I was drafted by the New York Yankees in the late 1990's and spent a little over 3 years in the Yankees minor league organization. The very first person I met when I got out of my car in Tampa, Florida for Spring Training was "The Boss" -- George Steinbrennor.
I met him as I was walking into the spring training facility and he was walking out. I walked right up to him, shook his hand, and said, "Thank you Mr. Steinbrennor for giving me the opportunity to play for the Yankees". He smiled and said, "You're welcome son. Now don't let me down."
Sounds like he felt really invested in me and was giving me a pep talk right? He wasn't. He didn't have a clue who this 19 year old, low round draft pick was that was shaking his hand. He just had a flare for the dramatic -- in pretty much any situation.
Coming from a rural southern town, my only real world impression of who George Steinbrennor was and what he was like was through the TV show Seinfeld. And they portrayed him as some wild, narcissistic, nut who would fly off the handle ant any given moment. Man, did they undersell him! He was crazier in person than the Seinfeld show ever scripted him!
Now... as a preface, before I tell you my crazy stories about The Boss, I will tell you this.. George was wild and did do some crazy things but he was a really great man. He was very charitable, had a big heart, and treated his players better than any owner ever has. I'm grateful for having met him and played for him.
Without further ado... here's some of the crazy things I saw The Boss say and do during my short time in the Yankees organization.
The banana peel incident
One day, during a rookie ball game against the Blue Jays, we could hear wild yelling coming from right field and it was getting louder by the second. All of a sudden, The Boss comes through the right field gate that led to the clubhouse and he was on a dead sprint for our dugout -- screaming, and waiving a banana peel over his head. The umpires had to stop the game so that The Boss could stand in front of the dugout, wave the banana peel at us furiously and cuss us out. "Who left the G*d D*mn banana peel in their locker!?!?!? I treat you guys better than any players in the world and this is how you treat me!?!?! By leaving sh*t in your lockers!?!?! F*ck you all! I swear to God, if I ever find so much as a gum wrapper in a locker again, I will NEVER feed you at the field ever again!"
And with that, he threw the banana peel as hard as he could into the dugout and stormed back to the offices. Play resumed on the field and the other team and the umpires acted like nothing happened. lol
Afternoon entertainment in the hotel lobby.
In rookie ball, the Yankees put us up in a hotel that The Boss owned in Tampa. We lived there the whole summer. It was a pretty nice hotel on the water and it was a pretty sweet deal for the players (free). One of our favorite pastimes was when The Boss would visit the hotel. We knew we were gonna get a free show and be entertained all afternoon.
You could always tell when The Boss would be visiting the hotel. There would be three times as many staff members at the hotel than usual and they would be doing crazy things like crawling on their hands and knees throughout the hotel picking up every speck of dirt they could find by hand, washing each individual light bulb with soap and water, picking up cigarette buts in the parking lot (and the parking lots next to the hotel parking lot).
If we arrived at the hotel and saw this going on, we would run to our rooms, change out of any clothing that identified us as Yankees ball players, and would come sit in the lobby and wait for the show to start.
Once The Boss arrived, it was the most entertaining thing you could imagine. One day he burst through the doors with a loud bang, almost like he kicked them in, and went straight into a barrage of, "Who the f*ck is parked out front!?!?!? I can't get my Beemer through! Why are there 3 of you at the counter!?!? Have these rugs been washed in the last 100 years!?!?! Who the hell thought this would be a good spot for a candy machine!?!?! Who!?!?! I want names!".
You've never seen people get in such a mad scramble in your life! The hotel employees ran around like chickens with their heads cut off.
One time, he had a personal assistant with him and after The Boss had finished an epic tirade, he looked at his assistant and said, "And what the f*ck are you doing just standing there!?!?!" The guy ran in 6 different directions before finding a door to escape through. lol
The Boss provided many afternoons of entertainment at the hotel.
"...a fat toad!"
One day before practice started, a bunch of the minor league guys and I were sitting on some picnic tables between the clubhouse and the practice fields. We were watching a recently signed big money player from Japan struggle to run foul poles. He was obviously out of shape.
Suddenly The Boss bursts out of the clubhouse and runs to grab Hideki Irabu's English translator by the ear lobe and drug him by that ear for a few hundred feet to where Hideki Irabu was hunched over sucking wind (a term for being out of breath). The Boss looked at the translator and yelled, "You tell this piece of sh*t that I said he a fat f*cking toad!"
What the hell is he wearing?
One day, we were headed into the clubhouse for a lunch break during a steamy hot day in the middle of August and The Boss was walking out to the field for a jog. It was 100 degrees out and he started jogging in a turtle neck sweater, a sports coat, dress slacks, and penny loafers. What the hell?
He wasn't just crazy. He was crazy awesome too.;
George Steinbrennor may have been a wild character, but he loved us. He took better care of us and cared about his players more than any owner I've ever heard of. And, because of that, he got the best out of his players -- as evidenced by the Yankees being the winningest sports franchise in history. It was an unreal experience playing for him and I'll be forever grateful. And... he's given me a lifetime of wild stories to tell. That's priceless.
I'm just Clay