George Steinbrenner: win-at-all-costs-and-do-it-now

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland – The news rattled through the press tent at the Old Course Tuesday afternoon, because suddenly the New York papers didn’t have many column inches remaining for golf.

George Steinbrenner – the Boss – had died at age 80 after years of failing health and a guy on the baseball beat when George was at his blustery -- and often most dislikeable --  best thinks back to a giant of an owner who clearly changed things, both for good and bad.

For openers, whatever the historic context of the Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa home-run fest of the late 1990s, it never rang true here that the (illegally fuelled) bashing “saved’’ baseball after the damaging strike of 1994. What “saved’’ baseball, in this opinion, was that the New York Yankees got good again in the mid-1990s. Very good and, for the vast majority of baseball, worth hating again. (Now his final scorecard reads 10 pennants and seven World Series winner in 37 years. Positively hateful, all right.).

Once the Yankees returned to post-season TV screens every October, viewership (and baseball interest) went way up. The American League got vastly superior to the National League because every owner knew that the way to the World Series was through New York, sooner or later. It remains that way today and you can say the Yankees got good when Steinbrenner stepped back and allowed his managers to manage and to build proper teams, instead of blowing his money on the wrong kind of free agents. But, good and bad, it all happened on his watch because he realized one thing: The franchise he bought for a mere $10 million was worth so much more – an estimated $1.6 billion today – as a winner. Period. It was that simple.

Many fans will rail on Steinbrenenr for making the cost of winning so high, but they can’t blame him for the system. He was the first modern owner in pro sports, understanding that he could exploit the new free-agent system as it existed as a way to protect and inflate his investment. He understood that winning came first and once you won, the empire would be easily assembled. (If only our friends at Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment had ever figured out that part, that empire-building follows winning and not vice-versa. Too bad for Toronto they concentrated the wrong way.)

Steinbrenner’s greatest sin might have been his win-at-all-costs-and-do-it-now philosophy. Fans of other teams would bang on him for trying to “buy championships’’ but secretly, wouldn’t virtually every one of them have wished his or her own local owner possessed such a philosophy and bankroll? Of course they would. And every owner tries to buy a championship one way or another; the difference is that Steinbrenner was willing to pay the high price to do it. Most want to do it on the cheap.

There were Steinbrenner moments that shocked and appalled, of course. His legal troubles, his suspensions, his notoriously shabby treatment of some employees was all well documented. But there was another side to the man, one that featured incredible generosity and loyalty. Once, when the Baseball Hall of Fame was having difficulty coming up with funds to bring heroes to Cooperstown, Steinbrenner, a Hall board member, quietly ordered that every legend be flown in first class, with the bill sent to the Yankees. He did it without fanfare or publicity, because he thought it was the right thing to do.

This reporter knew Steinbrenner from his horse racing days, both thoroughbred and standardbred, and there were times Steinbrenner could be downright charming with a crowd of horse people. He had a sense of humour, although you might need to blast for it. He didn’t go through trainers quite as fast as he went through baseball managers pre-Joe Torre – including his repeated insanity with five-time hire Billy Martin – but he won some big races and contributed to equine charities handsomely. Because Torre had an interest in horse racing, the two men had a common cause and if Steinbrenner ever made a better baseball move than hiring Torre and keeping him 12 years, it’s forgotten here.

He will be remembered in many ways, from both sides of the fence. There was no owner quite like him, though. That much is certain.

Racing hall of fame winners and an empty Belmont

The Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame will be enriched by the presence of 10 new inductees Tuesday, including Canadian-bred Belmont Stakes winner Victory Gallop and the tremendous free-for-all pacer Mr. Big, second leading money-winning pacer in harness racing with more than $4 million banked.

Mel Lawson of Hamilton, the 87-year-old master of Jim Dandy Stables, will be inducted in the builders’  category, along with Peter Heffering of Port Perry, Ont., on the standardbred side. This announcement will be a double-dip for Heffering; his Tara Hills Stud Farm also stands Mr. Big.

Among trainers, standardbred standout Bob McIntosh gets the long-overdue nod, with British Columbia-based Frank Barroby, last year elected to the B.C. thoroughbred hall, joining the national wall of honour.

Among broodmares, the winners will be announced as Lady Angela on the thoroughbred side and Classic Wish, mother of two millionaire pacers so far, as the harness representative.

Voters in the veterans category opted for Victorian Era, the Lou Cavalaris-trained winner of 18 stakes from 40-plus years ago, and the good Ontario-sired trotter and top sire A Worthy Lad, now exported to Sweden.

Victory Gallop was second in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness in then beat Real Quiet by a nose on the Belmont in 1999, preventing a triple crown winner. He was bred by Toronto's Ivan Dalos and foaled at Darrowby Farm in Loretto, Ont. He now is owned by the Jockey Club of Turkey.

As always, it’s a strong group of winners from a deep pool of talented nominees and congratulations are due one and all.

Speaking of horse racing, would anyone be surprised to hear that racing has shot itself in the hoof again?

It’s understandable that any trainer could win, say, the Kentucky Derby or the Preakness and then immediately point his animal in a different direction. But what does it say that both the Derby and Preakness winners have already blown off the Belmont in less than three weeks. How does the TV network get any casual fan interested enough to tune in to that race?

In these days of PVRs, will anyone sit through a long build-up to this race? Why would a network keep shelling out big money for the rights when this happens?

 

Those Brooklyn cops wouldn't have used Tasers

Do you think any goofball fan will ever run on to the field in Philadelphia again?

The photos and video of the kid getting himself Tasered out in short left field Monday night during the Phillies’ game with the Cardinals are all around the Internet now.

The 17-year-old knucklehead went down like a bag of groceries falling off the counter when he got zapped.

There’s all kinds of hand-wringing now about “excessive use of force’’ and so on, but there’s zero sympathy here for the kid. You sometimes need to learn the hard way and he presumably has learned his lesson. Anybody who sees the video might be persuaded that staying in the stands makes more sense. Less painful, too.

There’s a rich history of fannus interruptus in pro sports games and the culprits, usually but not always drunk, usually end up with a good beating at some point. They say they would get rubber hoses across the ribs in old Yankee Stadium, under the stands.

There was a famous NFL case in 1971 concerning a Baltimore Colts linebacker named Mike Curtis, whose nickname was Mad Dog. Curtis was a great linebacker who should be in the Hall of Fame, but had a nutty side. On day in old Memorial Stadium a drunk ran on to the field, picked up the football and started to run. Curtis coiled and absolutely levelled him. He said he, as a taxpaying citizen of Baltimore, was merely helping enforce city ordinances.

There are milder responses to invading fans, of course. One time David Beckham kicked the soccer ball at a streaker who came calling. Another time two war protesters ran on to the field at Dodgers Stadium and tried to light a U.S. flag on fire. Rick Monday, playing centre field for the Cubs, ran over and scooped up the flag while they fumbled with the matches, thus earning himself a lifetime of ovations – and a trade to the Dodgers that off-season. (Ask Expo fans how that all turned out.)

One fan-on-field case merits special interest. It involved the Brooklyn Dodgers and a very much despised umpire named George Magerkurth, whose run-ins with Dodgers manager Leo Durocher were legendary. So hated was Magerkurth in Brooklyn that when the Dodgers won the 1941 pennant and held a victory parade, one of the “floats’’ was a coffin supplied by a local funeral home with a sign on it that simply said “Magerkurth.”

Late in that ’41 season, a call by Magerkurth went against the Dodgers and a crazed fan named Frank Gernano leapt from the stands, blindsided the ump, knocked him down and proceeded to sit on him and punch the hell out of him. The fans went crazy, of course.

It turned out Gernano was working for a pickpocket ring to create a diversion and while he wailed away at the hated ump, his confederates were lifting wallets all around the ballpark.

Seeing who the victim was, the Brooklyn cops probably wouldn’t have Tasered him, even if they’d known what one was.

Plenty to consider for Canada racing hall

As usual, Canada's racing hall has plenty to consider

Such is the stable – almost literally – of deserving horse racing talent in this country that when the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame holds its induction dinner come Aug. 19, a number of its new arrivals will be wondering why it took so long to crack the club.

There are 29 nominees on this year’s list: 15 from the thoroughbred side and 14 from the standardbred world, and a pair of multiple classics-winning trainers – one from each sport – are front and centre among the hopefuls.

Mark Frostad, four-time Queen’s Plate winer, is nominated in the jockey/trainer category, along with award-winning jockey Mickey Walls and B.C. standout trainer Frank Barroby, himself s a former jockey. In the harness trainer/driver category, four-time trainer of the year Bob McIntosh is nominated, along with his pal, veteran trainer-driver Dave Wall, and Maritimes-born star Wally Hennessey.

Thoroughbred owners nominated are Tammy Samuel-Balaz, Mel Lawson and Aubrey Minshall and thoroughbred horses on the ballot in various categories are the great broodmares Lady Angela, Loudrangle and Square Angel; sprint star Play the King; 1960s multiple stakes winner Victorian Era; Belmont Stakes winners Touch Gold and Victory Gallop; the powerful Formal Gold and excellent sprinter Apelia.

Trotter Westgate Crown, millionaire pacer Astreos and hard-hitting Mr. Big form the Male Horse category among the standardbreds, with broodmare Classic Wish in the Female division, along with Burning Point and Invitro, each multiple millionaires. In the veterans division, the nominees are A Worthy Lad and Rumpus Hanover.

Standardbred owners under consideration in the builders’ category are Ontario owner-breeders Bob Burgess and Peter Heffering and Ted Clarke, GM of Grand River Raceway.

There are two 20-person election committees that will consider the candidates and vote to declare winners by May 18.

Of easy signings and a weird date for home runs

The best news for the Maple Leafs with the signing of yet another goaltender, this time Finn Jussi Rynnas, is that all it costs them is money -- and they have no shortage of that.

He didn’t cost them a draft choice, which means the Leafs can direct whatever picks they have this time at the other necessities, and he provides depth at a vital position, even though he is likely to start off with the Marlies. If the plan goes according to the early estimates, and J.S. Giguere is attractive to someone at the trade deadline, a year from now the Leafs will have two cost-efficient young goalies in tandem, with Jonas Gustavsson having had a pretty good taste of the NHL by that time. And if he struggles, Rynnas will get his opportunity.

In any sport, you win when you have a lot of good players. He still needs to prove himself an NHL-calibre goalie, but even if he doesn’t, all they’re out will be the dollars.

I’m always in favour of this kind of signing, like the one the Blue Jays did with the Cuban shortstop Adeiny Hechavarria, a player scouted and pursued to some degree by other clubs. When there’s no significant cost beyond money, and when he doesn’t roadblock another prospect by taking away playing time, there’s no real down side to this kind of addition.

Switching gears completely, make sure to scan the boxscores for Friday night’s ball games and look to see if there’s anyone hitting his first major league home run tonight. It might mean something.

That’s because April 23 has a bit of a strange history concerning first taters. On this date in 1939, Ted Williams hit his first career home run. That would be the first of 521.

On April 23, 1954, Henry Aaron hit his first career home run. Another 754 would follow.

Two years before that, on April 23, 1952, Hall of Fame relief pitcher Hoyt Wilhelm won his first game as a pitcher and also hit his first home run. The difference in Hoyt’s case? In a career that lasted through 1972, he never hit another home run.

You couldn’t make this stuff up.

How many Overbays would be enough?

This almost slipped between the cracks, but Sunday after the ball game the Blue Jays held their annual barbecue for season-ticket holders and, eventually, the team came out to sit at a long table and sign autographs for what looked like a very long line.

Four or five of the Jays, including Vernon Wells and Ricky Romero, came out wearing a Lyle Overbay uniform top turned around, with his name and number on the front.

Overbay, as everyone knows, is wildly overdue to break out of a terrible slump. He also had made a costly error in Sunday’s ninth inning during the eventual 3-1 loss to the Angels. One Blue jay official suggested this was a good team-type thing, that players were rallying around a teammate going through tough times.

The cynical among us thought it was their way of maybe avoiding signing too many autographs. Anyway, with all the whining and moaning about Blue Jays attendance, there weren’t even 15,000 in the park Sunday. Not to belabour this point, because these things go in cycles, but Baltimore drew 9,000 at home and Sunday afternoon in Cleveland, they didn’t even draw 11,000 – and nobody is saying the teams are finished there.

Go back to the 90s and the three toughest tickets in the league were Toronto, which sold out every night; Baltimore, after Camden Yards was opened; and Cleveland, which sold out the Jake constantly. They’re down now, but they’ll come back when the teams do.

And if you really want to cry about lousy attendance, wait and see what the Jays draw for these games this week at home to the Kansas City Royals. It won’t be pretty.

Westwood narrow favourite as leaders wait to tee off

AUGUSTA, Ga. – It’s another near-perfect day in terms of weather at Augusta National, with bright sunshine and, at this point, negligible winds. A couple of hours before the leaders tee off for what might well be an exceptional final round, if Saturday’s spectacular third is any indication, a check of the betting odds is in order.

Internet wagering sites still have Lee Westwood a very slight favourite at 7 to 5, with Phil Mickelson next at 3 to 2 and Tiger Woods third choice at 9 to 2. K.J. Choi, tied in third with Woods four shots behind Westwood, is listed at 14 to 1, and 50-year-old Fred Couples, five shots back, is 40 to 1.

In terms of hole locations, according to the official pin sheet, there are some traditional spots picked out for the back nine, including far right (four yards from the edge) on No. 12, right at No. 13 (six yards from the edge) and back right at No. 15 (17 yards from the front edge).

The deep pin at No. 5, which is 28 yards back from the front edge of the very large green, makes a difficult hole that much tougher; in the early returns, six of the first 10 golfers bogeyed that hole and the other four parred it.

The second hole has its usual Sunday location, well on the right side behind the bunker.

Creepy ad? Woods doesn't think so

AUGUSTA, Ga. – With Tiger Woods only a couple of shots out of the lead at the midpoint of the Masters, there's a chance his take on the strange -- some say creepy -- new Nike TV commercial, the one in which he allegedly is being talked to by his late father, Earl, could get lost in the shuffle going forward.

But Woods, for what it's worth, is proud of it even though Earl's message, lifted from a documentary made several years ago, happened to be directed at his wife Kultida, Tiger's mother, from whom he was separated at the time.

No matter, at least to Woods.

"I think it's very apropos. I think that's what my dad would say," he said about the ad. "It's amazing how it – how my dad can speak to me from different ways, even when he's long gone. He's still helping me."

Then Woods went the populist route: "I think any son who has lost a father . . . who meant do much in their life, I think they would understand the spot."

Well, perhaps. It's all about rebuilding the damaged brand at this point and Woods has been doing very well in that regard here and not only by shooting an opening-round 68, the best first round at Augusta in his career, and following it with a solid three-birdie, one-bogey 70 on a much more difficult day of scoring.

"It feels really good to be in contention," he said, as he always does, noting that Ian Poulter was in the clubhouse two shots ahead and Lee Westwood was out on the course one shot better than that at the time.

Nor did Woods even blink, at least in his public response, to the whacking Augusta National chairman Billy Payne gave him here Wednesday. Woods acknowledged that the two men "did have a conversation" and when asked for his opinion of what Payne said, Woods responded, "I was disappointed in myself, too."

He said "absolutely not" when asked if he had heard even one negative remark from the gallery and that's easy to understand; nobody else heard any, either. Friday;s gallery, too, was much smaller than the throng that went every step with him Thursday.

He also said he didn't see the airplane towing the banners taking shots at him Thursday. (That plane, by the way, was reported to have been grounded Friday for mechanical reasons.) About someone some going to all that trouble and expense to zing him, Woods simply shrugged. "It wouldn't be the first time."

He might have been referring to a banner towed by an airplane at Torrey Pines when he missed that PGA Tour stop. It said something like "Tiger, we miss you" and was from a local strip club.

Of peach cobbler, Nicklaus and moral lectures

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Every visitor to Augusta National finds his or her own favourite spot, whether it’s on the patio, sampling the peach cobbler, or at the putting green, or the gift shop, or the grandstand at the 16th, watching the pros skip balls off the water in practice.

My own particular favourite tends to be the tiny press stand beside the 12th tee, all the way down there at Amen Corner, where it’s always nice to sit with pal Arturo Fuente and contemplate life as it goes past, slowly and, apparently, without a care in the world.

That 12th hole is the diabolical little par-three when the Masters toona-mint often turns on its head. It’s the same hole where my friend Chris Smith from Carnoustie once hit his 8-iron to six feet and holed the putt, although he never, ever mentions that sort of thing to a guy who made 5 and 6 the two times he played there, once after skulling a sand shot back into Rae’s Creek (the horror, the horror).

This day, it was the place to sit and contemplate the wit and wisdom of Jack Nicklaus, who had come into the press room Tuesday evening for his annual palaver with the writers. Now, most athletes would rather jab hot needles into their eyes than open up with scribblers. We are a necessary evil for them and sometimes we’re not even necessary. Fine.

Nicklaus, though, likes to sit around and shoot the breeze. He's amiable, has a good sense of humour and always has some valuable insights gained from his decades of experience. For instance, here is his advice for Masters rookies.

“Watch, observe. I go back to my first Masters. I played pretty well from tee to green. I hit 31 of 36 greens (in regulation). That obviously means I didn’t play 72,’’ he said. “I shot (150) and had eight three-putt greens in 36 holes. Arnold (Palmer) was leading the tournament at 141 and he’d hit 19 greens in regulation. I said, ‘You’d better learn how to chip and putt and understand what happens on this golf course’,’’ he said. “That’s what I learned, by watching and seeing what people did.’’

He relayed a conversation he had with Tom Watson a half hour after Watson’s final-hole bogey cost him a miracle victory at age 59 in the British Open.

“He said he felt bad and I said, ‘Tom, how many 59-year-olds have shot 65 in the first round of the British Open?’

“I can’t think of any.’’

“How many have led after two rounds? After three rounds? After four roounds? I can’t think of any.’’

“But I didn’t finish.’’

“I said, ‘Tom, you played a great tee shot on 18 and you played what appeared to be a great second shot. Just happened to be that much too long.’ I said, ‘Tom, you picked the right club for your third shot’.’’

“He said, ‘I’m glad to hear you say that. I’m getting a lot of flak on that. But I goosed it.’

“I said, ‘So what? You had to get the ball on the green’. Then I said, ‘But then you hit the putt like the rest of us.’’

That got laughs. He almost always does. Pound for pound, Jack Nicklaus remains the best press-room visitor in sports, at least in this opinion.

Speaking of the press room, by now everybody knows that Billy Payne went off on Tiger Woods Wednesday morning, speaking of his “egregious behaviour’’ and laying into him pretty good for being a lousy role model for kids and so on.

That’s totally fine and Payne is entitled to his opinion, the same as everybody else. And you can see he is trying to show the club doesn't condone Woods's actions, nor is it complicit in helping him find a soft landing. But here’s someone who is slightly squeamish when it comes to hearing any high sheriff from Augusta National lay a morals lecture on anyone else. Given this club’s history and some of its woeful practices – such as barring blacks until three decades ago and still barring women as members today – it’s somewhat surprising (at least here) that the chairman didn’t adopt the same glass-house policy that most of Woods’s fellow pros did.

Like magic, full-sized trees simply appear at Augusta

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Much of the joy of returning to this beautiful place every spring, other than the celebration of waking up 365 more times, is coming back to discover what is new.

There’s a certain natural elegance about Augusta National, the sheer (manufactured) beauty of nature in its flowering glory and the impossibly green grass and so on. Every year, it seems, they change a hole or three, mostly lengthening them by pushing the tees deeper into the pine woods.

This year, the major renovation has come not in further lengthening an already long golf course, but in the incredible practice area, an 18-acre facility that, one year ago, was a flat gravel parking lot with its entrance off Washington Road.

Now? It’s golf heaven, a wide arc of practice tees that allow 400-yard drives, which renders an unsightly net unnecessary at the other end. There are target bunkers in the landing, plus a small forest of pine trees, 30 and 40 feet tall, that were brought in at that height and planted. There are practice bunkers and a chipping green and the whole area appears to have been there 30 years, awaiting its manicure.

That’s the thing about Augusta. Trees show up in places they’ve never been before and they’re not the little staked fellows that your grandchildren will see mature one day long after we’ve been patted on the face with a spade. They’re brought in as mature individuals from a nursery somewhere that the club owns and replanted.

Great care – meaning zero expense is spared – is exercised everywhere. For instance, when a small flash-quotes media facility was erected near the practice area, a lighting expert was brought in from a TV sports network to show them the best way to light it for the TV cameras.

With the new practice grounds (closed to members, by the way, and therefore used one week a year) in place, the necessity became finding a replacement parking lot. They solved this problem over the years by buying up the surrounding neighbourhood, house by house, over the years, flattening them and planting, or should we say relocating, a few more trees. Presto. There’s now an 8,500-car lot directly across the road from the brand new entranceway, where every ticket holder will be processed and screened.

It all appears like magic, where a year before had stood scrub land and a couple of driving sheds. It’s how they do things down here and, almost as much as the golf, is a portion of the anticipation of returning every year.