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<\/p>\nAs a lifelong Dodger fan and a certified Yankee hater, I always considered their team owner, George Steinbrenner, to be an ego-driven, colossal jerk.<\/p>\n
And that opinion never changed.<\/p>\n
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I even softened on the players \u2014 with no apologies to Giancarlo Stanton \u2014 and realized my frustration was mostly directed at arrogant Yankee fans who felt it was important to remind me \u201cWe\u2019ve won 27 World Series.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWho\u2019s \u2018we\u2019 and what \u00a0position did you play?\u201d I\u2019d always ask and follow it up with \u201cI forget, \u2018When was the last time the Yankees won a World Series? Oh that\u2019s right, 2009, 17 years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anyway my old pal Mike Vaccaro just released his fourth book,\u00a0\u201cThe Bosses of the Bronx\u201d\u00a0the story of Steinbrenner, the late Yankees owner and his family.<\/p>\n
Mike covered the Bonnies for me at the\u00a0Olean Times Herald\u00a0during two of the three dismal seasons under Tom Chapman. Currrently he\u2019s the lead sports columnist at the\u00a0New York Post\u00a0\u00a0a position that followed stops at the\u00a0Star-Ledger\u00a0(Newark, N.J.),\u00a0\u00a0Kansas City (Mo.) Star,\u00a0Times Herald Record\u00a0(Middledtown, N.Y.) and the\u00a0Northwest Arkansas Times\u00a0(Fayetteville) \u2026\u00a0yep, Arkansas.<\/p>\n
IT WAS\u00a0at the\u00a0Post\u00a0that Vaccaro felt the urge to write a book. To him, the obvious subject was the rivalry between the Yankees and Red Sox. Thus came\u00a0Emperors and Idiots.\u00a0But the timing couldn\u2019t have been worse. This was 2004 and the Yankees led the ALCS 3-0 and were up on Boston in the ninth inning of \u00a0the American League Championship Series before the Red Sox rallied and became the first team to win a series after trailing 3-0. Boston then swept the Cardinals to win their first World Series in 86 years.<\/p>\n
The Red Sox win ruined Vaccaro\u2019s residuals as a Yankees victory would likely have earned him a much more generous pay day.<\/p>\n
Subsequently he wrote\u00a01941, the Greatest Year in Sports,\u00a0then\u00a0The First Fall Classic\u00a0(Red Sox and Giants).<\/p>\n
Last month he debuted\u00a0Bosses of the Bronx\u00a0and hosted discussions and book signings, first on the St. Bonaventure campus \u2014 his alma mater \u2014 then at Olean\u2019s Untold Stories book store.<\/p>\n
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The book starts a little slowly recounting the early days of the Yankees, but once Steinbrenner joins the narrative it\u2019s non-stop anecdotes and story-telling.<\/p>\n
In 1973, Steinbrenner was part of a consortium which bought the Yankees for $10 million \u2026 George\u2019s contribution was a modest $168,000 a figure that today would buy him a fully-loaded Chevrolet Corvette.<\/p>\n
STEINBRENNER\u00a0was best-known for firing employees on a whim.<\/p>\n
One year, a late-night TV host opined, \u201cThe Yankees are playing so well George doesn\u2019t know who to fire.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vaccaro makes it clear, early in the book, \u201cthis isn\u2019t a biography\u201d and it\u2019s not \u2026 more a collection of stories and word pictures that paint Steinbrenner\u2019s good and bad sides in equal doses.<\/p>\n
For instance, these are the men who managed Steinbrenner\u2019s team from the time his group bought the Yankees in 1973:<\/p>\n Ralph Houk (1973)<\/p>\n Bill Virdon (1974-75)<\/p>\n Billy Martin (1975-78)<\/p>\n Dick Howser (1978)<\/p>\n Bon Lemon (1978-79)<\/p>\n Billy Martin (1979)<\/p>\n Dick Howser (1980)<\/p>\n Gene Michael (1981)<\/p>\n Bob Lemon (1981-82)<\/p>\n Gene Michael (1982)<\/p>\n Clyde King (1982)<\/p>\n Billy Martin (1983)<\/p>\n Yogi Berra (1984-85)<\/p>\n Billy Martin (1985)<\/p>\n Lou Piniella (1986-87)<\/p>\n Billy Martin (1988)<\/p>\n Lou Piniella (1988)<\/p>\n Dallas Green (1989)<\/p>\n Bucky Dent (1989)<\/p>\n Stump Merrill (1990-91)<\/p>\n Buck Showalter (1992-95)<\/p>\n Joe Torre (1996-2007)<\/p>\n Joe Girardi (2008-17)<\/p>\n Aaron Boone (2018-present)<\/p>\n You will note Martin appears on that list five times (hence he dominates a big part of the book), Lemon is there for two stints as are Howser and Piniella.<\/p>\n All were fired by Steinbrenner \u2026 then rehired.<\/p>\n George\u2019s list of general managers is even less modest: Lee MacPhail (1973), Gabe Paul (1973-77), Cedric Tallis (1977-79), Gene Michael (1979-80), Tallis and Bill Bergesch (1980-83), Murray Cook (1983-84) , Bergesch and Clyde King (1984), King (1984-86), Woody Woodward (1986-87), Lou Piniella I(1987-88), Bob Quinn (1988-89), Syd Thrift (1989), Quinn (1989), Harding Peterson and George Bradley (1989-90), Michael (1990-95), Bob Watson (1995-98) and Brian Cashman (1998-present).<\/p>\n That list includes 11 managers (four of them hired multiple times) and 15 GMs, six of whom were fired twice.<\/p>\n ONE ASPECT\u00a0of the book that I particularly enjoyed was the mention of players I\u2019d long-since forgotten.<\/p>\n In that group were Matty Alou, Tim Belcher, Johnny Callison, Pat Dobson, Dock Ellis, Rollie Fingers, Ken Holtzman, Ferguson Jenkins, Chuck Knoblauch, Fred Lynn, Doc Medich, Phil Niekro, David Ortiz, Jeff Torborg, Bob Welch and Butch Wynegar.<\/p>\n Vaccaro wove them and many others into the sketches that were Steinbrenner\u2019s life, a characterization of a controversial and extraordinary man whose story needed to be told.<\/p>\n (Boss of Bosses, published by HarperCollins, is now a New York Times bestseller and available by clicking HERE<\/a>)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/landquest1.jpg\")
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