GEORGE STEINBRENNER TURNS away from his dinner in the Legends Field cafeteria and puts his arm around his daughter Jessica. Her four kids take a break from horsing around to crowd around their mother and Bumpa, as they call George. Felix Lopez, Jessica’s husband, stands up and pulls out a cell phone so he can snap a picture of the happy moment. For one of the few times this spring, the Steinbrenners are smiling.
It’s March 28, and George is still recovering from the mini stroke he suffered last October. It’s been slow going. He still comes to the office for a few hours most days, but he’s far from the one-man show of old. His memory is foggier than ever, and his ailing knees make it hard to get around. But he’s happy to be here today with his family to watch the Yankees play the Astros.
Tonight’s game should be one-sided—his team’s starting lineup boasts a collective 34 All-Star appearances to the Astros’ two—but his Yankees have only managed one win in their last six games and George is annoyed. He’s come to accept that these March games don’t count, but George has never gotten used to losing.
Not that he has seen many of those losses in person, and his absence from camp has been duly noted by the Yankees beat writers. He hasn’t spoken to the media since a brief session the day camp opened, so his presence today in the cafeteria is drawing everyone’s attention. George scowls when he sees the reporters approaching, but few can pass up the chance to ask him the one question that is on everyone’s mind.
“George, who is going to run the team now that Steve is gone?” one of them asks.
The grandchildren pay the reporters no heed and have already resumed scampering around the table. George merely shakes his head and waves the writers away. Not long afterward, Yankees interns are distributing a statement from the Boss issued by Steinbrenner’s PR man Howard Rubenstein back in New York.
“I’m the boss,” it reads. “I continue to be the boss, I have no intention of retiring, and my family runs the Yankees with me.
“When I’m ready to say something, I’ll say something. I don’t really appreciate being mobbed and people screaming at me.”
This is the second statement the writers have received from Rubenstein’s office today. The first is what prompted the reporter’s question and officially changed the Yankees landscape: after weeks of media speculation, Jennifer Steinbrenner and Steve Swindal announced they have filed for divorce. The Yankees hierarchy has just been turned on its head.
“Although their marriage is dissolving, they remain friends and maintain a strong mutual respect,” the statement read. “They are devoted to their two children and will make them their shared focus.”
With today’s announcement, the chairman of Yankee Global Enterprises, the same man George publicly anointed his successor two years ago, will soon be on the outside looking in. George liked and respected Steve—hell, he still does—and the Boss had grown comfortable with Swindal as the voice of the family in the daily operation of the Yankees. But this is a family business, and if Swindal is no longer family, there’s no way he can continue to run Steinbrenner’s empire.
George knew that Jenny and Steve’s marriage had been strained, but all existing problems were exacerbated on February 15, when Steve was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol. When a police officer pulled him over for speeding, Swindal claimed he was on his way to a marina to spend the night on his boat. He failed a field sobriety test and spent five hours in a Largo, Florida, jail before being released on $250 bail. He pleaded not guilty on March 15, and a pretrial hearing is set for April 5.
Swindal had tried to keep their marriage together, but when Jenny filed divorce papers yesterday, it made an already difficult spring that much worse. The family still has the wagons circled around George, whose health has become their overriding priority. And they just recently learned that Hal Steinbrenner and his wife Christina are separating, too. The couple has three daughters, all under age 10, and appeared happy. No one saw this coming.
And now, this very private family is figuring out their new roles on a very public stage. There’s little question that Hal, the MBA in the family, will assume the duties of Swindal, his mentor and surrogate big brother, no matter how uncomfortable that might be. Less certain is the role of Hank, who turns 50 in five days and moved back to Tampa from the Steinbrenner horse farm in Ocala to join the family effort to care for his dad. Jenny is talking about wanting to play a role now as well. And Jessica’s husband Felix is a team vice president without a real portfolio. Swindal and Lopez do not have a good relationship, so Felix will be looking for a bigger role when Steve is gone.
But Steve is not gone yet. He has shown up for work every day since his arrest on the advice of his lawyer. Indeed, he’s already made plans to attend Opening Day at the Stadium, five days from now. No one really expects George to tell Steve to leave, so someone is going to have to broker a deal to settle Swindal’s contract and his small stake in the team. And no one is ready to do that.
Selig and the owners are watching the Yankees situation with understandable interest. There is little concern about the day-to-day operation: they all have confidence in Yankees President Randy Levine and COO Lonn Trost to keep the team’s expanding business on track, and in Brian Cashman to do the same with the team on the field. But more than a few owners are wondering if the Steinbrenner family might sell the team and who might be interested in buying the sport’s premier franchise.
All of this is happening as the Yankees empire continues to expand. The Yankees drew a team-record 4.25 million fans last season, the second straight season above the magic 4 million mark. Revenue from luxury-box sales is up 202 percent in the past eight years, and the new stadium, set to open in 2009, will have three times more suites than their current home.
The Yankees are in early talks with Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones to start a hospitality company and run concessions at the new stadium and others around the country, which would add a projected $30 million in revenue from Year One. And the YES Network is succeeding beyond expectations, generating more than $300 million in revenue last season. Everything the Yankees businessmen touch, it seems, is turning to gold.
It’s a tougher road for Cashman, who is trying to win it all—that mandate remains unchanged—with a team in transition. The young GM is determined to reduce the team’s bloated payroll and just dumped Gary Sheffield and Randy Johnson—two players he never wanted—in trades for a slew of pitching prospects.
He brought back Andy Pettitte on a one-year, $16 million deal, but Bernie Williams won’t be on the Yankees roster for the first time in 16 years. Cashman and the coaching staff did not see a place for Bernie, who can no longer play center field or hit well enough to play full-time and lacks the requisite skills to be a productive sub. The soft-spoken Williams rejected Cashman’s nonroster invitation to spring training and has faded from the scene quietly.
Cashman still hasn’t found a way to repair a clubhouse fractured along several fault lines, none worse than the ever-widening gulf between Torre and Alex Rodriguez. The superstar third baseman, who can opt out of his contract at season’s end, hasn’t forgotten the embarrassment of batting “double cleanup” in last season’s ALDS fiasco. And the rift between Rodriguez and Derek Jeter is finally official after Alex, who has spent the past three seasons insisting things with his old friend were just fine, told reporters on the second day of camp, “You don’t ask about Derek anymore, and I promise I’ll stop lying to you.”
The Yankees want to keep Rodriguez, but Cashman has already said he won’t extend the third baseman’s contract, which has $91 million and three years remaining after this season. Would the Yankees really let Rodriguez walk if he plays out his option? That’s a question that can’t be answered until the Steinbrenners decide who is going to run George’s team.
The answer to the succession question emerges before the first month of the season is complete. George and a host of Steinbrenners—his four children, Felix, and three grandkids—are in the owner’s box in the Bronx for the Yankees home opener against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays on April 2. George wears oversized sunglasses—now a trademark—despite the gray day. They all stand and clap when the widow and son of Cory Lidle—the Yankees pitcher who died in a small plane crash in Manhattan last fall—throw out the first pitch alongside Jason Giambi, Lidle’s high school teammate.
Steve Swindal is watching from the suite reserved for limited partners, and though he doesn’t visit the owner’s box or see his in-laws during the game, he insists everything is normal. “It’s business as usual,” he tells reporters. “I am here.”
Swindal continues to show up for work at Legends Field upon his return to Tampa while his marriage winds down. But it’s been awkward for everyone, and in late April Swindal walks down the hall and into Hal’s office, where he finds both Steinbrenner brothers. He takes a seat in front of Hal’s desk and looks squarely at the young man he’s watched grow up.
“What do you think?” Swindal asks. “I’ve been with you guys for a long time.”
Hal looks at his two big brothers. He knows his quiet life as a hotel developer is over. He and Hank have agreed to be partners running the team—Hank handling the baseball side, Hal making the business decisions—but MLB’s bylaws require one man to be the control person. Everyone’s content to defer to George’s wish to remain general managing partner, but deep down, Hal knows the responsibility will eventually fall to him.
And he knows what he has to say now, no matter how much it hurts.
“Steve, you can’t expect to stay here if you’re not married to my sister,” Hal says. “It’s just not realistic.”
Hank nods in agreement. Steve starts to speak, but there’s really nothing left to say. It won’t be long before the team announces that negotiations to buy out Swindal’s contract are almost complete.
George Steinbrenner leans forward as Derek Jeter picks up a grounder off the bat of Seattle’s Willie Bloomquist and runs over to tag the second base bag and end the top of the 7th inning. It’s May 6, and George is watching the game on TV at home in Tampa, waiting for the surprise announcement he knows is coming. Soon Yankee Stadium PA announcer Bob Sheppard asks fans to direct their attention to the owner’s box behind home plate.
Standing in the open window, dressed sharply in a pinstriped suit, wearing a World Series ring on one hand and holding a Yankees microphone in the other, is Roger Clemens. Fans look to the right-field video screen, recognize the Rocket, and start cheering.
“Thank y’all,” Clemens says. “Well, they came and got me out of Texas. I can tell you it’s a privilege to be back. I’ll be talking to y’all real soon.”
The outfield dot-matrix screen declares ROGER CLEMENS IS NOW A YANKEE, and the crowd rises to its feet and roars its approval.
George is happy, too. His team sure as hell needs the spark Clemens could provide. Despite a spectacular April from Alex Rodriguez—14 home runs, 34 RBI, a .355 average—the Yankees entered today’s play two games under .500 and 5½ games behind the AL East–leading Red Sox. This is not what the Boss expected when he told Joe Torre he could manage his team for another season.
The Yankees’ big weakness: a shaky and injury-prone starting rotation. Cashman began floating the idea of bringing back the 44-year-old Rocket a few weeks ago. He and Clemens’ agent Randy Hendricks worked out a prorated one-year, $28 million contract on May 4, and it was the GM’s idea for Roger to announce his return live at the Stadium. It’s an exciting, memorable moment, but it’s also bittersweet. In years gone by, George would have been standing right there with Roger, soaking up the attention and adulation.
And only a few months ago, Steve Swindal would have been in the loop, too. Now Steve is gone, and George’s health continues to fade.
At least Clemens is back in pinstripes. And after all that’s gone wrong, the Yankees are counting on that to be a good thing.