited it over the decades………at the end of the meal, he grabbed the check, of course, and after it was settled with a generous tip for the whole staff, we made our way through the bar, where there was some applause and some jeering by Red Sox fans………..I had not called the USOC office to tell them where we were and that I had picked him up, so when we got to the hotel around 9:30, chaos had ensued……….our staff had called the police asking about an accident, and the media covering our meeting thought something might be up……….George? He went right to bed, and so did I, sleeping like a baby…….the last time I saw him was in the autumn of 2004, October 13, at the Regency Hotel bar on Park Avenue in New York…..I was working in the city on the ill-fated New York 2012 Olympic bid and had gone to the second game of the ALCS series with the Red Sox……the Yankees had won that night as Jon Leiber beat the hated Pedro Martinez, 3-1, with a save, of course by Mariano Rivera……..George had brought his granddaughter and her chorale up from the University of North Carolina that night to sing the National Anthem before the game………they were all in the bar getting a late snack and celebrating the win when I stopped in to get a burger and a glass of wine…….he saw me and hailed me to come over and sit down, taking the time to introduce me to his family and talk about the USOC a bit………he had stepped aside from most Olympic stuff in 2002 but kept a lot of friends within the family……….it was time to go, not knowing it would be the last time I would be in his company and off to sleep……the Yankees won Game 3 by 19-8 at Fenway Park, but tragically lost the series to the Red Sox in seven games, which must have set George off like a rocket on the Fourth of July……..I left New York for good in June, 2005, after the Olympic bid crashed, and from that point on, it was a sighting here and there in the papers or on TV, stories of failing health and gossip, and a gradual decline in his appearances in New York…….I saw snapshots of him now and then, and occasionally a long-range shot of him up in a box at Yankee Stadium or down in Tampa, but I knew, like everybody else, that there was a lot wrong………in my scrapbook is a letter he wrote me during the Games in Salt Lake in 2002, after he had read my quotes praising his role in the sudden emergence of our Olympic team as a winter sports power with 34 medals, our best performance in history…..he scolded me for giving him too much credit, but I knew he was proud of our athletes and the USOC………you can see his hand in the medal charts for USA athletes in Barcelona, Atlanta, Nagano, Sydney, Salt Lake, Athens, Torino, Beijing and Vancouver. And his legacy of winning medals is now the standard for the USOC and its athlete performance and support programs………there has been a  modest amount of reporting this week about his contributions to the Olympic athletes and the USOC, overshadowed rightfully by baseball-related moments, players and managers, and his times……….those of us who saw him time and time again, wearing his USOC windbreaker in spring training and at games here and there, know how he cared about this special family of athletes, many of them recipients of his financial generosity, and the men and women he worked alongside as part of the world’s greatest sporting event………..sleep well, Boss.