The unofficial became official: George Steinbrenner is no longer the managing partner of the New York Yankees.  On Thursday, Major League Baseball approved his son, Hal Steinbrenner, as the new managing partner.  It is the end of an era, or error depending on your perspective.

Labeling Steinbrenner a controversial figure is a bit simplistic.  The Boss practically invented the stereotype of megalomaniac owner.  His words were harsh, his actions nonsensical, and his desire to win everything sports or otherwise became his ultimate tragic flaw.  Steinbrenner stormed through life on a near constant warpath, the slightest whiff of defeat sending him close to the edge.  He brought a football mentality to the front office of baseball, having spent a few years as an assistant football coach.  It was that football mentality that seemed to drive George, whether the sport or situation were appropriate or not.

With the torched passed to his sons, it seems an appropriate time to put George Steinbrenner's impact on the sport of baseball into some kind of perspective.  This breaks down into The Tale of Two George's: George the Fellow Baseball Owner and George the Managing Partner of the New York Yankees.

George the Fellow Baseball Owner opened a lot of financial doors.  He was the first owner to fully embrace the free agent market, snapping up Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter, and Goose Gossage to expensive contracts, quickly putting his financial advantage to use.  Beyond free agents, Steinbrenner was the first to sell his team's TV rights to a local cable company, signing a contract with MSG in 1988 that earned the team $40 million a year to broadcast one hundred plus games a season.  When the relationship broke down in 2001, Steinbrenner started the YES Network, creating even more television revenue for the team.  In 1997, he signed an exclusive 10 year $97 million deal with Adidas for licensed apparel.

The team-owned regional sports network is practically a given in today's market, especially if you have an chance of competing financially with a team like the Yankees.  It was a major step of Steinbrenner's ultimate goal: making the Yankees the most widely recognized sports brand he possibly could. 

As George the Fellow Baseball Owner, it's hard to find fault in what The Boss has achieved.  He changed the financial landscape of the sport by showing other owners where they can make more money.  In turn, that increased revenue and created greater financial opportunities for the players, which Steinbrenner was then poised to take advantage.

George the Managing Partner held philosophies that were strikingly similar: put up the money for a high priced asset and reap the financial benefits, or in the baseball sense, World Championships.  George the Managing Partner discovered early success with this approach, pulling the team out of the gutter, buying some free agents, and taking home two World Series in 1977 and 1978.  Such high rewards only confirmed in George that buying the best meant succeeding the most and the modern Yankee stereotype was born.

The egotistical sense of control filtered down through all the hires and fires of GM's and managers.  In what world does it make sense to hire and fire a manager such as Billy Martin five times?  What makes Martin unfit the first or second time, but suddenly the right man the fifth time?  George ruled the Yankees with an iron fist, creating a dense fear of what spontaneous lunacy might come from him next.

I personally have many mixed feelings about Steinbrenner.  It's difficult to look at some of the things he has done in his life, outside of spending lots of money on players, and see a good person.  He was indicted on 14 criminal charges in 1974 regarding illegal campaign contributions to Richard Nixon and obstruction of justice.  Baseball later suspended him for 15 months and he was reinstated in 1976.  In 1990, Fay Vincent banned him for life for paying Howard Spira $40,000 to find incriminating facts against Dave Winfield after Winfield sued George for unpaid charitable contributions.  That ban was eventually lifted in 1993.

Neither of these actions are very admirable, but they also highlight a major point of Steinbrenner the Managing Partner: the two major championship eras of Steinbrenner's tenure were both preceded by Steinbrenner's absence.  The Yankees were a better run team when The Boss wasn't there.

Steinbrenner was reinstated in 1976, the first year any of his teams reached the World Series.  Granted, in the off-season they picked up Reggie Jackson and Catfish Hunter, but that accounted for only three more wins than 1976, their OPS+ going up five points, their ERA+ only 1.  The foundation of the team was mostly put together in Steinbrenner's absence.

Same thing in 1993.  By most accounts, Steinbrenner returned to the Yankees but left most of the management to GM Gene Michael and manager Buck Showalter.  The team finished in second place in 1993 with the third best record in the league, but then held the best record in the American League when the strike hit in 1994.  They then went on a streak of 13 straight postseason appearances.

Is it coincidence that both championship runs during Steinbrenner's tenure were built in his absence?  Probably not.  The lack of postseason success despite such a large payroll over the last six seasons may shed some light on the subject.  Brian Cashman's struggles to get control of the team away from Steinbrenner's Tampa based advisers is also enlightening.

I can't say I blame the guy, though.  Like any fan, I've always dreamed what it would be like to own my favorite team.  What if one day I got an email from some relative of a deposed Kenyan king who desperately needed an account to put their extra three billion dollars?  What if I took that Kenyan money, which in American dollars sadly became only $2 billion, and bought the Yankees?  Would I insist they run at a more reasonable payroll?  Would I pump as much revenue as I could back into the players?  Where would I draw the line on providing for the team that I love?

I would hope I would be somewhere in the middle, trying to build a good farm system while using free agency to fill in the gaps that the minors couldn't.  That's all wishful thinking.  The fact is, I admire Steinbrenner for putting the team before his finances.  I admire that he was less concerned with lining his pockets than putting as good a team on the field as he could, however misguided the process may have been.  It's easy to look at his mistakes in life and in baseball and paint him as a selfish man, but that would be misunderstanding his intentions.  The only thing Steinbrenner ever seemed to want was success and success in George's eyes wasn't measured by the almighty dollar.  The dollar was a resource to achieve success, not a measure of happiness.

That doesn't excuse his mistakes nor should it create any sympathy in the hearts of other baseball fans.  But in an economy of car manufacturers with their hands out and the presidents of Enron and Wachovia bilking their employees for all that they're worth, Steinbrenner took the road less greedy. 

Firing a manager didn't mean that person didn't have a job if they didn't want.  The Boss rarely kicked people to the curb.  He routinely gave second and third chances to players like Dwight Gooden, Steve Howe, and Daryl Strawberry, acknowledging their addictions and lending sympathy to their plights.  This is not a man that we can honestly say is not charitable.

Maybe George didn't always do the smartest  things.  Maybe his approach to running a team was more pig-headed than logical.  One gets the feeling that in George Steinbrenner, there is an unselfish man blinded by his own brash ambition, a man who wanted to be successful no matter what the financial cost to him.

That doesn't make him a good person, but I think I understand.