THERE ARE TWO compelling narratives that transfix Americans during the long, hot summer of 1998. One is an endless government investigation turned sex scandal that has shaken the nation’s faith in the man who runs the country. President Bill Clinton has done the unthinkable—he’s carried on an illicit affair with a 22-year-old White House intern—and the country is bracing for his possible impeachment.
The other is the home run duel between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, which has captured the imagination of a nation eagerly searching for an escape. And as the Clinton scandal grows tawdrier by the day, even Americans who never followed this sport look upon two ballplayers as saviors with every home run they hit.
On the night of August 17, Clinton sits behind a desk in his private residence in the White House. He stares straight into a television camera, the red light goes on, and the 42nd President of the United States tells the country about his dirty little secret.
“As you know, in a deposition in January, I was asked questions about my relationship with Monica Lewinsky,” Clinton says, his voice breaking ever so slightly. “While my answers were legally accurate, I did not volunteer information.
“Indeed, I did have a relationship with Miss Lewinsky that was not appropriate. In fact, it was wrong. It constituted a critical lapse in judgment and a personal failure on my part for which I am solely and completely responsible.…
“I know that my public comments and my silence about this matter gave a false impression. I misled people, including even my wife. I deeply regret that.… It is time to… get on with our national life.”
Like most Americans, Bud Selig is both disappointed and appalled as he watches the President’s five-minute speech. He was a history major, as he likes to remind people, and he’s never witnessed a spectacle like the one he’s seen today. And more than most Americans, Selig is grateful McGwire and Sosa have come up big during the country’s summer of need.
Baseball fans in parks across the land have treated the two players like royalty for almost two months now. Sosa is happy to play the supporting actor even as he matches his counterpart homer for homer, his engaging personality transforming the dour McGwire into a friendly giant. The six-foot-five, 245-pound McGwire has only recently grown into his role, and he appreciates Sosa being there to share the stage.
The schedule has put them on the same field in Chicago on August 19, just two days after Clinton’s confession, and Americans are relieved to shift their attention to ivy-draped Wrigley Field. Both men enter the game with 47 home runs, on pace to match Roger Maris’ record of 61. Their bats are silent in the first game, but the magic returns the next night. In the bottom of the 5th, Sosa sends the first pitch he sees deep into the seats down the left-field line for No. 48. McGwire pulls even with a solo home run three innings later, knotting the game, 6–6.
And that’s where it stands in the top of the 10th when McGwire blasts No. 49, the difference in the Cardinals’ 8–6 victory. Scores of writers from around the country crowd into an interview room moments later, where the two stars sit side by side, enjoying each other’s company while answering the questions they’ve both heard so many times before.
At that same moment, another writer sits in Palo Alto, crafting his own take on the summer’s feel-good story. Veteran Associated Press writer Steve Wilstein spent the better part of a month shadowing McGwire, Sosa, and Ken Griffey Jr., who is content to be the forgotten man in his peers’ buddy movie despite 42 home runs of his own. Wilstein’s story took an unanticipated turn when he called a cardiologist friend and asked about a bottle of pills he saw in McGwire’s locker while he stood with a pack of writers waiting to do postgame interviews.
“What’s Androstenedione?” Wilstein asked the doctor.
“A precursor to testosterone,” the cardiologist told him. “And it can be really bad for the heart.”
On August 20, McGwire hits No. 50 and No. 51 against the Mets, becoming the first player in baseball history to hit 50 or more home runs in three consecutive seasons. Wilstein’s story comes out the following day.
“Sitting on the top shelf of Mark McGwire’s locker, next to a can of Popeye spinach and packs of sugarless gum, is a brown bottle labeled Androstenedione,” writes Wilstein. He explains that Andro is a legal supplement banned by the NFL, NCAA, and the Olympics for its steroid-like qualities and makes it clear that the 34-year-old McGwire has broken neither the law nor baseball’s rules by using it.
But he also writes that Andro raises testosterone levels and is regarded outside baseball as cheating. “Androstenedione is no different than taking testosterone,” Dr. John Lombardo, the NFL’s adviser on steroids, told Wilstein. “It has anabolic qualities. Therefore it is an anabolic steroid.”
The wire-service writer’s story runs in media outlets across the country, and the first hint of McGwire’s dirty little secret is revealed. But there will be no confessions, no televised requests for forgiveness. Not on this day or on any day soon.
This is one scandal no one wants to know about.
“McGwire is an adult who, as far as we know, is playing within the rules,” writes Sports Illustrated’s Jack McCallum, giving voice to the majority opinion. “To hold McGwire to a higher standard than his sport does is unfair.”
The Boston Globe’s Dan Shaughnessy, one of the nation’s preeminent baseball writers, agrees. “Mark McGwire is stalking one of baseball’s most cherished records, and suddenly he’s engaged in a tabloid-driven controversy that’s painting him as a cheater and a bad role model,” Shaughnessy writes. “It’s unfair.”
And in a clear case of shooting the messenger, the Cardinals enlist the help of a local columnist, putting him in front of McGwire’s locker and asking him to tell America what he sees. “To be able to decipher the label on this Andro bottle, you have to intentionally look, and look hard,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bernie Miklasz writes. “And that’s out of bounds.”
McGwire cannot agree more. He insists he hasn’t done anything wrong and calls Wilstein a snoop. “Everything I’ve done is natural,” says Big Mac. “Everybody that I know in the game of baseball uses the same stuff I use.”
Any concerns Selig may have about public backlash disappear the next day in Pittsburgh when a sellout crowd greets McGwire with a standing ovation in his first at bat. McGwire rewards Pirates fans when he sends a ball deep into the right-center-field seats for home run No. 52. Another sellout crowd is on hand the next night—the Pirates’ only two sellouts after Opening Day—and they get their own piece of history in the 8th inning when McGwire smashes No. 53.
Relieved that Wilstein’s story has no legs, baseball and the union hold a joint press conference on August 26 to announce they’ve asked the two doctors who serve as their Health Advisory Board to look into the use of Andro and make recommendations. Their doctors already have a proposal: hire two Harvard researchers to study whether Andro has the anabolic properties Olympics officials and others claim it does, and whether it presents a danger to their players.
“No one can be faulted for staying entirely within the rules,” says Fehr, who sits on the U.S. Olympic Committee. If Andro is a problem, he reasons, then Congress, which deregulated the supplement industry four years ago, should pass a law to prohibit its use. “We look forward to hearing from our medical representatives.”
“The health of our players is of vital concern for all of us, and we want to assure they receive the most accurate medical and scientific information,” Selig says. “I think what Mark McGwire has accomplished is so remarkable, he has handled it all so beautifully, and we want to do everything we can to enjoy a great moment in baseball history.”
His first crisis as Commissioner safely behind him, Selig focuses on the historic home run race in earnest. He agrees to assign two detectives to protect McGwire when the Cardinals are on the road. Baseball designates four dozen baseballs for use once McGwire reaches 59, and works with the U.S. Treasury Department to mark the balls so they can be authenticated.
McGwire and Sosa both enter September with 55 home runs. McGwire blows by Hack Wilson’s NL-record 56, clubbing four homers in two games against the Marlins. Sosa belts three in five days, the last coming September 5, when both players go deep on the same day for the 20th time this season. McGwire’s homer, his 60th, comes against the Reds, whose manager received a voice mail not long ago from a fan pleading with him not to pitch around Mac, as Reds pitchers did 11 times in their previous six games.
“Please pitch to McGwire,” the fan begged Jack McKeon. “This is what the country needs to help with the healing process and all the trouble that’s going on in Washington. This will help cure the ills of the country.”
The home run barrage brings all of baseball to St. Louis on September 7 for a two-game series with the Cubs. Selig arrives a day early and will commute back and forth from Milwaukee on his private jet. “There are times in life to celebrate,” Selig tells the many reporters who have also arrived early. “This is a time in life to celebrate.” And to help celebrate, he’s invited the Maris family to sit in box seats behind first base for both games in St. Louis.
Sosa joins McGwire for a media conference before the first game and spends much of his time making jokes and giggling. Not long after, Mac steps in against Cubs pitcher Mike Morgan in the bottom of the 1st and smacks the third pitch he sees down the left-field line for No. 61, hit on his father’s 61st birthday. McGwire rounds the bases, crosses home plate, points to his father John McGwire in the stands behind the backstop, and yells, “Happy birthday, Dad!”
Both McGwire and Sosa huddle with Baseball Hall of Fame director Jeff Idelson two hours before the next game, the last on the Cardinals’ home stand. McGwire promises to donate as much memorabilia as he can when he breaks the record. Then Idelson pulls out the bat Maris used to hit his 61st home run. McGwire rubs the barrel of the bat over his heart. “Roger,” he says out loud, “you’re with me.”
Selig is sitting with Bob Costas and Stan Musial at 8:18 p.m. Central Time when McGwire steps in for the second time against Steve Trachsel. The Cubs right-hander tries to slip an 88 mph fastball past McGwire, but Mac is far too quick, and he rifles the ball straight down the left-field line. He races out of the batter’s box thinking it’s just a base hit, but the ball clears the fence by 10 feet, just inside the foul pole.
After 37 years, baseball has a new home run king.
A jubilant McGwire jumps up and down with Cardinals first base coach Dave McKay, then remembers to reach back and touch the bag. Every Cubs infielder congratulates him, and the entire Cardinals team mobs him at home plate. McGwire reaches through the crowd for his 10-year-old son Matthew, a Cardinals batboy, and hoists him high over his head.
McGwire is still hugging teammates when he sees Sosa, who’s run in from right field to congratulate his friend, and McGwire gives him a bear hug, too. He runs over to the Maris family, seated at the far end of the Cardinals dugout, climbs the fence, and hugs both of Maris’ daughters and each of the late Yankee’s four sons. Rich and Randy Maris struggle to hold back tears.
It takes a full 11 minutes to restore order, and the rest of the Cardinals’ 6–3 victory is an afterthought. A ceremony is held behind second base after the game to honor baseball’s new home run record holder, and Selig is the first to speak. He hears a smattering of boos when he’s introduced, but wins over the crowd when he calls the Cardinals “one of the proudest and most successful franchises in baseball history.”
Then it’s time to address McGwire, who is standing at the makeshift podium with tears in his eyes. “This is one of the most historic nights in baseball history,” says Selig, who hands McGwire the first Commissioner’s Historic Achievement Award, a 12-inch trophy with a sterling-silver base and a baseball mounted on top.
There’s a signature on the ball, too.
It reads ALLAN H. SELIG.
The history major is now officially part of one of baseball’s greatest nights.
McGwire thanks his teammates and friends, then tells the adoring crowd, “I wanted to do it for all of you—the best fans in the country.” The Cardinals present McGwire with a red 1962 Corvette convertible, then drive him around the stadium so he can wave to the 43,688 fans who refuse to leave.
When McGwire retreats to the privacy of the clubhouse, he removes his uniform top, trousers, hat, and spikes and hands them to Don Marr, the president of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Everything that McGwire used and wore this night is on its way to the Hall of Fame. One congratulatory phone call from a grateful President Clinton later, and McGwire’s long night is reaching an end.
There’s three weeks left in this season, and though the emotional peak has passed, the battle for the home run title is far from over. Sosa catches McGwire at 62, McGwire jumps back ahead, and when they each hit a home run on September 25, the two friends stand tied at 66. But that’s the last homer Sosa will hit. McGwire hits a pair of home runs in each of his final two games, and baseball’s home run record is set at 70.
Well before the final home run is struck, hundreds of people a day make the long trek to Cooperstown just to file past the cylinder holding the uniform and equipment McGwire used the night he broke Maris’ record. It’s only a fraction of the crowd Hall of Fame officials expect will flock to this picturesque town on the day McGwire takes his place alongside Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, and all the other baseball greats whose plaques hang in baseball’s Hall of Fame.
In all his 25 years as owner of the New York Yankees, George Steinbrenner has never had a team like the one he’s watching this season.
It’s not just that they are good, though that is certainly part of it. Since their 1–4 start, this team has put up numbers rarely seen. The team won its 100th game on September 4, the fastest any team has reached that mark in the 20th century. In the year of the home run, no Yankee has hit more than 30, but a record 10 players will reach double figures. They’re No. 1 in scoring and pitching, Bernie Williams is the league’s leading hitter (.339), and Mariano Rivera is the game’s best closer.
And what once seemed impossible is now accepted: this team is every bit as intense about winning as its owner. When the Yankees lose a season-high four straight in late August, Joe Torre holds a team meeting, telling his players their sloppy play is unacceptable. They win the next game to run their record to 95–36 and their lead over second-place Boston to 16½ games.
It’s an old-school team, just like its manager, who tells Yankees reporters he can’t imagine his team hugging McGwire as the Cubs did after his record-breaking home run. Torre knows if a player fails to run hard to first, he doesn’t have to say a word. Instead it’s David Cone, Paul O’Neill, or Tino Martinez who gets up in the player’s face, making sure he knows that isn’t the way these Yankees play the game.
Yes, winning and doing it Steinbrenner’s way certainly set this team apart. But what makes these Yankees so different is that they actually enjoy the company of their owner. Whereas other Yankees teams would dread the sight of George walking through the clubhouse, this one embraces him. Cone wields a sharp needle, and George laughs. Strawberry talks about his family, and George offers encouragement. Torre plays the ponies, and the Boss shares stories from his many years raising horses.
They all appreciate how eagerly Steinbrenner gets them whatever they need, whether he’s buying the latest in training equipment or replacing a damaged piece of clothing, as he did in May when Brosius cut himself shaving and blood dripped all over his white dress shirt. Steinbrenner called and ordered a new shirt, which arrived at the Yankees clubhouse within the hour. George can talk all he wants about expecting his players to fear and respect him, but being accepted as a member of his own team is a dream come true.
He’s even more sanguine about his young general manager, though he is not above calling Cashman during a Yankees game at the Stadium and asking why the batboys aren’t running water out to the umpires on a hot day. He knows Cashman is learning on the job, and he appreciates how the young GM solicits input from Steinbrenner’s advisers down in Tampa instead of railing against them (that will come much later). Most important, he respects Cashman for not being afraid to stand up to him.
Which is just what happened when George pushed hard to get Mariners ace Randy Johnson at the July 31 trade deadline. The 34-year-old Johnson will be a free agent at year’s end and has worn out his welcome in Seattle, brawling with a teammate and pouting much of the season. Still, the thought of the six-foot-ten Johnson taking his blazing fastball to the Indians, who are very interested, and dominating his Yankees in the playoffs scared Steinbrenner to no end.
But Cashman wanted nothing to do with Seattle’s problem child. A while back he noticed the Yankees never faced the left-hander when the Mariners made an East Coast swing, so he asked manager Lou Piniella why. Randy doesn’t like to pitch in New York, Piniella said, so the manager always adjusted his rotation in order for Johnson to skip the Yankee Stadium crowd.
Cashman insisted the Yankees shouldn’t empty their farm system for Johnson and told Steinbrenner what he heard from Piniella.
“I don’t care,” Steinbrenner said. “I want you to do this.”
“Fine,” Cashman said. “But I am going to tell everyone this was your fucking deal.”
Steinbrenner paused. He still liked Johnson, but this was a ballsy move by Cashman, and he liked that, too. But most important, there’s no way he wanted to be blamed if the trade was a bust.
“Okay, we’ll do it your way,” the Boss told Cashman. “But you better be right.”
The Yankees beat Boston on September 9 to clinch the division, and at 102–41, the rest of the regular season is really about history. They win their 110th game on September 23, tying the 1927 Yankees for the best record in franchise history. They win the next two to break Cleveland’s 34-year-old American League record for most victories, then win their last two to finish 114–48, two short of the Cubs’ major league record set in 1906.
Yankees fans respond in droves. A crowd of 52,506 packs the 75-year-old Stadium to watch the Yankees beat the Orioles in the final game before the All-Star break, the fifth time the team’s drawn more than 50,000 this season. That puts the team on pace to draw a franchise-record 2.83 million fans, giving Steinbrenner pause about leaving the Bronx.
“Do the 3 million, and then we’ll talk about the Bronx after the season,” says George. “That isn’t getting me where I want to be, but maybe it would be worth talking about.”
Three weeks later, the Yankees owner is feeling so flush he tells radio host Don Imus he’s willing to put up some of his own money for a new stadium, no matter where it’s built. “I wouldn’t feel right just sitting back and saying, ‘I want a new stadium,’ ” Steinbrenner says.
Then again, he might not have to. Talks about selling his team to Cablevision’s Chuck Dolan grow more serious as the summer turns to fall. But major decisions like a new stadium and a new owner will wait until after the franchise’s 24th World Series title is secured.
The Yankees draw Texas in the opening round, and New York pitchers hold the high-powered Rangers offense to one run in a 3–0 Yankees sweep. The team gets one piece of bad news the day before Game 3, and it is jarring: the stomach pain Strawberry’s been feeling for two months is the result of a cancerous tumor in his colon. His surgery is set for October 3, two days later. Torre’s voice cracks when he gives the team the news, leaving many players in tears.
“This is extremely upsetting to me,” Steinbrenner says. “And it really shows that baseball is only a small part of life.”
Cleveland, the team that ended the Yankees season so abruptly a year ago, is next. Steinbrenner’s team takes the first game 7–2, and memories of last season’s failure fade, only to reappear when Cleveland wins the next two games. The American League fines Steinbrenner after Game 2 when George calls Ted Hendry “one of the worst umpires in the league” for failing to call interference on a play at first base that leads to the Indians’ go-ahead run in the 12th.
Steinbrenner is almost too silent after the Yankees lose Game 3 in Cleveland, sitting on a table in the trainer’s room staring straight ahead, not speaking for almost 10 minutes. His team, so explosive all season, has scored just four runs in the last 29 innings. “We’ll see what we’re made of,” the Boss says to no one in particular as he gets off the table and heads to the clubhouse exit. “I think we’ll be fine.”
He’s more upbeat while walking through the clubhouse before Game 4. Don’t get down, he tells one player after another. We’ll beat this team. “New York is waiting for the World Series,” he says before leaving the clubhouse, “not Cleveland.” Hernandez rewards the Boss’ confidence, throwing seven shutout innings in a 4–0 win, as does Wells, who wins the next game, 5–3. The Yanks wrap it up in front of the home crowd, beating the Indians 9–5 to earn a trip back to the World Series to face Ken Caminiti and the Padres.
The postgame locker room is packed when Steinbrenner emerges from Joe Torre’s office, a cloud of smoke escaping along with him. He pushes his way to the center of the clubhouse, where Jeter spots him. “Hold on, someone is dry around here,” says the shortstop, who slices through the crowd and empties a bottle of Champagne over George’s head. “I got him,” Jeter yells as he scoots away, while Steinbrenner stands and giggles.
“They’re warriors,” Steinbrenner shouts above the clamor. “I knew we would come back in this series. This is the way it should be. We should win.”
The World Series is almost anticlimactic. The Padres are clearly no match for the game’s best team, though George provides a few contentious moments. He micromanages preparations for Game 1, battling and losing to the Commissioner’s office over who’ll sing to open the game (Tony Bennett over Robert Merrill), the song (“America the Beautiful” over the national anthem), seat assignments for the Commissioner and the Maris family, and who’ll throw out the first pitch (Sammy Sosa gets the nod over Yankees legends Whitey Ford and Phil Rizzuto).
A crowd of 56,712 and 1,100 members of the media watch the Yankees fall behind 5–2, then charge back when Chuck Knoblauch hits a three-run homer and Martinez blasts a grand slam in the 7th inning of a 9–6 win. They leave little doubt in Game 2, crushing the Padres 9–3. The Series then shifts to San Diego, where Steinbrenner complains about the state of the field at Qualcomm Stadium after an Eagles-Chargers game two days before Game 3. Brosius is the hero this time, hitting two homers to put the Yankees over the top, 5–4.
McGwire throws out the first pitch in Game 4 to a thunderous ovation before taking his seat in Selig’s box. Mac gets another big hand in the 4th when he snags a foul ball heading straight at Sue Selig. “I want to thank you for everything baseball did for me this season,” McGwire tells Selig as Pettitte and Kevin Brown match scoreless innings. “Are you kidding?” Selig says. “We’re the ones who need to thank you.”
The Yankees squeeze across a run in the 6th, then get two more in the 8th. Rivera pitches a scoreless 9th, and when Brosius throws out Mike Sweeney for the third out, the Yankees are once again World Champions.
The raucous Yankees clubhouse is called to silence when Selig and Steinbrenner climb onto the TV stage for the trophy presentation. The two men, who have battled, laughed, and cried over things big and small for most of the past quarter century, now stand face to face. And neither can hold back the tears, which fall freely down each man’s cheeks.
Standing off to the side is Steinbrenner’s younger son Hal. It’s been a tough year between father and son—the arguments in their Tampa office getting a little sharper, Hal’s stints away from the team growing even longer. But that’s all pushed aside at this moment, and it’s joy Hal feels as he watches his father embrace Selig. And a bit of wonderment, too, as he realizes it’s the first time he’s ever seen his father really cry.
Hal sees Yankees players have also taken note of his father’s tears. And he can’t help but think of the many meetings George has held these last few months to discuss selling his team, and wonders how much of that is what’s playing with his father’s emotions. Seeing his father up on the stage, his arm around Torre, then Brosius, the Series MVP, he wonders how many of these tears are for what George might be ready to lose instead of the championship trophy his team has just won.
Is this the year Steinbrenner will finally say yes?
That’s what the Yankees owner’s 16 limited partners are wondering when they meet with him in Cleveland on November 19. Many of the stories you’ve been hearing are true, Steinbrenner tells his partners. Cablevision owner Charles Dolan has made him another offer to buy their team, and this one is going to be hard to resist: $600 million, almost double the record $311 million Rupert Murdoch just paid for the Dodgers in March. And Murdoch’s deal included real estate—the team’s spring training complex in Vero Beach, Florida, and Dodger Stadium. Not only is there no land in this deal, but Dolan would also take over the torturous negotiations for a new stadium.
And perhaps the best part—at least for Steinbrenner—is also true: Cablevision would acquire the Yankees, but George would remain the team’s managing partner, with final say over all personnel decisions as well as the team’s payroll. What’s more, Dolan is willing to put Steinbrenner in charge of Cablevision’s other two sports teams—the Knicks and the Rangers—in a move that would turn George, now the most powerful man in baseball, into perhaps the most powerful man in all of sports.
Dolan’s motivation for making the deal is clear. MSG’s contract with the Yankees runs out in two years, and Dolan figures it makes more sense to buy the team than to spend almost as much for its invaluable television rights.
One of the limited partners is John Henry, who has to sell his 1 percent piece because he just agreed to buy what’s left of Wayne Huizenga’s Marlins. Florida finished dead last in the NL East and drew a meager 1,730,384 fans after Huizenga’s fire sale. George likes Henry, but thinks the wealthy hedge fund manager’s hopes of building a stadium are pure fantasy.
Steinbrenner is squabbling with some of the other small-stake owners over the terms of their partnership agreement and how much stock and cash each would walk away with in a deal with Dolan. But the limited partners are investors, not decision makers, so if George decides to sell all they can do is take the return on their percentages and go home.
Dolan, an old friend of Steinbrenner’s dating back to their time together in Cleveland, is offering a $5 million salary to run all three teams, plus bonuses for postseason appearances and championship trophies. George is pushing for $10 million a year for the next 20 years.
But what he hears from Dolan four days later puts the deal in doubt. It seems James, the guitar-playing youngest of Dolan’s three sons, is kicking up a storm. James oversees the Knicks and Rangers, and he has his heart set on running the Yankees should his father acquire baseball’s most famous franchise. Giving up the Rangers and the Knicks instead is the last thing James is willing to do.
This is just the kind of trouble Hal and Steve Swindal, now perhaps George’s most trusted adviser, have been warning about for months. “It’s great that Chuck is your friend,” they keep telling George. “But that doesn’t mean running a team for him—if you’d really be running the team—isn’t going to be more trouble than it’s worth. This has disaster written all over it.”
Both Hal and Swindal have been against this deal from the start. No, Hal told his father, that doesn’t mean he wants to get more involved. He and Steve just don’t think Dolan’s offer for the most valuable franchise in sports is nearly good enough.
But it’s more than that. “The Yankees are your life,” Hal tells George. “What do you need the money for? None of us own yachts or spend a lot of money. You still drive an Oldsmobile! The Yankees are your passion. If you sell the team, what are you going to do?”
What is he going do to? That’s the question nagging at George when he gets off the phone with Dolan the night of November 23. He has a team he loves and players who, for once, love playing for him. They’ve just won their second World Series in three years, and there’s no reason to think they aren’t capable of winning a few more. And the money is sure to be there when he puts the Yankees TV rights out to bid.
Or he could engage further with fabled investor—and new managing partner of the New Jersey Nets—Ray Chambers, who recently floated the idea of the Nets and Yankees joining forces to start their own sports network. You would be able to keep control of the team, Chambers told George at an introductory meeting at the swanky Metropolitan Club in Manhattan, while building equity in what will be a very valuable asset. Discussions between the two camps are ongoing, giving George more to think about as he makes his decision.
And now Dolan’s son seems to be making the decision easier. Chuck is no longer talking about giving George the reins to all three teams, and it’s growing less clear just how much control he’d have over the Yankees. Losing control of his team is simply unacceptable.
No, Steinbrenner decides, this won’t be the year he sells his team after all.